Annie Leibovitz: Life through a Lens

For our photography movie this week, I chose "Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens," a 2007 biography.  Partly I chose it because her photographs have become so iconic and I wanted to know more about her, and partly because I know you've been learning about portrait photography and I thought it might be relevant to that.  I buy the "Hollywood" issue of Vanity Fair magazine each year because it always features a big spread of elaborately staged celebrity photographs by her  that I find fascinating.  Had you heard of her?  Is she someone who is known more in the US, I wonder?

I was struck that she is another photographer from San Francisco (I didn't know that, nor did I know that Rolling Stone magazine started in SF in the 1960's which of course makes perfect sense).  And I found it interesting to hear her describe her progression from someone who just picked up a camera and started taking "reportage" style photographs and evolved into a thoughtful, stylized portrait photographer.  I also liked seeing that she seemed so mobile with her camera -- sure, there were assistants and lights and reflectors, but it really seemed about her and her camera more than any complicated equipment.

The movie was intended to be about her life, of course, but I was wishing there were a bit more info about the photography itself.  She talked about how she met a friend, Bea somebody, who taught her about editing her photos and I wished she'd talked more about that process and what made her hone in on one over another.  I did like hearing her talk about how she developed the concept of setting up a photograph to visually illustrate more about the person and his/her work.  It seems obvious, now, but I suppose her doing that at the time was new and innovative.  And the depth of how she does it is always intriguing to me (which, I guess, is why I go out of my way to find that Vanity Fair issue each year.)   

As the film showed various photographs, I was struck by how many I recognized and how many are part of the instantly identifiable images of certain celebrities.  Whoopi Goldberg in the milk bath.  Demi Moore's pregnant nude magazine cover.  This one of Meryl Streep.

I was intrigued at how baldly she photographed her partner, Susan Sontag, and her father when they were ill and dying. The idea of photographing during such intimate, raw moments is one that feels uncomfortable to me -- too intrusive, too private, I suppose -- yet true and touching and important at the same time. I guess it's reflective of how a photographer sees and experiences everything through a camera. 

 At any rate, I was glad to have seen this and to learn more about this interesting woman. I'll be interested to hear what you think of it.

Proof

Dear Diane,

I was going to apologise for picking this week's film but I guess the plan is to watch them all at some stage so I guess I am off the hook for inflicting boredom on you. Or, maybe you loved it and watched it three times in succession. (But seeing as we are so much alike, I am guessing not!)

For readers benefit this week I picked the 1991 Australian film Proof with Russell Crowe

It is a tale of a blind man who takes photographs because he seems them as proof that what people are telling him about his surroundings is actually true. Of course it turns out that only works if, firstly the describer tells the truth and secondly that the blind man believes what the describer is saying when they do tell the truth. As a film is was described as a black comedy and I can recall one particularly comedic moment but generally, I thought dark and slow. Just slow and strangely stiff characters. Faces that showed no moment and so no emotion.

The concept of photography as truth is kind of interesting to me though. I think you will recall that my Dad was a Police photographer so the use of photos as evidence was instilled me as a child although I never actually got to see the dead body photos! ( If asked what kind of photography he did he likes to say, "Oh, still life. Very still life.) Now I am sometimes given photos as 'proof' in my day job. Look how happy this child was with me! Of course all that shows is that the child was happy looking at the moment the shutter closed. Or at least acting happy. Who knows how they felt at other times. Who knows what was out of the frame promoting the smile. Plus, I am thinking that with your knowledge of Aspergers you may even say that a photos of a happy child is only a photos of a happy child if one can read the body language that in our culture generally signifies happy.

I think that, photography might not be untruthful whilst at the same time never telling the whole truth. In part that's because it only shows one decisive moment in the confines of a single frame. More so, its shows how one person responded to a much bigger scene or event, and each person in that place will see different things and respond differently. They will bring to the episode different experiences and opinions through which they filter the experience. In the film when Russell Crowe's character was asked to describe people I noticed that he would mention their eye colour and it struck me that that would be meaningless to a person blind from birth yet one of the first facts a sighted person would include.

I have been reading a lot of writing by David duChemin recently, having bought a job lot of his e-books and videos and physical ones for Christmas and I like how he says that a photo should not show what you saw but how you felt about what you saw. I think the photos in this film were less about what the blind man could not see as how he felt about trusting the people who were present and giving him information. the very taking of the photos said: I do not trust, I am afraid I am being lied to, cheated, hindered. They were very negative (no pun intended ) photos in term of their motivation.

