playing it safe ?

[removed account4]

I'm in one now.

I'm going back to almost exclusive black and white. As I wrote on another thread, I think it takes a picture to another level. It add gravitas, and timelessness to an image. It just seems more "important".

In our throw away society, it seems more permanent. Less trendy.

With my decent but limited talent, after 40 years it's probably the best I can and have achieved.

i would guess that with the x-years of additional experience your b/w portraits are that much better than they were before ...
while i think when i go back and re-shoot ( or even revisit the film ) a place from 30 years ago, of photograph another person with the same occupation
i may not think it is any different than before, maybe it is and the collective exposures between the 2 visits, (or since an old negative was translated to a postive image)
had made a difference ...
i really don't like to dwell on one sort of thing for too long, i get bored like a 4 year old tugging at his parent's pant leg asking if we can go yet ...

I've been looking at so much painting lately, mostly Dutch Masters, and I can't get my head around the depth, resonance and complexity of the work compared to our (as my sister would say) "shallow as pee-pee on a plate" culture, with the endless, narcissistic flow of self-absorbed Instagram snaps. It's quite sad.

Totally disagree on Rockwell. I've seen his work in person, many times, most recently just two weeks ago. He was a superlative painter, an American original. I think sometimes people mistake the repetition or execution of an artist's unique style -- that is, what makes their art THEIR ART and not someone else's, recapitulated -- with a lack of imagination, which, in Rockwell's case, it most decidedly is not.

He is one of those rare case where commercially rewarded creativity becomes art. Avedon and Penn are two other excellent examples.

i agree parkersmithphoto .. we live in a very strange time period but i think there might be a glimmer of hope. i was at one of my favorite spots yesterday.
weeds dancing in the blustery wind setting up my camera to photograph the same scene i have photographed maybe 20 times the last five-6 years and the lady in her car parked next to where i was
came out and chatted with me and told me she used to make a lot of film based photographs but she totally stopped when the digital thing happened full force. and she was interested in falling back to film.
no idea if this is a trend, or spotty or a mirage but maybe there is hope .. i don't know maybe i am too positive ?
i have never seen original norman rockwell images but i learned something interesting about him last year that might relate to his type of artwork he created. ( i think it was him ? )
it almost seemed as if it was an escapist sort of thing he did because his wife was not well, and they travelled / moved to massachusetts to be close to psychiatric care she needed. i am not sure if i am
grasping at straws, i really don't know what his family life was like but it seems the idealism and optimism he created was not exactly the reality in his life .. there aren't many people like you mention
whose commeical and personal work co-mingle and are so iconic, i think many people try to keep those two things separate, maybe they want their art to be pure and they find their commerical art to not be pure
but just done to pay the bills ?

 

[blansky]

i would guess that with the x-years of additional experience your b/w portraits are that much better than they were before ...
while i think when i go back and re-shoot ( or even revisit the film ) a place from 30 years ago, of photograph another person with the same occupation
i may not think it is any different than before, maybe it is and the collective exposures between the 2 visits, (or since an old negative was translated to a postive image)
had made a difference ...
i really don't like to dwell on one sort of thing for too long, i get bored like a 4 year old tugging at his parent's pant leg asking if we can go yet ...

The work is probably technically better and with digital far easier in retouching etc, but I'm over 60 and what can happen is you start to get lazy or loose the fire you once had. I'm in very good shape, play hockey every other day, but I find I don't have the photographic drive I used to have. The energy is waning. That's perhaps why I stop and clear my head every few years.

Also I photograph a lot of kids, and that takes energy, which is why I only do one sitting a day. Interestingly though when I photograph them I'm usually sitting down with the camera on a camera stand, so it looks like I'm doing nothing, but the exertion actually comes when I have to continually get up and hit them with a stick to entice them to do what I want.

But I was scanning some negatives I shot 10-15 years ago, ( I still have negs from 30 years ago) and I was amazed how well the images held up to my liking.

 

[removed account4]

for energy, i keep getting emails for something that might
give you a boost. you might have to start digging holes though
if you get too much energy ...

.. i think it was alfred hitchcock who spoke so eloquently
about working with kids said he was going to staple
their feet to the floor ( maybe billy mummy from
lost in space and barnes+barnes ( fish heads fish heads ... eat them up yum ) fame )
hockey stick sounds better staples on the floor would be a PITA, blood cleans up easier.

 

[blansky]

Yeah, I get the same emails, unfortunately I get a lot of emails and my money is now all tied up in a great Nigerian investment opportunity, that should pay incredible dividends any day now.

After that I'll be eating the blue pills like candy.

 

[Shawn Dougherty]

I took a fish head out to see a movie... didn't have to pay to get it in!