This has been a very fascinating project. It won’t be presented until March 2011 but the preparation is ongoing right now. Once I get the photos edited the way I want them I will print them no smaller that 20×24. I think larger. I am thinking that the B&W photos may be done on silver gelatin and the color printed with inkjet technology. The way I’m leaning is toward making them like competition prints. That means they will be mounted on a mat board or other material to a specific thickness then hangers added to the back.

I like the idea of the photographs not being in frames and mats and all that. When people buy them they will just reframe them anyway. This way there is no framing treatment competition going on with the piece. For a show I did during my college days I mounted all the prints and put them between two pieces of glass with a hangar. I’ve not done that since so I think minimalist is the way I’m going.

To get a preview and help out if you wish click HERE.

Well, it has been awhile since I have updated this blog and for that I’m sorry. I have been deeply involved in a book and photo project called Uplift for the Uplift Organization. My wife is writing and we are trying to capture the stories of the homeless in Kansas City. I want to put a face on this issue. We have been making great progress. This project will commemorate Uplift’s 20th anniversary and take place sometime in March of 2011. The location will be Cafe Trio. That may seem like a long time from now but not to me. I plan a full photo exhibition with a book to go with it and small portfolios too. All will be for sale to benefit Project Uplifit.

From all this my wife and I will seek publication of a broader book.  I’m the kind of person who loves to run over and show you my latest picture but in this case no one will see them except for Patti and me as we work on this project. I did include here a photo of one of the Uplift vans. To learn more about Uplift click HERE.

Okay, I’ve been missing in action.  Posts weeks apart.

Wood and I are writing a book.  It is a celebration of twenty years of Project Uplift’s outreach to the community of the homeless in Kansas City.  It is something that we are both passionate about.  Wood is taking the photographs and I am sitting down with the homeless and writing the narrative that comes out of that time spent.  We have met some great people and shattered just about every stereotype we began this project with.  I originally thought I could write the narrative of the book and then condense some of it here on the blog.  It’s not working.  I can’t do that.  I don’t now how.  It’s a skill I don’t have.  There is no condensing.  I have immersed myself in this project, and all of it is important.  Excerpts wouldn’t do the people or the lifestyle justice.

This is a steep learning curve for me.  Four Ordinary Women is only one-fourth mine.  This is all of me on the page.  The time I am spending with these new friends of mine has some days emotionally wrecked me.  I have cried.  I have altered my perceptions.  I know how blessed I am.  Oh, I always knew I was blessed, but now I experience that feeling in a very different way.  I know how sometimes shallow my life is.  I have had to face myself in this writing.  Challenge a lot of my beliefs.  About justice, about the disparity we have in this country between the haves and the have nots. And sometimes that is difficult.  Okay, mostof the time that is difficult.

I now know that handing a homeless person a stryrofoam plate of food and a pair of socks is very different than sitting down in their camp and hearing about how their lives led to life on the street.  To see where they sleep, cook, eat, where their teeth chatter from the cruelty of winter, and where they live when the mosquitoes, thousands of them, hunt for their food. I am in their shoes.

These men, these women trust me.  Trust me to tell their story with dignity and honesty.  I am trying very hard to live up to that and making sure that this story is their legacy.  For many of them, it will be their only legacy.

Spending time thinking about how the world effects your life is maybe the most important of these. To learn to allow yourself to be vulnerable to these emotions may be hard but a photo like any other form of art is a reflection of the world mixed in with your paradigm.

Also looking at as much work by others as you can is very important. I’m not talking about the Flickr what a bees but truly talented photographers both of the past and present. There are several excellent magazines that contain compelling photographs and I mean that even if you don’t like them. Some I would recommend are PDN, Photo Eye, Aperture, Lenswork, B&W, and Silvershotz. These are just a few. Most are available at your local Border’s or Barnes and Noble or online. Some have extended content on their websites and offer contest opportunities.

Spending time with these publications can spark a lot of thinking and push you to try new things even though they may be very difficult to accomplish. Most of us fine art photographers have other “day jobs” and that does impact our growth but even during that time you can work on your seeing. I’m sure that you already have plenty of books on the how to do things. Work flow, Photoshop, Lightroom, etc so now look for books on how to look for photographs. How to see. Some of these books can cover the standard “rules” of how to shoot a picture but they will also force you to look past the rules.

I fully agree you must understand the rules before you break them. In some cases looking through books of great painters is very helpful.

