One of the final classes within my MFA program at the Academy of Art University was “Plastic and Pinhole Cameras”. I developed a large body of work along the coastline of Northern California for this class that I call “Out of the Blue”. I have included the artist statement and some of the images from this series.
Out of the Blue focuses on the sea. More specifically, I embarked on a photographic study of the widely varied northern California coastline. My intent with this body of work was to strip the San Francisco Bay area’s cliff, beach and coastline areas down to their essential components. I chose not to include many large elements such as architecture or people within the frame. While small remnants of these subjects may appear within the frame, the goal was to pull the viewer’s focus to the sand, surf and sky. It is within this concept of simplicity that we find the real essence of why people are so magnetically drawn to the ocean.
The hero within this body of work is the component of color. Color plays a large role in my work as a whole, but more particularly within this series as the majority of people who live near a coastline commune at the area’s beaches around the transitional times of dawn and dusk. These are the times of day when the shoreline truly expresses its personality. In order to enhance these qualities I used expired transparency film. Transparency film provides an added element of saturation that negative film cannot and using expired film adds an element of the unpredictable. Expired film can cause small or large color shift depending on many factors including storage conditions, film types and the age of the film.
I chose to use the Holga camera for this project because it adds to the overall narrative and aesthetic of the series. The Holga inherently has a color shift that is exaggerated by the expired transparency film and its low-fi plastic lens. The Holga also has a dreamlike effect that contributes to the series by providing a focal plane that drops out around the edges and a heavy vignette that frames the image.
First off, let me apologize for my month and a half absence from the blog. There is no excuse and I whole-hea…. scratch that. I have a great excuse! I have been burning the candle at both ends, printing, writing, designing, and otherwise preparing a three-year long master’s thesis project for its final review. Luxuries, such as sleeping, eating, and of course, updating this blog, unfortunately were put on the back burner. That said, I’m back baby! After an hour-long Powerpoint presentation and defense of my thesis I was granted a full pass! Now all that stands between me and my MFA diploma is a wee-bit of course work and a stroll down the graduation stage at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium here in San Francisco in a couple of weeks.
The materials presented at my final thesis review were as follows:
• 16 finished prints, gallery-ready at 10”x15” and mounted in 16”x20” hand-cut mats
• 40-page, hardcover book featuring the series images and written material such as an autobiography, resume, project abstract, thesis intensive discussion, influences, timeline and statement of future plans
• 25-image professional portfolio featuring food, still life and product photography for client review in a leather-bound book with a neoprene case
• Journal of notes and progress kept throughout the three-year project with lighting diagrams and shoot breakdowns
• Archival box for the university’s library containing a presentation book with 8”x10” prints of the work, 3 CDs with digital files of the images for promotional use and a copy of the hardcover book
• Powerpoint presentation defending the thesis
As the RayKo Gallery in San Francisco closes its exhibition of the Plastic Camera Show, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for coming out and making it a great success. The opening reception had hundreds of people in attendance and was a lot of fun. The following set of images were taken by Tim Rollins. Click here to see the full set of images.
Since I am in the final semester of my graduate degree at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco I decided to take a fun class to escape the pressure of my thesis, at least for a few hours a week. The class I chose is “Plastic and Pinhole Photography”. I mostly find myself gravitating toward the Holga in this class, although I have also run quite a bit of film through the Zero 2000 and Blackbird, Fly as well.
I grew up in Dallas, Texas and as such didn’t have access to the ocean. I have now lived in California for just over ten years and I am still awestruck every time catch a glimpse of the Pacific. At the risk of sounding too much like a San Francisco hippy, there is an inescapable force that the ocean carries with it. When I plant my feet firmly in the sand and allow the tide to slowly wash around me I experience a feeling that is simply too difficult to describe. The mood on the coast is vastly different with each visit. I can go to the same cliff or beach every day at the same time for a week straight and have very different light and character each time.
It is with this background that I decided there is no better place to focus on for my class project than the northern California coast line. I photographed the following nine images within the same week at various spots around the Bay area. The project has since changed slightly and I will post updates throughout the semester, but this is the genesis.
