Field Notes-2 (2013)

above (c) george elsasser 

portfolio: mammals at the beach  

image: womb

Updating a few things here:

June 2013 I enjoyed LOOK3 and seeing new friends I met in Charlottesville. I came back recharged as I hoped I would. If one has not been I find this a lonely journey, so an occasional festival is excellent way to connect with like minded spirits. The internet is fantastic for making friends in the bigger photography world.  Even if initially shy like me, festivals develop community despite it.  Many photographers are lone wolf types it seems.

Also June marked a new beginning for me, photographing bathers at the Ocean's edge. See; Mammals at the Beach.  I have worked a great deal at events at the beach area and have now for years but concentrating solely on the shore and the bathers is new for me.

There is something I am chasing or digging deeply for in these images but it is extremely hard for me to clearly define in words.  This always seems the case until years later. My work initially seems to be formally motivated to me but as time goes by I can see more clearly into deeper things I am circling with my images. 

People in candid situations has been something I have concentrated on with increasing intensity since 2005. That it grew from my paid wedding photography begun in 1996 is quite funny to me. Because if you told me way back when I would shoot weddings and really enjoy it, I would have told you no way Jay.  Just goes to show I have no idea where I am going, but that is the mystery the process brings endless surprises. Discovery is what excites me it is like an exploration not knowing what I will find.

Of course the weddings I was previously aware of were all photographed in very staged ways.  When I stumbled in that wedding door couples were looking for candid images - story telling work.  How strange life is.


July 2013

I've been extremely busy & inspired (not always the case), remaking my website so a busy curator or the like will find it easy to see text info & recent work.  That will free up this blog and change its organization for the better. 
Lets see since nobody really knows who I am & I am not a spring chicken, I am now doing  tumblr, 500px, to try and get the work out there. Will it help, we will see. I am enjoying tumblr it is fun and a good adjunct to a bigger blog. For some reason a quick post here escapes me. 

Being a strongly right brained person I really find digging in a garden more satisfying than desk work. The desk work is exhausting and if anything comes from it, it seems to not show up often.  In a garden I see the dirt and I move the dirt, "wow that felt good".  Here I push 0s &1s around in a strange black box, pull a cyber trigger, pray it hits a target and even better the right targets. Strange.

Sometimes I get so sick of this endless desk stuff I almost run screaming, camera in hand to be with my muse. I do hope I have a handful of readers and this effort isn't blowing down an empty cyber hallway.
 
I got my critical mass entry in & am happy with the statement & work, wish me luck.  If you have worked hard and developed along the way give it a try.  It might just keep some old (or young) dog's photographs from dying in a family closet. 

Field Notes-1 (2013)

 Updating a few things here:

March - trip to Morocco, some images here: morocco

April - photolucida : I unfortunately and very frustratingly had to cancel due to health issues:

June - May(late) - photographing locally

June - heading to LOOK3 hope to see you there:

photo-book notes:   Updated book design to show at LOOK3 currently on hold, leaving for LOOK3 

lets see if collective creative energy in one place kicks in so I will do my desk work upon return.  

Notes on photo books 4-8-13 (when the fire was hot) prior to health issues taking me off course.

Field Notes-4 (2012)

Here are some images from my recent Southwest trip.  In a place of such overwhelming power and sublimity the problem exists for me "How do I make interesting images that are different from the ones I have typically seen from these areas"?

Generally the ones I have seen are traditional landscape style images and are not my cup of tea. Not that making really good ones in that genre is remotely easy it is not, but there are plenty of great ones out there.

It is my hope to create new thoughts and feelings from a well worn photographic subject.  I hope occasionally I have succeeded.   Thanks for visiting, I will add more images here as time permits.

Field Notes-3 (2012)

Some images I made in Atlanta that I'm interviewing with many more in the woodshed.  Some are more singular images while others have more of a strait document feeling. To note I enjoyed chatting with many friendly people from the city it is a great town wish I had more time there.  I was also able to spend some time working on the road this summer in Charlotte, Durham, Gatlinburg and Ashville.

I don't think any of these are keepers but I am getting my feet wet with new software, new PC, new OS, add infi-NIGHTMARE!  Yes its Pita time once again.  Wow what a time we live in, it should keep all our brains very sharp.

I have a trip coming up, going to the southwest/4 corners area so that should be interesting. Don't think you will find any great American landscapes from me but we will see, last trip there was an eye opener.

Field Notes-2 (2012)

Field Notes - will be a place I post new photos I am considering, studying & so forth. These are not presently images you will find on my website. If you missed them here are Field Notes-1.