If we go back to Ansel Adams I think his photographs do probably show ( by his choice of angles and lighting) what he felt about Yosemite. But is that because we knew what he felt because he told people and so we can match up the verbal information with the visual information and say, yes they are congruent. I see what he says he felt. Isn't it much harder with the Vivien Maier photos we saw? With her we have no information to be sure what she felt when she was taking them. I assumed at the time, curiosity. But it could have been disgust at the society around her. It could have been jealous or longing to have a connection with the people she photographed. It could have been anything and without the words we cannot be sure.

Of course, even with the words we can only be sure if we trust the photographer's account.

My, this post has got rather philosophical! I think I ought to have a cup of tea and recover!
I wonder what film you will pick for us next week?
Love,
Helen.

Reaction to Proof

Thumbs down.  That was my reaction.  I did not like this film.

I have to confess that I might have been affected by a childhood experience seeing "Wait Until Dark," in which some weird con men torment blind Audrey Hepburn in a creepy way, taking advantage of her blindness to terrorize her.  It seemed to me the ultimate cruelty.

So, with that same vulnerability at the heart of this movie, I was sort of creeped out from the beginning.  Martin, blind from birth, is convinced that everyone is lying to him, and he can never trust that people are telling him the truth.  So he takes photos, and asks strangers to describe the photos to him.  And then there was the creepy "housekeeper," tormenting him in her own weird way -- moving furniture purposely to trip him, preventing his dog from running to him in the park so Martin is uncertain about where the dog is (you won't be surprised to her that that really bothered me. Don't mess with the dog!).  Her weird obsession was just too ... weird.

There was also a sadness to both of those characters that I found troubling.

Russell Crowe - relaxed, grinning -- was initially a welcome breath of fresh air, which of course was his character's role.  He seemed normal, honest, without a strange agenda in the background -- until that moment in the park, when he's put in the middle of that weird housekeeper's game.  Ick.   I suppose the end was meant to be hopeful.  But I was just relieved the movie was over.

As for the photography angle -- well, I have to say that the whole premise of a guy who bases his reality on other people's descriptions of his photos is odd and sad.  And yes, it points up the blind man's vulnerability and his weird attempt to gain control and figure out who he can trust.

So I'd put this on the "don't bother" list.

Here's my pick for this coming week: Annie Leibovitz: Life through a Lens.  (Looks like it's on Youtube and Amazon instant streaming and even Itunes.)

Responding to Ansel Adams: a Documentary

Hi Diane,
I thought I was going to get my review in first this week but no, you beat me to it again! But that's OK because now I have questions to answer making my post all that easier to write !

Before I watched this all I knew about Ansel Adams was that he was 'that guy who did the black and white photos of America'. So I was interested to learn more, but I was kind of disappointed with the film that way It did tell his personal story but in a sort of factual dispassionate way. I was very aware that  my response to it was that I wanted to know far more about the people, in particular his relationship with Patsy English, his dark room assistant, who as said to be the 'love of his life' but for whom he decided not to leave his wife. I want to know if Virginia, his wife. knew Patsy was the love of his life and how she felt about that.

My reactions to his photographs were noticeably similar. They achieve exactly what he wants them to, i.e to show the vast emptiness and the size and grandeur of Yosemite, yet that was the very reason that, whilst I can see the beauty, both in the landscape and in his pictures, I don't emotionally respond to them. There are no people in them. The one photo of his that did make my heart leap a little was in fact the one you chose to illustrate your  post, Moon Over Hernandez. ( That's the second time we've done that, chosen the same photo - I think that says a lot about us, don't you?) But for me it was because it was one that said something about the people who lived in this landscape. How isolated, how remote and how so many were dead! It may have been the way the photo was panned over in the film for cinematography purposes but to be honest, I never noticed the moon. It was those white crosses that drew me.

And of course that say something about the relationship between art and viewer, viewer and art doesn't it. whatever an artist sets out to do, whether he achieves it or not should be for him to judge because the viewer will bring to  it their own interpretations and judgements.

 Art also has a role I think in helping the view understand themselves. As we try to figure out what we see in a picture or how we feel about a sculpture, we can observe the thought and feelings they engender and that can be informative and even healing. Certainly watching this film helped me clarify that, although I am happily exploring all areas of photography as a beginner at the moment, my natural pull is to people and story telling and I should probably follow my bliss in that direction. My Dad on the other hand would love these mountains and spaces. I must send him the film and get him to write his reaction for us!

I know that you have done some traditional darkroom photography in your day but I never have, so the mysteries of exactly how Adams developed his plates ( and indeed what a glass plate even is) are lost to me. This was a documentary about the man ( in so far as that went) but I would have liked more detail about how he did his work.  I know very little about famous photographers or historical techniques but I have a mind to learn. I see that Tom Ang has a book about the history of photography and I have added that to my reading list for the future

Your comments about the darkroom work being an important part of the image making made me think of an article I read ay the gym recently by David duChemin. (Reading photography material in the iPad at the gym is my new way to make the boredom go away and David DuChemin is a Canadian humanitarian photographer whose writing really resonates with me. he conveniently blogs well and produces ebooks and an amazing magazine call Photograph via his site Craft and Vision which makes him prime gym company material!)

