smokeysun and colour a revival

[smokysun]

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hi imants,

 

glad to hear that about the d2 service. i'm kicking myself for not buying the d2 new and getting the 3 year warranty. my d-lux 2, i swear, has a dust spot on the sensor. don't know how it got there, but i'll send it in once i get a backup, maybe the d-lux 3, just for it's looks!

 

thanks for the foveon info. i suspect you're right about the dp1 not hitting the stores soon. suspect they're still working out the bugs. the camera doesn't look bad (i still think the d-lux 2/3 the most beautiful camera on the market, though the m8 certainly not shabby and better-looking than any other major digital.)

 

i realized i like using a compact cause it's like drawing with a pencil, exactly the point sean made in his article on small sensor cameras - a productive read for anyone. for awhile i liked carrying all the big stuff around cause it made me feel like a 'real' photographer. got over that, especially realizing any digital camera an extension of the computer. so i bought a bigger, faster computer, which i don't have to carry around.

 

alas, i'm a member of the carpet-bombers club. i always feel better shooting a lot, never a perfectionist. rather an expressionist.

 

keep up the good work.

 

wayne

 

ps. on b&w vs color i forgot i did this gallery when we were talking on the old forum. every photo is shown in color and then in black and white. hard to tell with the small pics, however. the b&w seem to come off better simply because the lines show more. d-lux 2 does research in an abandoned house Photo Gallery by wayne pease at pbase.com.

[Guest stnami]

Typical you start a thread for a guy name it after him and the bludger goes black and white on you, on top of that he goes snap happy to boot.

I remember that gallery I still quite like it some of the B&W could do with a slightly desaturated soft sepia?

Are you sure you aren't a bit schitzo in the brainbucket dept bright colours to none???

... and there is that 16:9 as I mentioned in the other thread, interesting as a new toy but not so sure now. THe D2 and Oly are 4:3 but I usuallt crop to 5:7 and compose with the camera while I mentally crop

[smokysun]

hi imants,

 

come on, now, you can't blame me for taking a little vacation. color is hard work! i do think both related as i like high contrast in both b&w and color. and i don't think the question of which to use has really been answered. as you've said before, now everybody shoots in color. but i'm amazed at how much attention my b&w galleries get at pbase, often more than the color. could it be that there's so much color blazing at us in advertising that it's a relief for everyone to look awhile at black and white? also there's the question of line vs. space. b&w definitely much more dependent on the first and it invites the viewer into the picture to investigate details. color, it seems to me, defines a picture more by space and seems to depend more on overall effect and to keep the viewer from getting inside the picture.

 

so how do you get the advantage of both? that seems to me your interest in autochrome. the best of them give both line and space and it's like they're in 3d, almost stereoscopic without the stereoscope!

 

ah, the first thing you ever said to me was, you take too many pictures! my defense: i'm telling a story and it takes a cumulative effect. look at how much time people take (including me) looking at a painting compared to the quick take on a photograph, whether b&w or color. probably they look at fifty photos in the time with one painting. very few photos have great impact and capture your attention for a long time. it takes a gallery show to really get to your audience.

 

can you ever get the symbolic quality of b&w in color, that's my question. only rarely.

 

as for the 16:9 format, i think it moves the eye across the screen and that's it's use in movies (and also, practically, more and more people are buying these hd screens and if you want to sell your photos...) personally, i don't find it static. but i can see why you'd like 3:2, 4:3 etc because they thrust the image at you, more like 3d again, the depth of sculpture. i'm definitely more into graphics.

 

wayne

 

ps. worked up some theater photos last night - in color!

tales of the lost formicans dir. rob wilson Photo Gallery by wayne pease at pbase.com

[albertwang]

Huh, I haven't figured out what this thread is all about. Anyone can recapitulate seriously?

[smokysun]

hi albert,

 

not surprised it's a bit confusing. continuation of a thread on the old forum, which i can't figure out how to find right now. it was called something like 'color vs b&w now that we have digital?'

 

i made two assertions: most color photos look better in black and white - and that digital is a wholly different animal than film.

 

the past thirty years has been a quest to make color photos an art form and not merely 'colorful'. so i asked what photographers make color essential to their expression?

