photo-news (McCurry, Hosoe, Stewart)

I was long ago introduced to the work of Eikoh Hosoe (dark, brooding, mystical, theatrical....) I believe it was through Aperture.  Below is a link to some of his work from americansuburbx (one of my favorite blogs).

Eikoh Hosoe (americansuburbx.com)


Below is someone's work I have been unaware of, Todd A. Stewart. Just brought to my attention through Lenscratch (another favorite).  I particularly like the easy flowing narrative I perceive here. My favorite time of year is summer and I can very much feel even the density of the air both emotionally and atmospherically here. This group of images effortlessly resonates with me.

Todd A. Stewart (lenscratch.com) 


Well known for his NGM iconic cover image, here is a group of images from Steve McCurry's favorite part of the planet. He just seems to be in the air there....

Light of Faith

LOOK3 (2013 observations-1)

LOOK3 2013 was a better balance of art photography and journalistic photography than last years mix.

Of course there are many labels used in photography and most are misleading and limiting at best but that was my impression.

One is not better than another it just seemed a little more 50/50 this year. I enjoy most forms of photography and consider it all good grist for the mill. I will attend and did attend most insight interviews regardless of labels. In fact I really appreciate the more mixed bag LOOK3 had for us this year.

What it seems you won't find at the LOOK3 insight type events are any primarily commercial photographers. What I mean here is all of the photographers have the love of making images in common first and generally have to find money to support the work or the life of the photographer.  This is different than photographers who get paid to make images that have a direct bearing on things such as sales as apposed to say history, anthropology and so on.

I found the print shows overall more formally beautiful last year than this, maybe this was content related.

For my dollar I would have loved seeing more Gregory Crewdson prints (only 2 color pieces shown) lots of wall space was devoted to the technical things behind the images. It isn't that was not interesting to me, but I would prefer to read about it in a book or another form and seen the wall space used for more images. Although in the smaller room at Second Street Gallery there were a number of recent b&w prints, from his latest body of work. While on Crewdson, I have been aware of his work for sometime and would of liked to have a book of his. It seems to me when he first came to some prominence I was heavily into studying various painters. So given this opportunity (despite my lean financial [on sabbatical] lifestyle) I purchased books yet again at a LOOK3 event.

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.)

LOOK3 (event pictures)



People chatting at Lynn Johnson's opening

Paramount Theater

Alex Webb enjoys Lynn Johnson's opening

Camille Seaman talks shop with colleagues

Bruce Gilden enjoying the Johnson opening

Gilden meets Evan's sign

Other Look3 info here.

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.

Exhibition Review: Intersections: 20 yr. retrospective of photographs by George Elsasser (2of2)

The  following is:
Copyright (c) 2010, The Virginia-Pilot. Reprinted with permission.
The original article appeared in Port Folio Weekly December 7-14 issue, 1997.

From Stark To Lively, Photographer Captures Life
By Catherine Dorsey

Over the past 20 years, the work of photographer George Elsasser has made the progression from stark black and white photos to painterly Polaroids to brilliantly colored and dreamlike abstractions.  Each stage holds it’s own fascination: Elsasser’s multi-faceted talent is evident in a retrospective on view at the Hermitage Foundation Museum in Norfolk.

The earliest photos in black and white demonstrate the beginnings of Elsasser’s exploration of contrast and form over content, a journey which culminates in the artist’s most recent images called the Colorfield series.  The 1980 image Window isolates one section of a steamed-over glass pane.  A few water droplets course through the intricate pattern made by the steam, leaving their snail-trail on the heavily beaded surface.  The patterns in the corner of a stainless steel kitchen sink become the subject for Sink. The interesting curves and reflections of the slick steel, spangled with a textural coating of shimmering water droplets, are focal points while the object becomes secondary.

Elsasser’s images become more complex as they progress chronologically.  Objects arranged in odd and unexpected settings create a surreal atmosphere.  The trompe l’ oeil effect achieved in the 1992 image No Fish is uncanny.  A pot holder shaped like a fish, at first startling in it’s lifelike appearance, rests in the seat of a molded deck chair.  The simple composition sets a complex chain of thoughts in motion by altering our perceptions of reality.  While the photograph is a color image, the delicately tinted fish provides the only color against the stark white plastic chair.  The viewer tends to first perceive the photo as black and white, which it is not, and the fish as real, which it is not.

