Masao Mamamoto's Photographic Haiku
Masao Yamamoto is a famous Japanese photographer who successfully interperets his knowledge of existence through his photography. Yamamoto's images are simple, nostalgic, and elegant. They are suggestive and original, and can be preceived in many ways. He tells us, without explanation, about the human experience. Yamamoto exposes us to one of his influences: a Japanese calligrapher-poet named Ryokan. Yamamoto describes his respect for Ryokan's work by admiring his ability to "describe simply the movement of a leaf trembling as it falls" in one of his haikus. This poem can be interpreted in several ways. The falling leaf could be a metaphor for life, the ri...Read more
Grid Lock
This week in photo-blogging, I will explore the thoughts of the summer. I am currently on a much needed summer vacation. I am on the East coast, so I thought it would be appropriate to find a local photography exhibition to write about. I found this series done by artist Keliy Anderson-Staely, entitled Off the Grid. The pieces document a kind of people who live as the title describes: "off the grid". I needed a vacation because over the summer semester, I wrote a lengthy philosophical essay on the subject of alienation. As I reflect on my argumentation, I draw a few conclusions, the most general of which is that a balance exists between technology (the benefits of knowledge an...Read more
A Ghost, or a Dream: Photographer David Ruskin
Ruskin's is a technique which is unusual and mysterious. The photographer takes black and white photo's which he then hand paints. It is a process that he says is difficult to portray with color film. The outcome is otherworldly. I think that one reason I am drawn to this work, as well as this type of work is because it is mysterious and romantic. I find myself longing to be transported to this fairy land of disorienting color and fairy like landscape. It is a form of escapism I suppose, perhaps much like the travel photo's which were taken in the beginnings of photography. Imagine that you have never left your hometown because transportation systems hadn't advanced to that point yet. Y...Read more
Chen Nong, Phaintor
Firstly, an item which requires addressing: Phaintor (f-ai-nt-tor); is a new term I'm inventing here in my blog. It means an artist who embodies both a painter, and a photographer. It has been before 1860 since photographers have been fighting against painters for validation in their art making abilities. Today it seems that photographers have become a permanent fixture within the realm of Art with a capital A, and even esteemed colleagues to painters. The photo-realists are surely a result of this union between the two mediums, who are the children of the painters, who have finally accepted their mother and birthed them. I suppose that the digital arts, which I imagine t...Read more
Czech Surrealism Photography and Emila Medková
Everyone has heard of the Surrealists, thanks to Salvador Dali, and if you look deeper, then you would hear of the French Surrealists, and find also the works of Surrealist Photography made by legendary photographers such as Man Ray, or Cartier-Bresson, and Eugene Atget. This is just scratching the surface, because further east, you will discover the Czech tradition of Surrealist Photography, which has only exhibited on rare occasion outside of the Czech Republic. While this Surrealist Photography was made famous by the Frenchies, the Czech counterpart was nonetheless intriguing and unique. Of course there were many similarities, such as the relative popularity of Surrealism post WWII, Frenc...Read more
The Ludlites
A spin-off of the British social movement, the Luddites protested the introduction of technological advances in weaving looms during the industrial revolution. Their objection was that the new automated looms, which could be operated by cheap, and relatively unskilled labor, destroyed their livelihood. This is a familiar scenario which is felt by many others besides the Luddites. It is also the plight of the Ludlites, a group of toy camera wielding Aussie's who deny the current digital technology and revel in the lo-fi quality of Diana and Holga camera's. These cameras have had a long standing cult following among avant-garde and non-avant-garde photographers since they were first introduced...Read more
filed under: photography
tags: Ludlites Diana Camera Holga Camera Luddites Alternative Photography
The Silence of Don Donaghy
This photographer I came across in my searches is relatively unknown, however, he is included in Jane Livingstons book The New York School: Photographs 1936-1963. In the book, Livingston regards Donaghy's photographs as "among the most beautiful in the history of American photography." Others such as Mark Power would call his photographs some of the most compelling ever recorded, that Donaghy's spiritual brothers were "obviously" Atget, and Cartier-Bresson. And yet, Donaghy was famously silent, undoubtedly because he only spent one decade being productive in the genre of street photography. The rest of his days were spent in Boulder, Colorado, actually, experimenting in film and s...Read more
Mr. Brian Taylor,
Now showing at San Fran based, Gallery 291, is Brian Taylor and his series of Gum Bichromate and Cyanotype photography on watercolor paper. The 19th century technique is labor intensive and not exactly instant gratification. Brian explains that first a layer of silver gelatin (which is light sensitive) is painted onto the surface of the paper. Then the paper is exposed for ten minutes the process produces a cyanotype, which is an entirely rich prussian blue monochrome image. Then a layer of gum bichromate is painted and the process is repeated. The image now has layer of green on top. The process is repeated another time and that layer is completes the image with a brown color. Before I put ...Read more
Greth Ligon: multitalent
If you are in the area of Pablo’s Coffee on 6th avenue, be sure to stop in just to take a look at some of the surreal and dark beauty generated by the multitalented Greth Ligon. This local artist, who shares bits and pieces of his story with his audience on his website, is highly capable of painting those fascinating pictures of an alternate reality that many could stare at for a very long time. His work is a dark daydream with breezes from different times. He allows the viewer to explore hidden landscapes and enjoy the many things that one learns to love. I admire the beauty in the degradation of yesterday, and Greth Ligon brings that to life in a texturally rich sense. &n...Read more
JungJin Lee, Hand made photographs
JungJin Lee is a Korean born photographer who was trained in the traditional media of calligraphy and ceramics. She applies this kknowledge to her work in photography. The inspiring thing about her work is that she uses hand made rice paper that she coats in an emulsion. The effect is that the photo's seem to appear from the bottom of the page out. Her photographs are inspired by simplicity, solitude and meditation. The delicate compositions are common place often, and they invoke a feeling of quiet homeliness. They are nonetheless exquisite moments of the everyday, taken and monumented as metaphors of "the cosmos". She compares her art to meditation in fact, she says "I cannot seperate the ...Read more