 

some interesting answers came up. one was nan goldin, by someone who thought her use of color great but hated her content. i'd seen large prints in a gallery and didn't care for them. but now i have all her books and have been inspired by her, both in technique and content. a very interesting use of photography to tell a life story.

 

someone else suggested 'falkland road' by mary ellen mark. it's the most powerful color book in print and the most expensive one i've bought. about prostitution in bombay, the subject may be too much for people. but if you're interested in expressive color.

 

in the realm of street photography and color, imants suggested alex webb, again where the color interested him but not the subjects. i now have four of his books: amazon, haiti, mexican border crossings, and florida. i think he's the one photographer who uses color in an essential way with street photography. well worth the investment and study.

 

one reason i got into this: i always like the polaroid color portraits of marie cosindas. and then we got into a discussion of other processes like autochrome and imants found some incredible photos from ww1. if you go back and find the link, there's an amazing series of them on the web.

 

so the discussion goes off on tangents and comes back to the central issue: how do you use color distinctively in the digital age? the new digital cameras are an extension of your computer (and they are computers) not mechanical devices, or chemical processes. all the old experiments in photography with film a six-year-old can now do easily on the computer, and many more.

 

and this makes it difficult because 'when is a photograph no longer a photograph but something else?' in other words, i like transforming photos into silk-screen like images which are not longer recognizable as photos.

 

of course, my essential question: what makes one person's work stand out when millions of people clicking away all over the planet and putting the results online? what makes an artist an artist?

 

just finished reading two wonderful books i recommend to everyone: "egon schiele: drawings and watercolors" by jane killir and "gustav klimt: drawings and watercolor" by rainer metzger, both beautiful tomes from thames and hudson. the atmosphere they lived in and what made them significant and their work lasting. and here you do see a constant mix and movement between color and black and white.

 

for me that's what this is all about. but all kinds of input interesting. for example, ruben osuna brought up some really beautiful movies where one could learn from looking at their use of form and color, providing some example stills.

 

we all take color for granted, but few use it to maximum and memorable advantage. black and white automatically takes us into a symbolical realm. all art is transformation. color keeps us closer to reality but makes art harder, in my view.

 

clear as mud, eh?

 

wayne

[Guest stnami]

It is the subtleness of autochrome that impresses me along with the timeless nature of the colour.

otherwise

 

A couple of ladies and portraiture

 

Katy Granan

http://www.katygrannan.com/

 

Helen Van Meene

http://www.hellenvanmeene.com/photos/

 

..

[albertwang]

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IMHO, a photograph is a photograph no matter what method is being parleyed. Digital or film, the idea of picture taking and record keeping are going to be prominent regardless of the actual process.

[Guest stnami]

sigh... you just don't get it albert,

[smokysun]

hi imants,

 

thanks for the sites. katy's sitters look like they have no bones or muscle. very slack. something disturbing about seeing human beings as pieces of meat! helen's i like very much, both for the color use and for her using unusual models and making even the overweight sympathetic and often beautiful and bizarre at the same time. i think she's really worth studying.

 

hi albert,

 

this viewing would not have been possible ten years ago. to say technology doesn't change the possibiliities is like saying a mustang is the same as a mustang.

(imants, take note of this piece. i think you'll find it interesting.)

 

wayne

 

ps. in storage i found another small book on autochromes: "early color photography" from pantheon books 1986. i think you'll find some interesting examples and a good bibliography at the end. most of the big collections in france. and your comments on foveon interesting. it's the unpredictability off the color that may prove of use to artists. a good example of how technology changes the possibilities.

[Guest stnami]

Foveon will definitly be the go for the autochrome, though it does look like most ot the problems will be solved with the SLR and it will produce the best colour of any camera on the market, whether the rest is up to standard of the top pro lines of other manufacturers probably is a different matter

. The P&S may be a different matter as the first model may have teething problems,in a way I hope so as there may be nuances that can be exploited. Either way to me it will be worth buying as my D2 does everything a luxy can anyway.

 

Laura Letinsky may interest you as well

Laura Letinsky

 

laura letinsky

[smokysun]

hi imants,

 

laura's leftovers both cracked me up and impressed me cause i've always thought that kind of subdued, almost pastel palette extremely difficult to bring off.

