Untitled 4, McMinnville Spring '22
Hello!
I have another post. It is composed of all new photos. If you want every new post and an occasional old one that’s really good to be delivered straight to your email, sign up over to the left or at the very bottom of the post! Thanks!
In this series I experiment with trying to approximate memories and encourage narrative, using sequencing and pairing to suggest a potential narrative. Or not. It’s in the eyes, or mind, of the viewer. To be completely honest, I purely put these photos together in an intuitive and aesthetic manner, not with a specific narrative, memory, or truth in mind. I do think I was somewhat successful in creating the atmosphere, or feeling, of memory perhaps. A bit flat, grainy, and out of context. Could be warm, soft, and colorful, or cool, dark, and hazy. But that’s just what I think. What do you think? What narrative speaks to you?
I also figured out how to make it so you can comment. Please do if you feel so inclined. I would really like to know what, you, the viewer sees, and what narrative plays through your head. No pressure though, now back to the art.
(tip: click on the image to see full size!)
Presence. Untitled 4, 2022
This one is probably my favorite of the two. It feels the most balanced, both dark, and light, empty, and full. I like the feeling that the background image brings, with the leaf-filtered evening light glowing against the twisting form of the tree. It grounds the other two photos in their contrast. The bottom image is shadowy, the only light is warm but the image is cold in nature. Contrasting with a cool blue and sharp form of the top image, that is somehow much softer and inviting. The overall temperature of the light in this spread is warm, but it possesses a nuanced contrast.
This spread is a bit more neutral to me. The background sets a darker and hazy tone. The trees cool, lost in gray light. The right image is one of my favorites from all of Untitled 4. I just really love the balance of color and light in the composition. The right photo feels more memory-ish. The softer colors, warm light, and graininess are very a bit dream-like to me. Reminds me of some photos from Robert Adams’ American Silence book in composition and subject, but contrasts wholly in colors and editing, which affect the impact so much.
Slipping By. Untitled 4, 2022
I have really enjoyed the challenge of stepping out of my comfort zone to try and pair these images in a spread and try to encourage narrative through the entire process. I was, once again, inspired by my favorite contemporary photographer, Todd Hido. I recently watched a presentation and discussion he gave at the School of Visual Arts in New York called ‘Working in the Vicinity of Narrative‘. It was an hour 45, but was very good and very much work the long watch. He walked through much of his artistic career, and I came away with lots of thoughts to chew on and inspiration to direct.
One thing that impacted me greatly was the nature of narrative and ambiguity in photography (or just art). If you are telling your viewer how to interpret or direct the narrative in photography, it is often less impactful. This doesn’t necessarily look the same in all types of photography or art though. I guess I am not really sure how it looks yet, but I am learning. I do know, though, that when you are encouraged to create your own beginning and conclusion to a narrative incepted by the piece and not get handed a whole story, neatly packaged, it is much more powerful in its ability to do what art is so good at: revealing and speaking truths. Talking about truths, Todd also spoke on the relationship between fiction and truth and how they often are far more complimentary of each other than many people realize. Some of the most important lessons are told through fictional narratives. They can be no less truthful than a journalist’s photography or a historical record, they are just fictional. The line between created reality and the real world blurs a bit here. I believe this can be seen well in music and poetry, both using words and/or sound to construct a narrative or image or emotion. They are not real like a documentary or nonfiction literature, but they often can describe our world, reality, far better. In conclusion, I guess I will say that it sure seems that the more fundamental the art is, the more universally it connects, fiction or not.
Okay, enough philosophy! Here are the individual images of the spreads and a few more from the series and shoot. I will add a few words on the technical side of this series, as well as process, alongside the gallery explaining my editing and the slight shift in style that can be seen in this series compared to earlier work. They are in chronological order of time captured. Don’t forget to click on them to slide through the full-size images.
This was my first time shooting with intention during the day, and not dusk or night since I got here. I purposely set out with my camera to capture something. Not sure what, but something. This was after listening to part of the presentation mentioned above. I did what I always do when I shoot, especially at night, and just observe. Look for things that speak to me as a good photograph. Shooting with intuition, not thinking. But still with intention. It seems to work in the day to… Once I got the photos onto the computer, I once again edited most of these in pairs but still tried to maintain continuity to the series. The standouts are -1, -2, and -8. I included them because I think that, while they have aesthetic and editing differences, they complement the overall feel of the series. And while they aren’t sequenced in a certain order, those photos would deliver a mood, and break from the rest of the images, much like an interlude. I ended up using a lot of grain and desaturation to soften the colors and textures, trying to add to the dream, memory feel. I did want them to feel a bit flat, with color being the main driver of depth.
I do think that -10 and -12 use light and shadow, and perspective to add depth more than the rest of the photos. Those are probably my favorite images if they were in a vacuum. I believe that the flat, soft colors and the far-off feeling lines are the things that power much of the feel. I definitely want to experiment with that moving forward. Next project/post, since this is already super detailed and long, I want to explore the role of influences on my photography and process. I am really curious to learn more about that…
Lastly, of course, the contact sheets. They may be a bit enlightening to the process of shooting with intuition, a sort of visual notetaking. They also reveal how dramatic some of the edits are compared to some of my photography, especially my ski or other ‘outdoor’ photos.
Wow! If you made it all the way down here, good job! Thanks so much for reading all of that. I hope you didn’t fall asleep in the middle there. No worries if you did though. Well, the bonus is some links to explore more! I highly recommend the presentation video if you can just throw it on in the background while doing something mindless like Excel or dishes… Or just watch it if you have the time. Todd’s work is incredible, House Hunting is likely the single biggest inspiration for most of my photography outside of skiing and ‘outdoors’. American Silence is also quite an amazing collection that is an integral part of American photography.
