Stepping out of the box

wfwhitaker said:

Having seen Mateo's prints, I don't believe that for a second!

Click to expand...

Right .. I ...

Say!! WAIT A MINUTE!! What was that avatar??

You have my attention ... ignore the "forbidden images" B.S. that has been floating around here. A larger image, please. I'm getting major eyestrain!!

The only person on this forum who has long admitted to even having a box is Eric R and he's probably hoping he can move into an apartment someday.

Alex Hawley said:

David, I think you've hit upon a niche. This and the other one you posted truly connect with the spirit of Weegee. When will we see a good crime scene shot?

Click to expand...

Hmmm... time to buy that police scanner and take up smoking so that I can remember Weegee's rule about not throwing a lit cigar butt on the street at the scene of a car crash, because there might be gasoline all over the road.

I think of all the shots I took at the parade, this one was the most Weegee-esque--

http://www.echonyc.com/~goldfarb/halloween/hall7.htm

Here's a personal example.

Currently, I have several long term projects that are still underway. I tend to challenge myself by adding variety into the way I do things.

For instance. Around the new year I will be completing a set of figure studies that I have been working on. But I'm looking ahead to what will be next as well.

My current work is shot completely in LF. While MF would be quicker, I felt I needed to change my way of seeing and decided that the constraints of LF (as well as the benefits) were good for me at this time. This project has taken multiple shoots, many sheets of film, a lot of time etc... It has been planned in every regard, from poses to props etc.

My next project will try to challenge me again. I've bought a Holga and want to do a one day portfolio. I wanted to free myself of the formal way of doing things in LF. I'll take a day and just go out into the world and figure something out as I go. I'll shoot 18 rolls of film because that's what I can develop in a basket in my large deep tanks. From those 18 I'll put together a body of work. Either way, I have one day to do all the shooting. Something different to force myself to think differently.

My way... What works for me, is to change the way I'm doing things that will keep me fresh. There is a re-occuring style that defines my work, but I do like to work on a wide range of subjects.

joe

Joe Symchyshyn said:

My next project will try to challenge me again. I've bought a Holga and want to do a one day portfolio. I wanted to free myself of the formal way of doing things in LF. I'll take a day and just go out into the world and figure something out as I go. I'll shoot 18 rolls of film because that's what I can develop in a basket in my large deep tanks. From those 18 I'll put together a body of work. Either way, I have one day to do all the shooting. Something different to force myself to think differently.

joe

Click to expand...

18 ROLLS!! IN 1 DAY!
Wow that in it's self could be a challenge? (24 or 36 exp?)

18 ROLLS!! IN 1 DAY! Wow that in it's self could be a challenge? (24 or 36 exp?)

Click to expand...

The Holga is a 120 camera... I'll modify it to shoot 6x6 as most people do. Therefore I'll be shooting 12 exposures per roll of 120.

(It's only 216 exposures... The same as 6 rolls of 36)

joe

Joe Symchyshyn said:

The Holga is a 120 camera... I'll modify it to shoot 6x6 as most people do. Therefore I'll be shooting 12 exposures per roll of 120.

(It's only 216 exposures... The same as 6 rolls of 36)

joe

Click to expand...

In the words of Homer "DUH!"
I knew a holga was 120, but... well... I don't know, just not here in my head this morning...

Noseoil, Head for seven falls. Up Sabino Canyon. It's a nice hike too, but I was there in the spring.

Everyone. I never said you had to step out of the box just that it was good to on occasion.

It is funny that with all of the talk, from members about doing different things and being "creative artists", those talkers have not chimed in. Of course I might be on their ignore list. SO, Grace and Jay, let's hear form you. Maybe your thoughts could help someone who is struggling to find something new.

Jay, before you think this is combative or not serious or rude, it is not intended. I am honestly interested in your's and Grace'e opinions.

In case you are on their ignore list... I'll repost it as a quote. Unless of course I'm on their ignore list as well... Hmmmmm...

It is funny that with all of the talk, from members about doing different things and being "creative artists", those talkers have not chimed in. Of course I might be on their ignore list. SO, Grace and Jay, let's hear form you. Maybe your thoughts could help someone who is struggling to find something new.

Jay, before you think this is combative or not serious or rude, it is not intended. I am honestly interested in your's and Grace'e opinions.

Click to expand...

