Chair

There are several photographers that have used the iPhone as their capture tool. The resolution isn’t very good, no zoom (on mine anyway) no flash just kind of general Lomo camera. That’s what I find so interesting about it. You always have your phone so there just isn’t a reason to capture images right now.

I have fun in the editing department using a combination of Photoshop/Lightroom along with several standalone apps made for the Mac, iPhone or iPad. I haven’t seen the new iPhone but I hear the resolution is much improved and that would be good. I like having too much information so I can achieve my goals by taking away not puzzling over how to “fix” the photo. This shot is called “chair.”

Remember all the money from the limited edition prints goes to support Uplift.

On March 31st the limited edition book No Window No Doors will be released. This is an 80 page book with more photos and the written stories of the men and women we photographed. It will be $125 and limited to only 150 copies, signed and numbered.

You will be able to pre-order the book starting March 21st.

Homewood Store

This was a draft that I wrote for a project I’m working on. Even though I’m not using it I don’t want to waste the thoughts it carries.

“The main force that drives my photography is my desire to see things as they truly are and not through the metaphor of language.  I feel language takes away our ability to see the uniqueness of the people and things that surround us every day.

I subscribe to Jacques Lacan’s notion of the Real.  Lacan argues in The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis that we must use the Symbolic and the Imaginary to connect to the world around us and the primary tool is linguistics.  The Real is not the same thing as reality because our reality is composed of both the Imaginary and the Symbolic.  The Real is opposed to the Imaginary and stands outside the Symbolic.  In Lacan’s book, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book II: The Ego in Freud’s Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis 1954–1955 (W. W. Norton & Company, 1991) Lacan makes it clear that “there is no absence in the Real.”  To see the Real is to experience a thing for the first time.

To me this says what constitutes the Real is something observed in total.  No filters blocking the view or imaginary ideas polluting the observation.  In Lacan’s Seminar XI he defines the Real as “the impossible because it is impossible to imagine, impossible to integrate into the Symbolic, and impossible to obtain.”

I strongly feel it is the job of the artist to reach past the obstacles and capture an image as close to the state of the Real as we can.  We bring it back and by showing it to others we give people the opportunity to encounter the Real even though it is shown through the interpretation of the artist.”

Truck #22

It seems like it has been a long time since I posted here. I have been finishing the photos to be used in exhibition at Project Uplifts 20th Anniversary Gala this coming March AND putting the special edition book together as well. The book will have my photos of a group of homeless men and women here in Kansas City and it will also have their stories written by my wife Patti.

This has been an ambitious project. It was started last spring and we could easily spent two years working on it before it would be ready but because of the Gala March 31st we had a deadline. It was difficult keeping all the facts straight working so quickly. I’ve met some amazing people both at Uplift and on the street. As we have been following this group, one has gotten sober and on medication. He also has all his ID now and is working toward section 8 housing. A success. Another fellow was arrested for murder and awaits trial, Another moved out of the city to where his daughter lives. He found her on Facebook. Another fellow had an accident and passed away. It has been quite a ride and I’m so very glad Uplift gave me the chance to do this.

I will share a few photos taken while working on this but I can’t release any of the people shots. After March of 2011 I will have them available for sale.

Statue #1

A new rage or maybe a reaction to digital cameras is the rise of lomography. I really like the idea. The notion is to create an image using low tech means. A lot of folks use the toy camera called the Holga but I have a Diana F+ that my wife got me for Christmas.

You load film into these toy cameras, tape them up to reduce light leaks and shoot away. Like anything in art, this is just a tool that is a means to an end. One of my favorite lomo cameras is the iPhone. With the addition of a few apps and the fact the camera itself is pretty week you have a ready to go lomo camera on you at all times. You can get into “the look” of a lomo photo but it has to be more than that. Like anything in art there must be purpose and intent. One of the best photos I’ve done is a shot of my daughter Elizabeth at about age 5 at the Cape Cod National Seashore. I created a large mural and it was all done by using a cheap throw away camera. It isn’t the tool it’s the artist.

