Photography and Big Prints

I delivered a group of photographs to a gallery today. Two of the pieces were printed at 33″x50″, larger than I’ve ever printed before. Now, I’ve heard a range of rants against large prints: Big prints are just a fad. You don’t have the intimacy that you do with small prints. I’ve heard that large prints are just compensations for ego, shouting out “pay attention to me!”

When I started photography, an 11×14 was a really big print. The first time I framed an image to 18″x24″, the final result seemed impressively humongous. I felt dangerous working with such a large piece of glass. Why, a few months earlier my largest images were 5×7’s and that was splurging. That changed last year when I bought a printer that uses 24 inch wide rolls of paper. These “huge” prints only seem so large because photography as a medium has, for most of it’s history, been tech-limited to printing smaller. Bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better, but smaller doesn’t either. They’re just different. And, with different options we can express different things. We’re used to paintings in large and small sizes. We’ll get used to it in photography as well. 

Now, I’m not dismissing the small photograph. There’s something precious to holding a photograph in your hand and taking in the detail. However, looking at my images printed big, the size just feels right. Especially in the images with all the little pieces. There’s enough detail to let each little piece be it’s own entity, and enough presence to stand back to observe the overall motion in the composition. Yeah, I just love those big prints.

By the way, one hazard of printing big is framing big. I spent a couple of days last week cutting two inch strips off the long side of 32″x40″ glass sheets. I had to give myself a little pep talk before each cut. You need to have a cool demeanor when cutting glass, ’cause if you get frustrated there’s nothing safe around to punch. I had a couple of cuts go wrong and felt doomed to losing every piece of glass in the case. After the next cut came out perfect, I leaned back in a sigh of thankful relief. By the time I was done, I had broken just the right amount to have enough left over to frame everything. Whew.

Posted in Photographic process | No Comments »

Taking Pictures In The Rain

There are certain types of weather that get me itching to be outside - the good weather. It started as warm, sunny, cloudless days, with a gentle breeze. A few years ago, I bought a stunt kite, the kind with two strings that allows you steer the kite into acrobatic maneuvers. I could also reliably steer it into the ground. Good weather now included windy weather. I’d see the trees swaying and itch to be out.

With photography, good weather started with the magic hour, the golden light around sunrise and sunset. Then, it became the soft light of cloudy days. Then it was harsh light filtered through leaves.

Lately though, the good weather has been with the rain. The damp earth smells good. The world changes in front of me as drops land and slide and glisten. The rain patters as drops land on my jacket hood, like a drumbeat to the soundtrack in my head. It’s me, the woods and my camera. My camera is wet, as are my nose, and my knees, and the trees. Through the puddles I play.

Posted in Images, Photographic process | No Comments »

Little Pieces All Together

If you have been following my work, you may have noticed that many of the images depict lots of small bits of things: leaves, grass and bits of trees. They are abstractions of organized chaos, if you will. I started making photographs like this about two years ago. I didn’t start out seeking to make these kinds of images. It was after the fact, as I reviewed my shots, that I would notice I was attracted to these types of compositions.

Just about a year ago, I tried to explain why I was drawn to these coordinated little pieces, which resulted in a blog post.

…There is something really amazing about orchestras and choirs. Perhaps it’s the large group of people, each with their own talents, textures, voices and parts. When they all move together, they create something wonderful, something larger and outside of themselves…. This fascination has tumbled into an appropriation - at first subconscious and now intentional. I’m viewing nature and considering the orchestra.

Now that I had a notion of where I was going, I no longer had a random trend. I had a project. In the past couple of months, I’ve been editing down the images to a smaller, cohesive portfolio. And now, I’m finally at a point where I feel it’s ready to share. The project is called Little Pieces All Together. You can view the images, along with a statement about the project, in the gallery area of my website.

Posted in Announcements, Images, Photographic process | No Comments »

Beauty and Silence

At the recommendation of Paul Buzti, I picked up a copy of Creative Authenticity, by Ian Roberts. The book is a collection of essays about artistic vision. The first chapter explores the role of beauty in art.

With my images, I attempt to express beauty. Not necessarily pretty, but beauty in a deeper sense, one that expresses truth. As an aside, by truth, I don’t mean the same thing as fact. Truth and fact may overlap, but they don’t have to. Statistics are facts, and yet they can easily lie. A parable, or myth can be a work of fiction, but be resoundingly true.