I think that it's easy to say you want something, it's much harder to actually make the changes you seek.

joe

Personally, I just believe the whole point of photography is to release the shutter. Everything else is trivial.
I don't want to be vague but compared to other arts, let's say music or painting or sculpture that instanteneous immidiacy is the soul of photography. Even with a 8x10" Large Format camera and a posed scene, the approach is closer to a quick line drawing than sculpting the work.
Which comes to the less vague point:
I have millions of ideas but always comes to down to what do I do when I have my finger on the shutter. I can plan and sketch and design before hand, get the right lens, the right film, the right filter, pose the subject if I can, but when my eye gets in the viewfinder and connects with what the camera sees time stops and only my index finger can resume it.
As it happens with my clay sculpture and charcoal drawing and japanese calligraphy I have a conversation with the materials. They talk to me and I listen to them and we create the artwork together, in some cases, this whole interraction is in milliseconds, almost instinctual.
But then again I was never a very stractured kind of guy.
So, being very new in photography and still just playing around without really doing artwork, I give myself projects, many times covering known methods of work, such as doing HCB-style street shots, Ansel Adams landscapes and so on.
At the moment I have been trying sensual glamour, street work and LF-like landscapes and still life.
Sometimes stepping in the box takes you out of it.

my ears pricked up today in a meeting, and I thought I would repeat what was said. I thought it was interesting. In the middle of talking about staff issues and talking about thinking inside/outside the box, one of the people said:

"What we really need is people who think as if there isn't a box".

On reflection I thought that this was actually interesting. What this person was talking about was people who use the appropriate solution for a problem, one that can be traditional or innovative, one that is the best.

Should work for all of us, and anyway, made the meeting a little more intellectually interesting,

livemoa said:

"What we really need is people who think as if there isn't a box".

Click to expand...

David,
I like this quote very much. I think the statement "Think Outside the Box" is such an overused and abused phrase. I have never liked boxes, too confining for me.

gene

Box? What box? I don't know if I even found the box yet. I've done 35mm through 8x10. I've done portraits (some for pay), landscapes (not a big strength for me), still life, black and white, color, alternative process, astrophotography, Polaroid, macro, etc. Sometimes I scale new heights of mediocrity There have been too many different and new things to try. Maybe I'm just dancing around the box.
Anyway, if someone picks a specialty and is good at it, what's the problem? People do majestic (or not) landscapes because they like to. Others do portraits (flattering or not) because they like to. Eventually they become very good at their chosen specialty. Isn't that better than all of us running around like first year students, desparately trying to be "original" and just churning out garbage?

This thread ties in nicely with the thread asking "Is there anything you wouldn't photograph?"

Since I was 12, I shot more or less the same old, same old - school stuff, university stuff, general street scenes, landscapes, buildings, etc... I always shot 35mm film. Then a couple of years ago, I bought a Hassey. That square shape made me think about composition more. The 'slowness' of capturing a scene with a MF made think even more about the picture. Then I started into shooting 'purdy girls' when A friend of mine asked to shoot pics for her modelling portfolio and that ballooned. Fashion/glamour photography has so many 'rules', and so since I wasn't a professional, I broke every one - on purpose.

Then I got into a discussion about photography, ethics, what to shoot, out-of-the-box stuff, rules, etc... Now, I want to shoot stuff that would make most uncomfortable. Why? I don't know why. Maybe I want to ask myself, why does it make me uncomfortable in the first place? Was it socialization? Was it an inherent mechanism to divide doing good from doing bad? I don't know.

Talk about stepping out of the box. I'd pay to be a photographer in Iraq, Ivory Coast, first at the scene of a blood bath, or part of a forensic investigation. I'd love to document a person's life for a week - sort of reality TV in print. I like the idea of shooting street scenes using only a 28mm lens or wider - you have to get into strangers faces and how would I do that? I have captured my friends and family in their moments of joy, happiness, pride - weddings, births, graduations, etc... - I want to capture them in their moments of grief, despair and sorrow. I'd like to capture moments of extreme privacy and intimacy - not faked - but real.

Lastly, I'd like to photograph myself. I think this is the biggest step outside a box for a photographer. I dont know how I'm going to do this without it being somewhat staged, but I'll figure that out as I go.

This is my project for 2005. Really, REALLY stepping out of the box.

Regards, Art.

Maybe the chijuaua from the Taco Bell commercial was right...

"I theeenk we need a beeeeger box..."