Re: Moonrise Hernandez 2007
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jetcode
personally I look forward to carrying my 20x24 and 10 holders to the top of half dome
The one and only time I walked up Half Dome, I was challenged simply getting myself to the top. I think I packed a Minolta CLE with a 40 mm, and a couple of rolls of Velvia. Of course water, and a snack. When I got to the valley floor, the last tour bus was pulling away. With all the spare energy I could draw on, I yelled and ran for the bus. I'd still be looking for my tent in the dark if I hadn't.:p
Re: Moonrise Hernandez 2007
Thanks to this thread a photo-series idea arose, and since I have cameras and film once more, it can be attempted.
Walkers Evans' work inspired/motivated me as Ansel Adams work did for many other folks.
Chances are good I'll never visit New Mexico, but I live close to where Evans made many classic images: the Phillipsburg, (NJ) Easton-Allentown-Bethlehem-Northhampton County (PA) area. I'm long-familiar with many of the views he recorded, not just from his photos but from earliest memory. Our family drive through (and to) there every time we visited grandma.
I'm gonna photograph up there.
Much of the area is frozen in time. The 1930's Great Depression hit and its shadow lingers still. River towns, steel towns, coal towns, slate & concrete towns. Row houses, industrial rustbelt ruins. In coal towns like Wilkes-Barre and Tamaqua entire neighborhoods look as if printed in sepia and the year on the calendar begins with '18'.
I'll pass along images if/when I pursue this.
For instance, the following Evans image--I was there in July. A friend grew up on that hill, about 3 blocks from the hilltop homes. The bridge and houses are still there. The large building at bridge's end isn't, I think. It's an eerie sensation to stand there looking at the scene--as if you're in the Evans photo.
Thanks for the unintentional inspiration.
http://www.eakinspress.com/image/weibridge.jpg
Re: Moonrise Hernandez 2007
It is a little-known fact that Moonrise Hernandez was Ansel's lover in the early 40's. Sadly, she died not long ago and is buried in that very cemetery. Notice the extra headstone on the far left?
Re: Moonrise Hernandez 2007
Just thought I would take a moment to comment. I feed my family with digital capture and photoshop. I can move around pretty well in the program. I have a workflow that stays the same for 90% of what I need to do. That's customer driven commercial work. I can't explain why it just bugs me to see so much of artistic work cheapened by the new methods. I'm a curmudgeon I guess. Happily the world's big enough for all of us.
If I ever get to Hernandez I'm quite sure I'll pull over and sit on the roof of the truck for a minute to reflect. When I read the story behind the photo in Ansels book 40 photographs or whatever the title was, I can identify with every breath and emotion he described. I've clambored out of a pickup truck with an ancient 8X10 camera and experienced it all. Are we the last generation that will be able to say that? A generation of photographers is coming up that will read those paragraphs he wrote about an afternoon in 1941 and won't have the slightest clue what he's talking about.
As long as there has been guys with white hair, I suppose the same phenomenon has occured.
Re: Moonrise Hernandez 2007
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jim Galli
. . . . . . Are we the last generation that will be able to say that? A generation of photographers is coming up that will read those paragraphs he wrote about an afternoon in 1941 and won't have the slightest clue what he's talking about.
. . . . . . .
Jim, just as sure as we know about things that took place when Niepce was alive, future generations can know about Ansel Adams, or anyone else in photography. To assume that younger generations discard and abandon the past, and only white haired old men care about it, does a disservice to youth and white haired old men.
Ciao!
Gordon Moat
Re: Moonrise Hernandez 2007
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jim Galli
I can't explain why it just bugs me to see so much of artistic work cheapened by the new methods. I'm a curmudgeon I guess. Happily the world's big enough for all of us.
I would be one (of many) who is providing cheapened artistry yet I've had no one tell me up front at a show that I suck, or that my work should be relegated to the discount bins at Walmart, or that I should grow some balls and be real concerning photographic processes. One man who owned a professional lab for many years was not put off when I told him the image he was looking at was derived through a digital print process. He was rather engaged in the image. Another person told me that a well known local artist had been seen analyzing this same image with a fine tooth comb evaluating the grain structures and layering.
All this attention over a dumb inkjet print?
Or was it the image that mattered most process being secondary?
I can't explain why it just bugs me to see so much judgment regarding process.
Actually it doesn't bug me at all. That's your artistic license and free right to expression. Happy image making for all!
Re: Moonrise Hernandez 2007
Quote:
Originally Posted by
John Hennessy
It is a little-known fact that Moonrise Hernandez was Ansel's lover in the early 40's. Sadly, she died not long ago and is buried in that very cemetery. Notice the extra headstone on the far left?
LOL!!!! (Two points for that one, John.)
Re: Moonrise Hernandez 2007
It's worth remembering that today's white haired curmudgeons got here by starting as young, bright-eyed and bushy tailed fellows who thought they owned the world. I don't know if I fully qualify for a curmudgeon part yet, but the gray hair is here my kids are already on their road too...
:)
Re: Moonrise Hernandez 2007
"I can't explain why it just bugs me to see so much of artistic work cheapened by the new methods."
The term "new methods" encompasses a pretty broad area. I don't know exactly what you have in mind, maybe some of the digital "painting" that's being done, maybe some of the silly compositing, I'm not sure exactly what you're thinking of. But I've seen some incredible work done with an ink jet printer. George deWolfe's and Tyler Boley's work comes immediately to mind. Tyler uses a 5x7 camera, I don't know what George is using today, he used to be a large format photorapher. Far from cheapening anything, their work elevates the art of photography IMHO. And of course there was a ton of awful stuff done in darkrooms too but I don't remember people criticizing darkrooms just because a lot of bad stuff came out of them.
Re: Moonrise Hernandez 2007
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Donald Miller
Jim, I extend to you your God given freedom to have an opinion. Your quote above leads me to question whether you extend the same freedom to others.
Your quote brings to my mind two questions. The first one is who is deciding that this work you mention is artistic and who makes the value judgement of this work being cheapened. One person or a dozen individuals do not a majority make.
Now the point that I seem to have a differing opinion than you is where we each decide to express our opinion in a public forum in a way that the effect is one of derision as it was in your original post of this thread.
You will notice that at no time have I said that film based photography was inherently defective in any way. In fact I can not remember where anyone using other means has done that to the film based community... at least not in these most recent threads. What I expressed is a state of confusion as to why some who have strong emotional content in their preference for film and seemingly by consequence felt that they had the right to express their judgments of other means of photographic technology in a hostile and often demeaning way.
So if I may request this of you and any others that this applies to...Please keep the judgement calls to yourself and I imagine that you will find reciprocation from others as a result. I wish you continued success in your endeavors...no matter what they might be. Fair enough?
No. Not really. My derision does no harm no fowl. I'm just trying to see in my crystal ball what photographic art will become in the future. What I'm seeing so far is troubling, and the ideas expressed both positive and negative are good. What you're really saying is please keep all judgement calls that dis-agree with yours to myself. I will not.