OK, so I’m exploring beauty. Among the many reactions to my work, one that keeps coming up goes something like this: The person sees a piece and immediately exclaims, “Oh, wow.. that is so beautiful! Gee, isn’t that amazing… You’ve done a great job!” And then, just as quickly, walks away. I enjoy getting compliments. And, I’m thankful when someone appreciates something that I’ve created. But, this use of the word “beautiful” is different than what I’m striving for.

As languages age, words change in meaning. In this case, beautiful is losing meaning.

From Creative Authenticity:

I like Ken Weber’s definition, that beauty “suspends the desire to be elsewhere”. In the face of great art we experience transcendence….

In the face of beauty, we are silenced, because beauty expresses silence. In lavishing attention on the object of the artwork, the consciousness of the artist can touch something divine, some transcendental quality, and that transcendent element now resides in the artwork. How do we know it? We feel it. We experience it. Our heart responds to that sublime quality the artist infused into the work.

Now, my work may not yet be to the point that I can expect people to call it beauty. But, that’s what I strive for.

A few weeks ago, Hannah and I spent a few days backpacking in Red River Gorge. The weather was cold and the packs were heavy (ugh.. a good portion of that weight is camera gear). I spent a good amount of time during those few days responding with silence. I would come up to an amphitheater carved out in the rock, several stories high, and stand in wonder and awe. I had no desire to be elsewhere.

A few weeks before that, during a road trip, I was at a rest area in Tennessee. There was a woods next to the parking lot. I ran over to the woods, spread out my arms, and took a long deep breath. I felt an urge to run into and just breathe in those woods. I was at a rest area. And yet, the beauty was there waiting.

In light of this, one of the highest compliments someone could give would go something like this: the person would come up to a piece, spend several minutes looking at it in silence, turn to me and in the slightest of whispers, say thank you. And then, walk away. That would be the deepest sense of wonderful.

I suppose they could also buy the piece. But um… that’s a different topic.

Posted in Images, Photographic process | No Comments »

Fifth Impression revisted

Concerning the image accompanying my post, Fifth Impression, my dear Uncle Chuck asks:

I am curious about why this picture and this topic. Is it assumed that the cross made by the empty space in the center is obvious now when framed correctly, but the framing and therefore the recognition of the cross didn’t appear to you the first (2nd, 3rd, 4th) time around? While repeatedly studying the scenery at this place in search for interesting or striking subject matter did you eventually realize it had been there all along but you had simply missed it? Or is there something else you feel is now obvious to you but which may yet be too subtle for me see or grasp in my own “first impression”

The image choice was kindof arbitrary. You may notice that the Fifth Impression post was written in February, while the picture is of leaves in the fall. So, alas, the tree depicted is not the tree mentioned in the posting.

However, the tree in the image was something that took several visits to notice. I’ve walked by that area probably tens of times. Trees have such character within their shape that I had previously worked on capturing the shapes of the trees themselves. On this outing, I was fascinated by the gaps. I had this notion of entry-ways into another world. I didn’t see the cross shape until that day I became gap intrigued.

I don’t know if that realization is a subtle one, but it did take until way beyond the first impression for me to notice it. The cross seems obvious to me now. But most insights, even those that at first felt like revelations, seem obvious to me once I’ve taken them in.

Posted in Photographic process | No Comments »

L’Engle on Rejection

Last summer, I read “A Wrinkle in Time”, a children’s book by Madeleine L’Engle. I had just finished reading four Harry Potter books in a row and was on a fantasy kick. In the following months, I read several more of her books, both fiction and non-fiction. So now, I pretty much adore Madeleine L’Engle. In fact, I’ve got a current formula for when I can’t decide what book to next read: L’Engle for soul, and any one of Terry Pratchet’s numerous Discworld books for amusement.

Anyways, back to Madeleine. There’s a deep earnestness in what she writes that brings out a sense of a life worth living. Not a fantasy-everything-is-hunky-dory life, but a real fully alive kind of life.

In her book, “A Circle of Quite”, she describes the danger of self image, and advertising:

Give the public the “image” of what it thinks it ought to be, or what television commercials or glossy magazine ads have convinced us we ought to be, and we will buy more of the product, become closer to the image, and further from reality.

