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. 

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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.