The View Camera
Thursday August 12, 2010 Posted in Thoughts
Under the Dark Cloth, Monument Valley by Mark Klett.
I acquired a 4×5 wooden field camera several months ago. Since then, I haven’t started any real projects with it, outside the view experiments with some Polaroids. I’ve taken a few 4×5 negatives, both color and black & white. I’ve gone on maybe two outings with it, not counting today when I began a body of work I’ve been thinking about for some time. I must say, I still feel a bit discouraged by the negatives I’ve gotten back. There are a multitude of problems with them — unintentionally distorted, loaded in the holder incorrectly, and some are just plain terrible.
However, I remain staunchly determined to “master” the view camera and make projects with its use. It’s a pretty big learning curve for me, but it’s a curve I’m taking in stride. My determination stems from seeing work by some of my favorite photographers, Mark Klett included, Elijah Gowin in his Hymnal of Dreams series, Greg Miller, and Brian Ulrich among others. My personal photography now lends itself to somewhat of a nostalgic or dream-like feel with a heavy emphasis on details. I love finding poignant details in photographs; I live by them. Lately, I’ve been considering projects with the intention of printing quite large and this can come about through a larger, 4×5 negative.
I do feel a bit discouraged that I’m still fumbling around with it a couple weeks before school starts. I’m not yet confident in my abilities with it. Sometimes I even think about not photographing things I would normally photograph with a medium format or 35mm camera just because it’s kind of a pain to operate. Or maybe it’s because of the 90+ degree temps I’ve contended with carrying the camera and gear around. But, like most of my photographic endeavors, its best to push through and keep on trying. The view camera still feels special to me and will continue to motivate me despite these shortcomings.
Stephen Shore & Urban Outfitters
Tuesday July 13, 2010 Posted in Advertising
I’ve been a fan of Stephen Shore’s photography for some time now. I believe photographers working today owe a lot to Shore, as well as William Eggleston and the other early pioneers of color photography in the 1970’s, as well as Robert Frank. In some ways, Eggleston and Shore act as the somewhat rebellious, all-democratising snapshot aesthetic artists to Ansel Adam’s straight photography and the f/64 group.
I saw one of Stephen Shore’s chromogenic prints in the real at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC as a part of their “Photographic Processes Before the Digital Age” exhibition in 2009/10. J.J. Summers Agency, First Street, Duluth, Minnesota, July 11, 1973—it was quite large and reminded me quite a bit of what I like to photograph. From the work that I’ve seen of Shore’s, his work tends to be a bit more formalized than his fellow photographer Eggleston’s. I especially enjoyed his “Uncommon Places“ portfolio which I’ve been meaning to actually buy for some time now.
That being said, maintaining that a lot of fine art photographer’s today take a note from Stephen Shore, it seems only natural that the man himself should lend his hand to the new Urban Outfitters catalog. I think it’s a great marriage of the two and it gives the magazine a cleaner look with better seen images.
This is due in part to the people in his images tend to “live” in the same place through the frame. They all maintain very little space between the bottom edge of the frame and the feet and a large amount of visual space above the head. Holding back my contempt for Urban Outfitters (their clothes never fit me anyway), I think this a great move on their part. My only hope is that people taken notice of his work here and provide a larger vehicle to explore more of Stephen Shore’s work.
This could mark a shift in the way advertisers think about photography; instead of hiring out their image work to someone who isn’t a photographer by profession, photographers with a keen visual language is available to step up to the plate, so to speak and create a campaign that is visually appealing and better for business. It seems like when a photographer’s personal aesthetic and concepts collide with an advertisers vision, everyone wins. I am confident the photography and general business sense found in catalogs like Anthropolgie, Urban Outfitters and countless others would not exist without the combined photographic efforts of photographers like Stephen Shore.