Personally I tend to capture an image at the highest quality level possible. Then I spend a lot of time degrading the image until it becomes what I saw when I took the photograph. I like a lot of options and using toy cameras limit your options. One thing they do is hold a bit of seridipitus nature. You never really know what you will get with a lomo camera.

I also have a lovely pin hole camera that is a work of art in itself. This photo today is one of many I’m working on. I have created lots of versions of this photo and the fun is searching for that exact image that you saw when it was created.

Related Articles

• The Lomography Gallery Store (harrys-travel.com)

Patti & Wood

I know I will offend some people but today I shut off my Flicker account. I know a lot of people use it but it has become chaotic and filled with frauds.

Let me tell you what I’m interested in. ART!

I am not interested in “pretty” pictures. To create art you must be curious. You need to listen and look at the changing world around you. You have to try to keep up on current events, the pop culture and sociological change where when all hell is breaking loose and why. Artist point the way not follow along hoping to get that great sunset shot.

I’m not talking to pros shooting  commercial, wedding and the like.  Nor am I talking about our journalistic brothers. Journalism takes a great amount of skill to pull off.

For me to make a photograph I am trying to create an emotional and evocative statement. Some are whimsical many are not. On this wonderful Thanksgiving day I am blessed to be surrounds by many of my large family. Talk and listen. Learn. I know the papers stink today and you can’t believe what is on the net so keeping up on the truth is hard but one truth I know for certain is that LOVE is at the core of who we are. To give it over for money, power and greed will only kill you in the end.

Remember LOVE. The next time you go out to shoot pictures think about LOVE.

Happy Thanksgiving

Kids

Currently I’m finishing up the Uplift Project. I hope to have a galley of the book in my hands next month. Then I will select the 17 show prints and have them printed. I also want to create hand-made folios of the 17 photographs. Crafts are not my strong suit but I’ll give it a shot. I love the concept.

Next I’m finishing up the next Robin Randle story. It has been really fun getting to know her and the people associated with her. I find writing prose vs. screenplays really allows a lot more exploration and room to move around in. This next segment is going to get tough on poor Robin. She’s paying her dues for something she shouldn’t have done. But you tell me, if you were in a coma and saw a way out of it wouldn’t you take it? I don’t think anyone can blame her but a few very nasty things do and they want to teach her a lesson.

This second installment is called “Between Darkness and Wonder.” I’m on the last part so I hope to have it finished in the next couple of days in between my kids coming home for a short break and Thanksgiving. Never let a holiday spoil a good day at work! I don’t think I know how to rest any more.

I want to get out and shoot some pictures. Its been too long. Now that most of the leaves are down I have some ideas I want to play with. Also I’m trying to pitch a course to Benedictine College called ‘from pinhole to Holga.’ As I keep working on the class content I’m getting really excited about it. I’m using two great books for source material and I think I will ask for them to be the text books for the class. One is called “The Pinhole Camera,” by Brian J. Krummell and the other one is “Plastic Cameras Toying with Creativity,” by Michelle Bates. The entire field of Lomography is fascinating and truly a great place to explore. Low tech can be really good if you bring artistic vision to it. That’s what the thrust of the course will be. Creating art regardless the tools. It is so much about what is going on in your head. I wish I could figure that out! I’m playing around with a couple of other class concepts. I’ll keep you posted. I want to be a force to bring sanity to photography. Today everyone is an instant Ansel Adams sans the art training and sensibility.

I have a really nice pinhole camera my wife bought me for Christmas last year and I think now is a good time to haul it out with my tripod and start shooting. I gave my Holga away to my daughter Kathleen so I need to replace it but I’m thinking about this a lot. I know, a toy is a toy but still there are considerations even with toy cameras.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and eat too much but keep the antacid tablets close.