Recent Photography

Photographically speaking, this has been a busy month.

 

Streetfoto San Francisco

For the second year, Ken Walton did another job of organizing Streetfoto San Francisco, a weeklong, multi venue festival of street photography that included workshops, contests, photowalks, lectures, and other activities. I wasn’t chosen as a contest finalist again this year, but I viewed the exhibits, and attended a few presentations, and to my eye, Ken has refined the event, and hit another home run. The speakers that I saw were engaging, and there was a peppy three person panel who did a “speed dating” critique of projected images, that was brutal in its criticism, but stimulating and thought provoking just the same.

 

I am looking forward to next year’s event.

 

http://streetfoto.org/

Oakland Museum of California

I have always had a soft spot for local, or regional museums, and The Oakland Museum of California* is no exception. They are currently exhibiting “Dorthea Lange: The Politics of Seeing”, a powerful and moving exhibit that presents the work of this pioneering 20th Century photographer. Her work during the Great Depression is pretty well known, and “Migrant Mother has been on everything from postage stamps to T shirts.

Lange’s social conscience didn’t stop when the Depression ended.. After the Japanese Bombing of Pearl Harbor, the US Government targeted people of Japanese (along with others) descent, rounded them up, and put them into Internment Camps, or “Relocation Camps”.

Dorthea Lange was there, documenting this injustice, and the photos present another sad chapter in our County’s history. In display, there are documents and pictures that tell of grade school children who recited the Pledge of Allegiance to the US, and were then sent off to the Camps. The irony of this dehumanization is heartbreaking.

 

As I read the daily news, I can’t help thinking about how reactionary we are getting here in 2017.

 

 

Yesterday, on what was forecast to be the hottest day of the year so far, we went into San Francisco to visit Pier 24**.

How hot was it?                                                                                                                                        Well, as we left the BART subway station, we followed this guy across The Embarcadero to The Ferry Building, the centerpiece of the row of Piers that make up San Francisco’s Historic Waterfront-

He must have used a bucket of sunscreen.

 

The Pier 24 show, titled “Grain of the Present”, exhibited some of the mid (20th) Century photographers whose work was descriptive of the world as they saw it-neither Documentary nor Journalism, but more expressionistic in nature.  The show was complemented by a handful of contemporary photogs who continue working in this style.

 

Alec Soth

   

 

    

http://alecsoth.com/photography/

 

Vanessa Winship

    

 

http://www.vanessawinship.com/projects.php

 

Latoya Ruby Frazier

 

http://www.latoyarubyfrazier.com/

 

 

For notetaking purposes, I took some snaps of both the Lange and Pier 24 exhibits with my phone- None of these images are mine (except the naked guy), and  I don’t mean for them to be anything more than visual reminders.

 

 

 

*http://museumca.org/

**http://pier24.org/

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Focus is Overrated

The last Sunday in April was Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day.

Like everything else, pinhole photography sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t, and most of the results can be mediocre (including my own).

I am attracted to alternative photography, not because of my contrarian nature, but because it is about experimentation, and the unpredictability of experimentation is vital to what we do. In order to progress, you’ve gotta try stuff.

When shooting film, there was always an element of unpredictability. Even if you were a seasoned photographer who carefully composed your shot in the viewfinder, there was still an element of serendipity in every exposure. Maybe less so in the climate controlled studio, but this is certainly true out in the real world, with all of its moving parts.

Diane Arbus is said to have commented, “I never have taken a picture I’ve intended to. They’re always better or worse”.

I probably haven’t shot film for close to 10 years, but on the last Sunday in April I happened to have a borrowed camera with film, so I bought body caps for the film and digital cameras, and made a couple of pinhole lenses.

There are calculations for this sort of thing, and someday it might be fun to sit down and calculate aperture and focal length, but the experimentation is part of the fun-especially with digital, since it doesn’t cost anything to make the exposure (there is also that instant gratification thing).

Pinhole Day is for everybody, as long as your image is lensless  there are no limitations or restrictions (maybe pinhole porn wouldn’t be appropriate, but….).

 

Here are a few of the shots from that day, they are mostly unsatisfying,

Black and White film

Black and White film

Black and White film

Color print film

Color print film

Color print film

Digital

Digital

Digital

 

but the one I submitted to WWPPD is kind of fun-

Digital

 

WWPPD is not about any one participant, it is sort of an instant community of enthusiasts, and I think the best way to enjoy the site is to just go to the site, and start scrolling-

http://pinholeday.org/gallery/2017/index.php?page=1

 

 

 

 

Inching along

I used to do a fair amount of macro photography. I have always had a fascination with lenses and magnification, and for a long time I dabbled in close up work.

I saw this critter inching along (inchworm?), and decided to give it a try.

I think it came out OK.