Three black and white portraits from the early 90’s are quite natural and have a frank quality that is refreshing.  A series of spontaneous manipulated Polaroids retain the surrealism found in several of Elsasser’s larger images.  In Apple, a bright red apple is blurred into wavy lines while it’s reflection in a stainless steel toaster remains crisp and clear.

Intense color and thoughtful composition are hallmarks of Elsasser’s new large-scale Colorfield photographs, which utilize focus rather than light as tools to shape the image to his mind’s eye.  A few sharply focused details emerge from the blurred and often incomprehensible organic subject matter.  The eye struggles to discern individual objects in these brilliant tapestries of color. Two withered stalks of grass and a pine cone stand in stark contrast to the soft green and brown wash of blurred greenery in Colorfield-56. The viewer becomes a voyeur in Colorfield-72.  A stockade-like row of slender tree trunks are in focus in the foreground, while the sunlit landscape beyond flirtatiously eludes the eye.  The golden vista tantalizes by remaining forever just out of reach.

Catherine Dorsey was in the art gallery business for 12 years. She is a native of Norfolk and has a degree in Art History from University of Richmond.

The Colorfield Series is now called Particle Pool. 


Different review of intersections
Information on Particle Pool

LOOK3 2013

LOOK3 (2013):  June 13,14,15 
2014 will be the year - (3 on / 1 off)

         
I thoroughly enjoyed my time at the 2012 event in fact I cherish it, focus is generally photojournalism with some fine art photographers represented. Remember labels are limiting, I enjoyed all the work and discovered much I was unaware of.  Alex Webb was the headliner for 2012, Gilles Peress and Martin Parr were there in 2009.

I got there late Wednesday evening (Th, Fri, Sat event) left for other places Sunday night and still could have used another day to see all the exhibitions to my liking. So next year I will go at least one day earlier minimum (the Galleries are closed on Mondays) so I can look more while relaxed. David Doubilet the underwater master spoke on Wednesday evening about 7pm. I utilized the dorm deal to save a chunk of money on hotels (very clean each day) small beds but I love photos more than perfect beds.  It seems to be part of the workshop programs that start on the Sunday prior to Festival. 

Another Festival clearly in my sights is Photolucida and is focused on all but maybe a little more tilt to fine art photography. Mike Davis who lived in Portland, OR brought this to my attention while viewing my dummy book.

I was unaware but discovered Donald Weber won Critical Mass an off shoot of Photolucida in 2006 along with 2 others. One of them Camille Seaman (showed at LOOK3 2012) I will blog about in the future. Critical Mass published his book on Chernobyl. Donald and Mike where both editors who viewed my work and many others' work at LOOK3 2012. All you ambitious photographers Critical Mass deadline is 7-16-12.

LOOK3 (general)

 image (c) george elsasser

On the Road, I am not with Yoda or Carlos Castaneda but I am certainly enlightened.  Finally a post, more when I get home to my studio.

I am out in the wonderful Shenandoah Valley, just spent 4 days in Charlottesville, VA at LOOK3  - fantastic do not miss these if you are a serious photographer living in the Mid Atlantic (A MUST).  No mistake this is the real deal about photography not cameras. Yes all parts of US, even some Europe and Asia people show up for this fine festival, but Mid Atlantic people missing as I have in the past is a bad idea. Loved all of it especially being with so many like minded people was very powerful.

For now just wanted to thank the many people I met, and post a link for anybody that might want to view my dummy book "Tips & Tales"

A massive thank you to the tireless efforts of the many people who put together this enormous labor of love. Get on the LOOK3 email list now - be ready for 2013.

Interview: george elsasser (1990)

the following is:
copyright (c) 2010, The Progress-index . Reprinted with permission.
The original article appeared in the Entertainment Guide Friday, June 22, 1990

'Incidents' on display at art league 
by Katie Thomas

P-1 Staff Writer

Petersburg - “Incidents” an exhibition of 26 recent photographs by Virginia Beach artist, George Elsasser, is on display at the Petersburg Area Art League, 13 Rock St., through July 12.  Elsasser's will be the Art League's last major exhibit until September.

Elsasser strives to create feelings or personal remembrances of incidents in objects and contrasts in his work.  He uses images to “accomplish collective symbols that have been passed down.  Symbols in my work hopefully strike an unconscious cord with the viewer,” he said.

“It's not important to me that the viewer gets exactly what I put out.  I hope that his or her life experiences connects somewhere with the imagery,” said Elsasser.

