Intersections Between Language and Photography

at the close of the semester, after feedback from h, this is where i find myself–or perhaps i was here all along but only just realized it after examining the lack of cohesion in my portfolio coupled with the diversity of its subject matter.

i’m looking. always looking. but my attention span, my interest in any given subject, falters after so many shutter releases. see, it’s all been done before. and innovation, uniquity, well that’s what we’re all after. isn’t it? us self-proclaimed artists, anyway.

accordingly, inevitably, and unavoidably i’ve entered a state of visual apathy. in realizing this, i’ve stumbled across a project idea: Visual Apathy

i intend to define it visually.

my regards, h, for all the inspiration.

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Ante

Fore

Mykal: Before

Mykal: After

This set of before and after images is intended to represent editing abilities using CS4 and CS5 beta (by invitation from ADOBE via NAPP).

The content aware features in CS5 are remarkable, reducing time spent removing unwanted elements in a photograph as seen in the landscapes above. I’ve successfully removed entire trees from several of the waterfall shots.

CS4 was used on the images of Mykal to remove the facial scarring/imperfections seen in the before picture. Much of the technique I use in portrait editing was learned from independent study using the “Photoshop World Playbook” –particularly Katrin Eismann’s techniques,”Skin” by Lee Varis, and several copies of Photoshop User and Digital Photo Pro. I do recommend attending the Photoshop World Conference–extremely valuable learning opportunity!

Overall, I’ve achieved a solid skill set regarding portrait retouching. Still working through some issues surrounding candid, landscape (rural & urban), and street photography. Primary area of concern? Achieving correct exposure at the time of capture–specifically finding the element in the image that represents 18% grey when I can’t find my grey card (frequent occurrence). Nothing to do, but shoot until I have a solid understanding of correct metering without an additional (handheld) light meter.

Good source of info on metering:

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-metering.htm

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i reviewed the prints I’ve made thus far. cohesive for the most part, with an occasional interloper upsetting what appears to be a leaning towards landscape. obviously, i need multiple portfolios to cover the different styles/categories–unless i consider the portraits as epithelial landscapes… or, maybe, there’s an idea.

crap! now i’m confused.

right.

after reviewing my research proposal (for history of photography) h made a comment regarding my choice of subject–something along the lines of it’s (the proposal) vague and rather philosophical. it is vague. i’m fleshing the idea out, or at least i was attempting to. now i’m hung up on, “it’s rather philosophical” (higgs). it is philosophical. after reading hirsch, it seems to me the entire history and evolution of photography and photographic processes is explained by philosophy.

but more than that, it is quite evident that the driving force behind photographic movements–photo secession, pictorialism, positivism, realism, spiritualism, i-need-a new-adjective-to-stand-out-from-the-crowdism–is vagary. What better way to define vagary than a series of rambling, philosophical discourses on why something evolved the way it did.

vagary as defined by dictionary.com:

the notion of meaning, outside and out of reach of photography–the meaning of meaning itself–is seductively subjective and viciously vague. to the point i believe meaning escapes concrete definition and, more importantly, any notion of absoluteness. these motions and movements in art are reducible to the most basest human motivation. right now i’m torn; is immortality or greed (however altruistic it may be) that underlying element?

insert complexity. and maybe irony. for, where immortality is concerned, the artist achieves this most notably through the continuation of their name. year after decade. but what is that name, really? insert signifier and signified and a barthes sized scoop of semiotics. without a likeness, be it a painted or photographed portrait, artistic immortality is nothing less than the ordering of symbols (letters) whose meaning is only as absolute as that long dead artist.

is it possible to grant one artistic immortality without their having reached for it? as my thoughts are at this time, i believe a sort of altruistic greed coupled with a need for self-expression that rises above all other self-expressers is the underlying element behind artistic movement.

please feel free to consider this an abstract expression in that I have reduced something to the point of recognizable simplicity, as have so many before me.

i’m off to contemplate what barthes meant when he said, “the bastard form of mass culture is humiliated repetition… always new books, new programs, new films, news items, but always the same meaning.”

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Hyacinth in 2 channels

Two days–on and off–of thrashing around in photoshop trying to figure out how to save this image as a jpg (after deleting all channels except cyan and black). I’ve tried split-toning and selective color to “duplicate”  color–with no success. The hue on the fingers is challenging to match outside of cmyk profile.

The image isn’t stellar, but I like it. And I want to use it.

Work on the portfolio? I’m realizing how unorganized my digital filing system is. Tracking down images is time consuming, with more time currently spent organizing…blech!

I hate the photograph today. I hate the photographic image, bound as it is to today by the flat dimension of something past; something that is no more; something that lingers, constantly reinserting itself as a visual reminder of precisely what is lost to/in/by time. Christ our existence is tragic! And that tragedy, in this moment, is wrenching. And heavy. I wonder the weight of a photograph, the heaviness I can barely feel in the palm of my hand?

A visual presence

Do I burden the photograph with emotion?

Or is it that emotion is burdened by the additional weight of the image?

Indeed, the implications of the photograph are exhaustive.

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