One of the things going on in most images below is a concentration on using the patterns, shapes, positions, repetitions of arms and hands. While I am posting this stuff I thought it might be of help to others if I tell you what I am after.

(So info in these will be intended for teaching, - hopefully some people will find the information of value) 

Please drop me a comment and let me know if this helps anyone.  I do not know everything about photography, but am happy to pass on things I have learned.

(I enjoy the sense of mystery I get from the man in the black suit, it to me is as if he dropped in from another place maybe an agent. Why is he here in a tranquil setting?  I have enjoyed the hand full of times a person has shown up in a photo they seem to not belong too.)

Liked this one initially, but I am about to reject it. This "mind changing" "post post letdown" will be part of  the "Field Notes"  personality.

I find it interesting when the compositions utilize multiple triangles in the structure, certainly not a conscious thing on my part, these events happen much to quickly for that.



(Sometimes the Gods do help us. "Neptunium" Bicycle?)

 (Another person who seems dropped into the photo for me (it must be his stillness next to the movement of the others that increases this sensation I get). I enjoy studying the stride of people in my images. It is crucial to me from one frame to the next which one has the tension or spring in the movement.)

(I enjoy the diagonal line implied by the boys arm but more so the subtle reinforcement of that diagonal by his turned gaze. I often hope and try to tie together like colors running from front, middle and rear ground together.) 

(Here I enjoy the triangle created between the foreground women's arm and body and the one created by her head and arm forcing a triangle to appear top left.  If it was not for the triangle created by the man (RT) by his elbow and arm the image would fail for me.  It is nice luck, serendipity or synchronicity (chose your poison) that his bag is red and there are red shapes in the mid ground by the column. As an image maker I ask myself what would happen as I begin to remove  these things from the photograph. The man white tee shirt (RT) on beach and his forward lean and movement also help to pull the eye to the (RT) side of the image, especially important because the image is loaded heavily left. White also pulls the eye strongly to itself.  The other thing that works here is the blue shirt (LT) side and the blue stripped shorts (RT) side.)

Field Notes-1 (2012)

Here are some recent images I am pleased with. Similar style images are found here in Field Notes-2. My thoughts at this time are to include some candid street type moments (which in artistic concerns are on a similar wave length as my largest body of work in incidents & intersections) into my current book which of course means I just signed up for a ton more work. 

 

The book currently involves work from 2005-2010. I am thinking I might be pulling from 2001 to present, not sure yet, but it has become a wide open project. 

I am thrilled to mention, I am going to release some control and get another set of eyes on my greater body of images to see if it can not be a little more holistic in scope of pictures used. I have chosen to work with Mike Davis for his excellent skills as an photo editor, graphic sensibilities and especially because his background is slightly different than mine. All the better to bring new things to the table. 

So I have made my ambitions for my book considerably larger. I am trusting the process and plan to take the revamped one with me to photolucida next April.

some background on my candid work:

Sans a few late 70s NYC street images, I guess some of the first of my street images were made in December of 2001 in NYC at the WTC site. Hopefully the best of those will surface on the blog eventually. To pay for a roof I did candid-journalist wedding photography from 1996-2008, which began to make me attracted to candid moments in general and this eventually got me working on that in my personal work.  I thoroughly enjoyed capturing the energy emotions and movement at those events, trying to move and flow in and out of situations was very challenging and fun. It reminded me of childhood little league and sports in general. The physicality, rhythm and timing needed to be developed were a joy to work on.

Now doing this kind of dance in public is entirely different,in public I am not given "cart blanch-right of way" as I had at weddings. It has taken me a few years to develop some techniques to get interesting images in the public world in a sea of moving people.

It is the same energy and unfolding and collapsing of events in real time that excites me. Finding ways to ebb and flow through an ever changing situation is a blast. It reminds me of younger days when I surfed, because in that sport one moves with and on the surface of a constantly changing form.

My small urban landscape thing is much more akin to snow skiing where the mountain does not move, I move and it stays the same.  Well in fact this analogy is bent. With every movement the photographer or skier makes what is seen or occluded changes quite a bit. On the street with people it is all motion at once, it is fantastic, moving water not frozen.

Strangely enough the rate of successful images seems about the same, even when one setting seems to me an easier situation. Which leads me to believe there are things going on beneath the surface of what I perceive. Taping into this flow no matter the work or approach is a lot of what I am about. As I said before after so many years photographing and living life I feel more like an instrument being played than someone playing an instrument.