 

then when i read her extended interview i thought, 'my god, how long it's taken her to get to after-dinner plates and tomatoes'. and all the amazing amount of theory she's absorbed (this 'gaze' business i've always thought bogus and job security for french intellectuals. but if it works for you...) here's a quote from the interview i think others might appreciate:

 

*******

You said you started out loving Diane Arbus, who's known for taking photos of freaks or things that seem strange or uncanny. Yet now your subject matter is very domestic and everyday--the quiet moments.

 

I think I was really afraid to look at myself. I had some resistance toward autobiography--I thought if I just photographed what I knew, then nobody else would be able to identify with it. But I also felt like I needed to try to figure out what I really cared about, and I guess part of my art idea, or the way that I work, is about using that as motivation--because it's so hard to make artwork. It takes so much time, it costs so much money, and there's no guarantee that anyone's even going to like it. So you might as well do something you really care about, because I don't know what other reason there is to do it. Whenever I feel like I'm floundering, or I can't locate what I want to do, I always stop, look around, and think about what makes me feel something. For example, I collect things. I can't afford to get expensive things, but I would always go to thrift stores and buy things I thought were beautiful. I love objects, so I began to photograph that subject, and the still-life work coalesced from there.

********

 

this seems to be the universal route.

 

thanks for the tip. autochrome enclosed.

 

wayne

 

ps. i'm certainly tempted by the dp1. any guess as to how much it will cost? read a speculation the raw files in the lx2 may not be pure: less noise but also less detail. hmm, that will cause a rumpus.

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[Guest stnami]

Now here ia a very controversial photographer

 

Boris Mikhailov

 

Boris Mikhailov on artnet

 

 

 

Boris Mikhailov - Photography - The Saatchi Gallery

[Guest stnami]

I think Leica took the easy way out with the P&S camera but they will make a lot of people happy.

I am a bit over it as far as cameras are concerned, the D2 does what I want and it is sorta brand new again due to repairs, the XA works the possible colour of foven would be a nice extra perspective.This combo will allow me to conconcentrate on image making and play. I have a Oly 11-22 lens no camera but no need for a SLR at the moment.

This is where the female photographers win out as the camera doesn't matter as much to them, it is the content in the images and processes that are important. It is time to take a couple more leaves out of their books and refocus again. These women photographers are an inspitation< Boris is just a great lunatic you just gotta love it

[smokysun]

hi imants,

 

boris is diane arbus with a sense of humor. (diane had compassion, insight, but wasn't charmed by the inanity of it all. as far as women photographers, her book 'revelations' worth every penny. a detailed record of one photographer's passion for the medium). lot of vodka behind boris's pictures!

 

it's probably a lost cause to argue content over equipment, but the photographers i like tend to use simple means. look at the bill brandt nudes with a police identification camera. i thought maybe photokina would stimulate my buying urge. but i have to confess i like using the dl2 for almost everything. it's like playing beethoven on a tony piano. there's something of a miracle in it.

 

and as i've said, perhaps once too often, the audience is interested in the content, the story. if your technique shows, then it's you you're photographing and displaying. great if you can make people interested in you, a cult object(andy warhol reborn). otherwise, the content better stir the viewer.

 

women writers tend to bring the focus back to everyday life and find a certain magic in it, say virginia woolf. the same with the photographers. they don't seem to need the grand canyon, but find inspiration in two people sitting on a bed (nan goldin) or a bar of soap that tells a twisted tale.

 

i really like bonnard for this, though not a woman he made a woman at her toilette in the bathroom the subject of many great paintings. this re-imagination of our immediate world seems to me again a form of wonder.

 

thanks for the sites. keep them coming. i'm really enjoying them.

 

wayne

[smokysun]

ps. here's a pic in honor of laura and all the territorial disputes on the forum.

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[Guest stnami]

Orlan is an interesting image maker in more ways than one

 

http://www.english.ucsb.edu/faculty/ecook/courses/eng114em/whoisorlan.htm

 

 

Bonnard is also a favourite of the ladies, many a female art lecturer has a soft spot for his work even in the worlds of conceptualism and whatever is post(post) Postmodernism???

 

.. there's a lot of vodka in Russia.... I've seen many a kid with a cake in one hand and a beer in the other and that is at breakfast ......

 

territorial disputes on the forum"... draino ????... may be better

[mark_a_h]

this thread has been around for ages, and I just want to ask: wtf does "smokeysun and colour a revival" mean? ?!

[Guest stnami]