Self image pulls us away from reality. Deep, isn’t it?

Following that, L’Engle describes going through rejection:

…during that decade when I was in my thirties, I couldn’t sell anything. If a writer says he doesn’t care whether he is published or not, I don’t believe him. I care. Undoubtedly I care too much…. Every rejection slip - and you could paper walls with my rejection slips - was like the rejection of me, myself, and certainly of my amour-propre.

She goes on to describe how several of her books were turned down and how she felt guilty that her writing had taken away from being with her family. This culminates in a difficult rejection on her fortieth birthday:

So the rejection on the fortieth birthday seemed an unmistakable command: Stop this foolishness and learn to make cherry pie. I covered the typewriter in a great gesture of renunciation. Then I walked around and around the room, bawling my head off. I was totally, unutterably miserable.

Then I stopped, because I realized what my subconscious mind was doing while I was sobbing: my subconscious mind was busy working out a novel about failure.

I uncovered the typewriter. In my journal I recorded this moment of decision, for that’s what it was. I had to write. I had no choice in the matter. It was not up to me to say I would stop, because I could not. It didn’t matter how small or inadequate the talent. If I never had another book published, and it was very clear to me that this was a real possibility, I still had to go on writing.

…. What matters is the book itself. If it is as good a book as you can write at this moment in time, that is what counts. Success is pleasant; of course you want it; but it isn’t what makes you write.

Posted in Photographic process | 3 Comments »

The Fifth Impression

Our daily interactions are filled with first impressions. Think of the strangers that you met earlier today, or that new pop song on the radio. Think of watching the auditions on American Idol, where you are encouraged to make a quick judgment on whether that person is worthy of additional attention. Most advertising is based upon first impressions. If they don’t catch your attention in the first few seconds, they don’t catch you at all. When we travel, much of the experience is based upon first impressions - the surroundings are different and novel. Wow, pretty! And, ooh shiny! That buzz and thrill. These are the reactions of a first impression.

Now, think about the photography that we’re exposed to in mass media. Calendars, National Geographic and travel shows. You’ll find many well done, eye catching images. These images are captured to give you a taste of what it would be like to be “there”, at the location of the image. A taste… a first impression.

First impressions are great and all, but they’re also only surface level interactions. So much of my busy, distracted life is surface level interactions.

A couple of days ago, I was out wandering around the woods with my camera. The location is one of my favorite places to photograph in the city, one that I’ve returned to many times. I was looking at the same tree for the twentieth time and thinking, what does it take to see beyond the first impression? What would I notice on the third and fourth impression?

When I first started photography, I was enamored with looking for new things. I would get up early to see the sunrise. I would stop and look at peeling paint. I would notice the patterns on a leaf. I took pictures of these things, but they were more documentary than anything. It was more to show that I noticed something, rather than, I got to know something. I thought I was seeing things in a new way, but all I had done was begin to look.

What type of images would you make, by the time you got to the fifth impression?

Posted in Images, Photographic process | 3 Comments »

The importance of color

Through various art shows in the past weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting many wonderful people. If you’re reading this because of such a meeting - Welcome! And, thanks for keeping up with my efforts.

Photography shapes how we see. A still image, smooshed down flat to fit on a piece of paper, or on your computer screen, is a different experience than how we see the world through our eyes and how our eyes get processed by our brain. With the prevalence of photographs in our lives, this creates a strange cycle where we see something in a picture, which then shapes our perception of that subject in our minds, which is different from the perception we would have had if we encountered that subject with our own eyes.

This interpretation of seeing gets even trickier when considering color. Our perception of color seems subjective at best, and is complicated by different kinds of lighting, neighboring colors, cultural conditioning and probably even our moods. Just think of all the color patches available when selecting paint colors for the walls of your home. Take one home, put it up on the wall, and it looks different than what you saw in the store. Paint a whole wall with the color, and it looks different still. Put your couch next to it, and you have yet another perception.

So, what to do when rendering color in a photographic print? The best I can go for is to render colors in a way that suits the vision that I want to convey. Most times, I try to match a vision of how I “saw” the subject when taking the photograph. That is, imagining how the subject would look as a photograph while looking at the real thing with my eyes.

