500th post on this blog

by Posted in Thoughts Leave a comment

This is the 500th post since I started this blog back in 2011. At that time I didn’t really have a clear idea of what I wanted to do with it: “it seemed like a good idea at the time”. I’d been running blogs as part of my work for some time so it seemed reasonable to have a personal blog. Probably because I didn’t really know what I wanted to do I updated the blog infrequently.

After I retired in April 2012 things started to pick up. After a moratorium of a number of years I had started to get interested in “all things photographic” in 2010. I say “all things photographic” rather than “photography” because it wasn’t just the taking of pictures that interested me. I also started to collect old cameras; study the history of photography; read about famous photographers etc. As my interest in photography took off – so did the blog.

By the end of 2012 I had come to some conclusions regarding why I was using the blog. The main reason was to keep me taking photographs. I’d spoken to other photographers and they had all recommeded getting out frequently and taking lots of photos. My problem was that I am fundamentally lazy. Given a choice between lying comfortably in bed on a cold day and getting up early to go and take pictures I’d tend to chose the former. I’d hoped that maintaining the blog would help me get past this. And it has. I now get out more and take many more pictures than I had before.

It’s also helped me clarify what I like to take pictures of. I’d been taking pictures of all kinds of things: people; landscapes; still life etc. Gradually as I used the blog I came to understand that what I really like is taking pictures of old things: primarily buildings. And if they’re old, creaky and falling apart at the seams then so much the better. I like nothing more than finding an old building; taking some pictures of it; then doing some research on its background and history and finally posting the lot to the blog.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m just feeding the blog. Am I taking pictures just so that I can keep the blog up to date – i.e. am I just taking pictures for the sake of it rather than thinking through why I’m taking the picture? I also enjoy the post production part and from time to time wonder if I’m more of an ‘editor’ than I am a ‘photographer’. Am I just taking snapshots and then slightly improving them in post-production? Maybe time will tell.

For the moment I’m enjoying maintaining this blog and intend to continue. I’m largely doing it for myself. I don’t check to see who is reading it (if anyone). I’ve achieved my primary purpose and will continue at least until the fun goes out of it.

An In-Depth History of Group f.64

by Posted in Photographers, Photography Leave a comment

“Bone and Sky.” Circa 1932. Willard Van Dyke, Courtesy of Murray Van Dyke via The New York Times ‘Lens’

In 1967, a 20-year-old photography student named Mary Street Alinder went to the University of Oregon for a workshop featuring several of her idols, four of the original members of the famed Group f.64: Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Brett Weston and Willard Van Dyke. The experience changed her life, starting with her working for Adams for the last few years of his. She was a co-author of the best-selling “Ansel Adams: An Autobiography,” and later wrote a biography, which has just been re-released. In the process she got to know members of Group f.64 and entwined herself with photographic history.

Fittingly, she just published “Group f.64,” the first comprehensive history of the movement. The project took 16 years, which is twice as long as Group f.64 existed. But the result is a thoroughly researched book that investigates the founding and life cycle of one of the most famous collectives in the history of photography. As its members battled the Great Depression while grappling with the evolving role of photography in society, it seems an apt story to tell in 2014.

via An In-Depth History of Group f.64 – NYTimes.com.

Questions For Discussion

by Posted in Humour Leave a comment

From Blake Andrews blog. Gave me a laugh. I particularly liked numbers 6 and 7:

6. Were you at all put off by the mural-sized piece immediately beyond the entrance depicting a rusty sewing needle penetrating a drop of blood on white background, labeled Untitled #17 (For The Forgotten Seamstress) ?

7. According to the photographer’s artist statement, the show was intended to "transmediate a cross-pollination of historical imagery including personal scrapbooks and obscure FSA outtakes collaged with nonconsensual portraiture, exploring their currency while challenging the dominant patriarchy, but they could also be considered a response to terrorist reportage." Do you think the photographer achieved this? If not, do you think this objective could be achieved by hanging the images slightly lower on the wall

via Questions For Discussion.

Christmas Lion

by Posted in Things Leave a comment
Christmas Lion-1

Spotted while walking around the lake. One of our neighbors had decorated some of their stone (or maybe concrete) lions (there’s a second one on the other side of their driveway). He/she doesn’t seem very happy to be “dressed up” in this way.