Elsassers finds he is attracted to unusual rather than common subjects.  He attempts to capture the line between the real object and the symbol or feeling it may be attached to.  “Photographs are our most realistic interpetation of real things.  I like to walk the balance between real things and unreal,” Elsasser said.

He often finds the symbolic image or feeling between real and unreal by contrasting objects.  “I like contrasts between beautiful with ugly, death with life.  Death to me is not the literal appearance but a change or moving on from what I was to the new beginning of what I may become,” said Elsasser.

Elsasser sees photography as the opportunity to understand the object and to anticipate what it might look like when it becomes a photographic image.

“It is my hope that my work will hit them on a feeling level with either comfort or unease,” said Elsasser.

Elsasser has been working exclusively in color in the last six years.  He said black and white describes form, but adding color gives the image a whole other dimension while staying part of the form.

The artist's interest in photography began 13 years ago with a college photography class.  Elsasser was shooting the usual “family, sunset, landscape photos until he saw a long surf board with a strip down the middle on a picnic table in a yard.  “I realized if I could present 'X' amount of information and leave a lot away from the viewer then that image would look like a road.  With that image I understood that this art was limitless.”  Since November, Elsasser has been working full time on his art.

Elsasser's works have been featured in many notable shows to include “American Vision” New York University, New York and “Light Images” at the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk.  Several of his works are included in the private collections of the First Virginia Bank and the Kirn Memorial Library in Norfolk.

Elsasser holds a fine arts degree from Old Dominion University, Norfolk, and has studied at the Zone VI Workshop in Vermont and Sally Mann-Platinum Printing in Newport News.

“Incidents” will remain on display at the Petersburg Area Art League, from 10 a.m. To 2 p.m. Monday through Friday.  Call 861-4611 for information.

Exhibition Review: "Intersections: 20 yr. retrospective of photographs by George Elsasser" (1of2)

The following is:
Copyright (c)2010, The Virginia-Pilot. Reprinted with permission.
The original article appeared in The Daily Break December 7, 1997.

Fresh approach elevates nature photographer’s work
By Teresa Annas,
STAFF WRITER

From 1992 to 1994, roughly, George Elsasser the long time photographer became Elsasser the painter.

It wasn’t exactly action painting he engaged in, but a kind of energetic Art Brut style inspired by directly expressive painters such as Jean Dubuffet, Karel Appel and Willem de Kooning.  He came back to photography as inspired as ever.

In the 20-year retrospective on view at the Hermitage Foundation Museum, that hiatus from shooting provides the line of demarcation between the early work, much of it black-and-white, and his later color work, distinguished by an extremely narrow depth of field.

After his bout with painting, Elsasser immediately shifter to larger prints- canvas-scale, you could say- and began to fill the picture frame with an overall, abstract, rhythmic pattern entirely drawn from a found natural setting.  Woods chiefly.

The pictures are generally close views, haiku-like, of a mindfully composed arrangement of sticks, tree limbs, tree trunks and leaves.The scene may extend far into the distance, yet only a few inches of the scene are in focus.  The rest is fuzzy or distorted. Often, the background shapes and colors break down into discs of semi-transparent color overlapping one another, and reminiscent of Impressionism, at least in the shared sense of tricking the eye into blending rough bits of color.

The challenge for Elsasser, a Virginia Beach commercial photographer by trade, may be considered as: How do you make an artful image, a picture with meaning, that utilizes your well-developed technical skills without looking too slick?

Color photos of nature are as plentiful as pine straw, and many of them are boring.  Since 1994, Elsasser has hit on a fresh way of seeing that emerged from his searching attitude regarding the technical aspects, and his own commitment to losing himself in his subject.

While the late color work is clearly a mature phase, the earlier black-and-white work also showed evidence of an intelligent eye schooled in the history of art photography.  Even his 1977 photos- shot at age 21- are strong.  One is a mysterious black-and-white image that turns out to be a surfboard reflecting nearby woods.

And there are hints of what’s to come.  In 7609-D of 1981, he captured a column of light on a living room wall, above the couch. Like two wide strokes of white gouache, the semi-transparent light strokes quiver on the surface.  Here, the mystical pops in on the mundane, as it would again and again.

There is a second review of the exhibition here.

I have since renamed the Colorfield Series to Particle Pool.

Info on Particle Pool is found here under Gallery-3