I have a photograph of a reddish/orange canyon wall that I first printed very saturated. This initial printing was just after I got home from hiking that canyon, and I was filled with a wonder of walking among colors that were bolder and richer than I would have expected. A few weeks later, the same orange made me think of Cheetos puffed cheese snacks, and I tweaked the color in the image and printed it again.

When people are viewing my photographs, I’ll often get the question, “Are those the real colors?” Well, they are as real as I can convey my perception of reality. And they are as biased as how I might recount the story of a first kiss.

A few weeks ago, at an outdoor art show, a woman spent some time looking at a print of the “Globemallows” picture that I’ve included with this post. She turns to me, and asks, “Are those the real colors? I wouldn’t expect the flower stems to be blue.” I replied saying that I remembered the stems as being a pastel green, perhaps a green-blue. She pauses, takes off her tinted sunglasses, and looks at the picture again. She responds, “Ah…. I suppose they are green.”

Posted in Images, Photographic process | No Comments »

Trophy Hunting

I recently spent nine days hiking and backpacking in southern Utah. I love being out in the desert, surrounded by majestic canyon walls. As you walk among the canyon floor, you are surrounded by the strip of thriving life that is nourished by the river bed and washes. Each bend in the canyon provides colors and shapes to inspire a lifetime’s worth of abstract art.

For the first four days of the trip, my wife and I hiked in the back country, pretty much in isolation, savoring the wonders of each step. Other than the supplies on our backs, we were at the mercy of the environment.

And then, we arrived in Bryce Canyon National Park and encountered, well, I guess it was culture shock. The incredible landscape was still there, but it was paved and easily accessible, with glossy brochures describing the most popular sights. Early in the morning, we drove our car up to the parking lot for Sunrise Point, and walked a couple of minutes to get to the overlook. And there were the photographers, all along the railing loaded with expensive cameras and lenses. The cameras let out a chorus of autofocus-locking whirs and beeps as the sun works it’s way above the horizon. Whirrreeee—zzzz…beep, beep go the throng of cameras, as if the very whizzing of gadgetry is enticing the sun to rise.

This was probably my first time among a mass group of photography enthusiasts pursuing the same subject. And especially following the days of being in the back country, the experience felt very strange. I wasn’t sure why.

Later in a bookstore, I came across a photography guide covering southwest Utah. The “critically acclaimed photographer and author gives you the tools to find and shoot these locations…. [The author] will guide you on how to find the precise locations to shoot those postcard-perfect shots.”

I think the strangeness I felt was because the photographers at Bryce had a very different approach to photography than I do. Theirs seems to be an approach that looks for a specific destination and subject, a “trophy”. This is aided by easy access to popularly defined locations. For me, the value of my time was largely in the experience of being out in the wilderness, the journey. My photographs are part of the expression of the wonder I felt along the way.

I am surprised that it hasn’t really occurred to me that many, perhaps most photographers use the trophy hunting approach. This approach may be similar to what commercial photographers do - with a focused subject in mind. Is my approach any better or worse? I’m not sure. An any case, it’s fascinating to take in why people create the way that they do.

Posted in Images, Photographic process | 5 Comments »

Small Pieces All Together

I started taking violin lessons in third grade. I hated to practice, but my parents would insist that I play for at least half an hour each day. I took private lessons through the end of high school. Along the way, I had the privilege of playing in several orchestras. I never really appreciated playing in an orchestra. I wonder how I would feel about playing in one today.

In my pre-teen years, I was also part of a men and boy’s choir. I was among those boys, gathered in new rows of robes, singing in crystal clear voices. We got to hear stories of men and boy’s choirs from days past, where the very best singers would be castrated to maintain their voice.

Today, I still play violin and sing, but within a context of a small band (guitars, drums, etc.), rather than in orchestras or large choirs.

Bands are well and good, but there is something really amazing about orchestras and choirs. Perhaps it’s the large group of people, each with their own talents, textures, voices and parts. When they all move together, they create something wonderful, something larger and outside of themselves. For those few moments, the participants are together toward a common work. The process is invigorating. Everyone present is a participant, whether they are on the stage or in the audience.

This fascination has tumbled into an appropriation - at first subconscious and now intentional. I’m viewing nature and considering the orchestra. And, it feels appropriate.

Posted in Images, Photographic process | 1 Comment »