Shooting Slump

I finally feel like I'm making a move to get out of my shooting slump. I've got film, I'm surrounded by kids every day, there's nice light in the art building. So I'm starting to finally shoot once again, and will ask questions later. "Eighty percent of success is showing up" -Woody Allen. I add "with a camera".

Cats! (again)

I know, I know- I don't post often, and when I do it's about cats. I should retitle this blog and look for advertisers. I can't help it...life out here in the country is slow, and our cats are a good portion of our entertainment. We've been letting Slim and JP out for "supervised" walks, which quickly turn into chases out into the huge field behind our house.

Bill and Kay's new cat Leon, who must have some street cat in him judging by his skills with a piece of string.

Three Days in Berkeley

I flew out to Berkeley to photograph Ms. Waters. Weather disrupted my flight, and I ended up travelling all day. In addition, the airlines misplaced my luggage (both there and back). But it was all worth it to spend several days with good friends, and to meet an icon. Here is Doug in the hotel.
Adam
Adam and I drove up on one day to the Berkeley hills and enjoyed the fog and rain.
We did a bit of searching for the right light. Some pictures were made indoors and out. I'm looking forward to seeing them all. I only made a few images with the smaller camera, mostly of Adam in the light. Most of the time i was busy trying to make things work with the 8x10 camera. Having Adam there was so great- I'd talk with Alice, compose, and then say "ready" and Adam would take a reading, stop down the lens, and hand me the film.
We were rewarded with amazing food- oysters, fresh salad with baked goat cheese, braised pork, rabbit, pasta with pesto.

Pear gelato with pomegranite and almond tuiles.

Vanilla Ice Cream "affogato"...drowned in espresso

Percival Island Baptism

Reading Material

comic by Chris Ware

Naples/ Torino

This is a Banksy I found in Naples

And a sweet interlude in Turin

Shout Outs

I just received a book from an artist/writer named Jungu Yoon who just published "Spirituality in Contemporary Art: The Idea of the Numinous".

He asked me last year if he could include an image of Corey in front of a Yves-Klein piece.

Numinous:

–adjective

1.

of, pertaining to, or like a numen; spiritual or supernatural.

2.

surpassing comprehension or understanding; mysterious:that element in artistic expression that remains numinous.

3.

arousing one's elevated feelings of duty, honor, loyalty, etc.:a benevolent and numinous paternity.

This morning I came across Bill's work from Carrara on Lenscratch

Aline Smithson of Lenscratch writes:

"I recently stopped by Hous Projects in Los Angeles, to see the terrific exhibition by William Wylie,Carrara. The exhibition runs until November 11th. "

Wylie began his photographic exploration of Carrara in 2000. Over the next six years he returned annually aided by support from a Guggenheim Fellowship (2005) and two Visiting Artist Residences at The American Academy in Rome. The project enabled him to combine his interest in the natural world and industry with his poetic sense of light and shadow. The pigment prints of Carrara’s marble blocks capture gorgeous spectrums of black, white, and grey. Wylie’s tone and structure work in perfect equilibrium.

His color portraits of Carrara’s stonecutters (known as cavatori) elucidate telling compositional elements through hue. Mountain light illuminates the fine marble dust covering the quarry workers; their clothes, hair, fingernails, and equipment all radiate a soft glow that physically ties them to the mine. Wylie’s awareness of structure informs his portraits but does not detract from the natural grace of his subjects. In these images, he uses all his skills to create a unified continuum of person and place.

And last month Hippolyte Bayard wrote a post on Adam's work.

View from the Window at Le Gras, 1826

"Sometimes there’s a picture to be made. But more often I spend hours just looking, trying to obtain position. I use a very inconvenient camera, and that helps meet the pace of the place(s). The shadow cast by the clarity of these pictures is clouded by a million reluctant conditions".- Adam Schreiber

Hippolyte Bayard writes:

I felt instant love for Adam Schreiber's photographs, his catalogue of hidden objects which feels to me like the funny version of Taryn Simon's An America Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar.

Among the many gems I would pick the View from the Window at Le Gras by Nicéphore Niépce (aka the so-called "first photograph ever"), shown as some alien mystery object locked inside an Area 51.