Recently I have been dabbling in the art of pinhole photography. For those of you who don’t know what this is, it is essentially about bringing photography back to the basics. And when I say basics, I mean basics. Pinhole photography entails putting a piece of film inside a light-tight box or can and exposing it through a pin-sized hole for about 30 seconds to a minute. No lens. No viewfinder. That’s it. The images come out fairly soft and dream-like. The fun of this process is never knowing what you are going to get until you run the film through the chemicals. The following are three images that I created using this method this week.
Rayko Gallery in San Francisco is hosting the opening reception for the 2010 International Juried Plastic Camera Show this Friday, February 26th. I was very fortunate to get a piece in the show alongside some really amazing artists. If you are in the Bay area and are available this Friday I highly recommend you swing by the gallery to check out the incredible work. If you aren’t available, fear not… the exhibit runs through April 17th. Further information about the exhibit and gallery can be found on RayKo’s website. The image that I have in the show, taken with a Holga plastic camera, is below. I hope to see you at the gallery this Friday!
Last week I took a short drive out to Point Reyes National Seashore, about an hour north of San Francisco, for a photo shoot. While there are certainly closer beaches, nothing matches Point Reyes. The large preserve that juts out into the Pacific Ocean features miles of uninterrupted beaches below looming cliffs, green rolling pasture land with black and white spotted cows, beautiful historic farmhouses and one of the most picturesque lighthouses that the west coast has to offer. As I meandered along the coastline snapping shots here and there I couldn’t help but think about our family on the east coast currently digging themselves out of blizzard conditions. Here I was on the beach in February in near 70-degree weather and I was once again reminded of why we live in California.
If you haven’t yet had a chance to view Alex Roman’s CGI masterpiece, “The Third and The Seventh” I would highly recommend you take a gander. It breaks down the barriers between photography, filmmaking, computer-generated imagery and architecture. While this project undeniably exists outside the realm of these defined borders, or perhaps between them, one thing is for sure: it is an artistic wonder. One guy (30 years old), on one PC (i7 920) creating beautiful imagery for one year and this is the result. A photographer friend of mine watched this short film, sat in silence for about 30 seconds after the screen had dipped to black and then finally broke his silence by exclaiming, “Well…. what do I do now?” Where does work like this leave photographers when computer-generated imagery can be confused for photography at its best? When you can create the most optimal environment (ie: sky, lighting, wind, shadows) in a computer, how can we as photographers compete with that? If nothing else, I can tell you that this film leaves me with equal parts intimidation and inspiration. Excuse me, I must get out there and shoot some architecture!
Inspired by a lot of the iPhone images I have seen lately, I decided to share some of the abstract images that I was able to create with my iPhone. I took advantage of the camera’s slow shutter speed, particularly in low-light situations, to infuse some motion blur and obtain some interesting results.
I put together a list of some great sites that cover getting the most out of your iPhone camera. These are definitely worth a peek!
While a relatively new term for me, iPhontography has existed as a bit of a cultural phenomenon for the last several years. In fact, as a reaction against the newest, shiny piece of digital brilliance with its 700 megapixel sensor and its 4×6″ LCD viewing screen (or some such specs), a large faction of photographers have embraced the low-tech. This demand has manifested itself in a resurgence of the Chinese Holga or Diana plastic cameras and it only stands to reason that due to accessibility, the iPhone has joined the ranks. What makes the iPhone low-tech is its simple point and shoot design, not that dissimilar to the previously named medium-format cameras.
iPhontography.org is a great site dedicated to the art of the iPhone image and describes the concept as this: “The eye of the artist is always more important than the technology in the creation of beautiful art.” I have to agree. iPhontography.org is currently running a contest for iPhone art that will result in a gallery show in Berkeley, California. I have attached the iPhone images that I took for this contest below. If you have created some unique and artistic photos using your iPhone then you should enter your images. Just click on the following link to take you there. While you’re on the site, please take a moment to vote for my images, if you are so inclined.