When you are standing with your camera thinking there’s nothing to shoot here, STOP. Move into a more Zen like state and absorb your surroundings. Feel them and build an emotional bond. Open your eyes and look very carefully. The photo is there. Let your emotions guide you.

Many times I go out to take a specific photo and to look at what I’m doing one would think I was nuts but the truth is I “see” something more. I have a concept in my mind of what I want the photograph to be when it is finished with all the post processing. I relate to the emotional elements I’m trying to portray. Like a poem.

What I shot.                                                 What I saw.

I am exploring the dark nature of our minds and how the everyday can suddenly take on a look that evokes fear, terror or unease. There is so much of this in the journalistic photographs we see everyday. To think that this fear and unknowing surrounds us all the time can be a very disturbing thought.

Forest Path

The photos taken with these camera litter draws.  Travel photos, parties or other special occasions.  Today as an artist I try to recreate the look of some of these camera much the same way people use the Holga camera.  But then along came digital cameras.  It took years to develop them into the machines of today and now with price points dropping almost anyone who wants a camera can pick up a Digital SLR and bingo they are a photographer.  Add to that programs like Photoshop Elements and you can act like a pro.

There is just one problem.  Training.  Learning about Art.  Seeking valid critiques of your work.  You see a real photographer studies and learns all he(she) can about the ART of image creation.  The image could be a drawing or a print; maybe an etching. The principles are all the same. You must learn the rules before you break them. When you break them there needs to be a good answer to the question “Why?”

Then the new camera owner assails us with his wonderful images on Flickr or some other image sharing site and claims to be able to comment and critique other peoples work. What they don’t know is those of us who have spent a lifetime in study and practice don’t really care what they have to say and; really your photos are so mundane.

I personally push the limits when I work.  I search for meaning and emotion. I want my image to be more than “just a photograph.” I may spend two hours working on an image in my digital darkroom then print it and pin it up on the wall and look at it for several days. They I learn what wrong and go at it again to get the final results I’m looking for.

Here is my advice to those of you who have just gotten home with that new digital SLR.  First off don’t spend too much on the camera. I have done some amazing photos with the cheapest cameras.  Second don’t buy Photoshop. Instead get Photoshop Elements. It will have all you need. Third, organize your images. Think hard about work flow so you develop a consistent process and image storage system.

Fourth, READ. One great book is “VisionMongers: Making a Life and a Living in Photography.” Click HERE for a good book on workflow. Locate a local photo club. In Kansas City it might be Digital Dimensions of Kansas City. Take some art classes. I’d do an art appreciation class then maybe even a drawing class. You have to “learn” how to see and how to process the world differently than you do right now.

Fifth, learn your camera and your software. For the software you may only need to know 20% of how it works to use it for the kind of images you create but learn it well. You have to understand white balance, exposure control, noise reduction, histograms, curves, and how not to create a cliché.

And for God’s sake don’t get on Flickr and tell me what I’m doing wrong. Instead react emotionally to the photos and tell me what they mean to you. That tells me so much more than comments like, “you need to crop tighter.” You may not have a clue as to why I cropped the way I did but there is a reason.

Remember, photography is very difficult to do well.

The White Door

This white door is located on a building at the West Bottoms in Kansas City, Missouri.  I doubt very much that it still exist as rapidly as things are being torn down in that part of town.

I was told not long ago that some of my photographs are like a Rorschach test.  That if you look at them long enough you will begin to find images of other things.  I really like that idea.  When I see old doors like this that’s how they impress me.  They work as symbols to another place and time.  That is why I process the photos the way I do.

The last thing I’m looking for is a clean crisp image of an aged door.  I’m looking at a symbol of the past.  An object that could tell many stories and with the degradation of the image and my attempt to create the door as I see it I hope that it will bring stories out of your mind.

I find this kind of work very satisfying.  Needless to say I love beautiful sharp and clear images as well and love to produce them when I can but I find myself floating back to this type of image most of the time.  High contrast, distressed layers and a level of abstractness that causes the viewer to interact on a more personal and emotional level.

With the advent of Photoshop and all the “toys” you have at your disposal I think you have to be very careful not to over do this.  I find I end up doing several versions of a photograph before I see what I’m looking for.  It is a laborious process and takes a lot of time to think through the problem but when I’m done I feel I have done more that just create a photo.  I look at it as a work of art with purpose and meaning.