Contemporary Portraiture

In my further thinking about project two over the summer I kept trying to return to basic principles. What is it that I love in photography, what gets me most excited, what do I find most inspiring and moving. The answer always includes an element of portraiture, I love people, their stories, their faces, their uniqueness. When I think of the photographers I admire the most they are usually invariably the stand out portrait photographers.

I recently returned to the work of Hendrik Kerstens who won one of the taylor Wessing photographic prozes in 2007 for his piece entitled 'bag' and I remember the impact when I saw that incredible photograph in the flesh 'literally' at the final exhibition for the prize, which was frozen dumbstruck awe at what he had managed to create, an almost hyperreal portrait which captured the light and style of Dutch painters such as Vermeer.

Before the summer I also acquired a book of Avedon images.......seriously....how the hell does he do that? And I think that is my motivating question in all this.....

I am pretty sure then that portraiture is going to be the basic idea, the concept has yet to be refined, I have a few ideas and will try to get a tutorial and some advice on these before I make any final decisions.

Ikebana Dance Sculptures

so...project two......??

lots of ideas been running through my head about this. inspiration recently struck for a great project which combines a lot of the things I love, dance, contemplative art and mindfulness practices. The plan is to create human scuptures using the principles of Ikebana, the japanese contemplative art tradition of flower arranging. Originating from the Shinto tradition, where flower arrangements were made as offerings, it seeks to combine heaven, earth and humanity through dealing with space and form and three main elements, which can be arranged in eight different fundamental variations. It is considered an appreciation of the sacredness of the world, arising from non-aggression and appreciation with a large emphasis placed on mindfulness and meditation practices in creating the work.

I love the idea of working with dancers to create body sculptures based on these principles, working with the eight key variations and using different colour schemes in each one. One organisation who trains people in traditional Ikebana is Shambhala and I have already studied contemplative art courses with them, which I think will be an invaluable starting point.

This is going to happen but the more I think about it not for project two, as I think the time scale involved is too small for such an ambitious undertaking. However it might be a possibility for project three. this is a big collaborative project, working with dancers and ideally a choreographer and super ideally an Ikebana expert and am in the process of putting feelers out to see if i can get moving on it. Most of the people I know who would be suitable for this are in the south west which obviously makes logistics tricky. Even if it does not ever get finished within the confines of the MA I love the idea and feel realy inspired by it. lois greenfield is a great place to look for beautiful dance photography and I guess I will just go from there.

More Square Action - II

This whole scanning thing is not going well, will wait til I get back to Lincoln to sort it out properly. In the meantime these are some more of the digital back ups, bearing in mind it's a close approximation but not the same.

I am happy with the progress being made. The images feel right to me, FINALLY!! ALthough these two seem quite different to me the theme is the same and they work well as part of the overall selection of about ten images.

Velvia 50 developments - Round 1

So the velvia transparencies have come back and from what I can see prior to scanning them the results look great. One snag however, and being an optimist am going to hope this doesn't mess things up too much; despite 'apparently' lining the roll of film up precisely to the red *start* marker the exposures seem to have overlapped slightly on the edges. Some are worse than others and three exposures have not come out at all. The five essential ones are there though. It looks as if this can be fixed in photoshop but will probably be a pain in the butt. However the colours look fantastic and the images themselves are exactly what i was after so any photoshop pain will definitely be worth the effort. hhhhmmm......the joys of film.

Have picked up a cable release and a neutral density filter in town. Now for round two.

Days with my father - Toledano

came across this today, it is not related to what i am doing now in finishing off these images from project one but it appeals greatly to me in its portrait/documentary style and its emotive rawness. It is going into the bank of thoughts from which hopefully something will emerge soon for project two.

www.mrtoledano.com/Days-with-my-father/01-Days-with-my-father

More Square Action

another digi backup from some hasselblad action. the ghostly figure is even less defined, on mike's suggestion and it works really well in this composition. shot another one last night as well amidst reeds at a local lake. did not have time to get a digital backup as i thought i heard some *unmentionables* in the water beside me and had to exit stage left at speed. finished the roll of velvia now and getting it developed in dublin on monday. as someone not used to working in film it all feels quite exciting and somewhat nerve wracking. the unknown quantity etc. fingers crossed. such a relief to feel like progress is finally FINALLY being made with this. and big thanks to mike for all his help with this, has been invaluable on many levels.

Once the dust settles.....

*cough cough cough*....the dust on this blog is serious!!! Anyway after a long absence I thought it was about time to update this blog on recent activity and developments. Project one ended at a beginning point having come full circle and my summer was designed to be a space where I could explore the direction this new beginning pointed to, with some very specific ideas in mind. This is currently happening, albeit later than planned for a variety of unavoidable reasons. Feedback from the external examiner suggested working in medium format, and the square pictures off Hasselblad seemed particularly ideal as I had started to crop my digital images into squares towards the end of this process. So I am going retro, using Velvia 50 transparencies on a hasselblad i have borrowed from media stores and am currently awaiting the first batch of project related results. In the meantime here is a rough approximation of what some of them will look like, taken as backup on my nikon.