Anyway, he wrote an article in which he said in essence that we should stop using the term 'post-processing' to talk about the work we do in the dark room be it traditional or digital because there is no 'post' about it. It is all part of the image making, all part of the creative process.

You asked me sone questions in your post:

As I was watching this, I was imagining your seeing it and wondering what you'd think.  Can you identify a British photographer who is as famous to the UK as Adams is to the US?  Do Adams' photographs seem less relevant to you because the landscape is not a familiar one?  Is there work you know of (from any photographer) whose images capture the English landscape in such a definitive way?

I have to say (and this probably shows my aforementioned ignorance of photography and my own predilections ) I can't identify a single British landscape photographer. (The shame! More Amazon order of photography books are required clearly.) But Adam's work is not irrelevant because the landscape is to familiar. In part I think that because his work is so famous that he helped not make it unfamiliar! Its certainly very American but actually that makes it all the more appealing to me for not being familiar and therefore boring to me. The film did make me want to travel to see Yosemite, although I vote for taking the plane they filmed from for the aerial views not doing the hiking!

As for our ext film, when I am dying to watch City of God ( and its follow up which is not technically on the list!)  but I see I will have to order the DVD of that from Amazon which may take some time so until I can be sure that will arrive in time I am going to veer us away from documentaries for a while towards Proof which appears to be a black comedy about a blind photographer. Its available free on You Tube here. I had no idea until you found Born into Brothels that you could get whole movie son You Tube. Its amazing! City of God is on there so you may be able to get it but its blocked in the UK. Bah!

But, entirely unrelated to photography I was exploring and I see you can get the National Theatre production of Oklahoma here which features the actress Maureen Lipman I mentioned to you once. She plays Aunt Ella. I love her and will travel all over to see her in things.  I once saw her in a matinee at the Theatre in Bath and walked straight out of the side door of the theatre after the production, walked round into the box office and bough the last viable ticket to see that evenings performance so good was she. This production transferred to a larger theatre at a time when I was frequently working alone in London. They had 100 seats for £10 available on the day and I saw this over and over and over and over!  There was something different in it every time. It features Hugh Jackman as well which is never a bad thing now is it?

Anyway, I digress, Let me know what you think of Proof.

love,
Helen

Ansel Adams: A Documentary

My photography  movie pick for the week was a documentary about Ansel Adams made by PBS for its series The American Experience.  (You can see the entire documentary free on Youtube, here.) 

When I think about famous photographers, Ansel Adams is probably the name that pops into my head first.  And I suspect that's true for most people, at least for us Americans.  As the documentary describes, Ansel Adams has become known for capturing images that seem quintessentially American, in showing the vast space and grandeur of the American landscape.  I knew I'd enjoy seeing more of his photography through this film.

But I knew little about his life and was surprised to learn that he was born and lived for most of his life (when he wasn't in Yosemite) in San Francisco. I'm surprised that there isn't an Ansel Adams museum or some other such thing in SF -- I just went and looked on Google and it appears there isn't.  Odd, yes?  Apparently there are some of his prints at the SF Museum of Modern Art and the SFMOMA site has an interactive feature about his work on its site which I will go play with when I finish this entry.  Anyway.  I found it fascinating that he was a child during SF's 1906 earthquake -- and after being told that his nose veered sharply to the left after it was broken in a fall during the earthquake, did you find yourself looking at his nose in every picture of him as he aged?! I did.  I also had no idea that he was as obsessed with playing the piano as he was with photography, and that he'd aimed at becoming a concert pianist.  When someone  on the film described how he'd spend part of the year at his home in SF playing piano feverishly, then head up to Yosemite in spring and summer to take photographs, I thought: "Multipotentialite!"  Apparently we are not the only ones drawn to various different creative endeavors!

Of course, Adams is synonymous with Yosemite and I enjoyed learning about his discovery of Yosemite.  I've been to Yosemite a number of times and I've been to the small Ansel Adams gallery there.  So hearing him talk about Yosemite felt personal to me, as things do when you have your own personal connection.  But I found it fascinating to hear how Adams' goal was to create images of Yosemite that didn't just capture the detail of how things look -- he was trying to capture images that conveyed the way the place made him feel.  There it is again, that concept of a photograph conveying an emotion as well as an image that I've just started thinking about via the Vivian Maier film.  (This probably seems obvious to most photographers.  I think it's something I've always responded to in photographs I like, even when choosing ones I've taken myself -- but I never articulated it this way for myself.)

And that of course leads to the way Adams used his darkroom processing to affect the resulting photographic image when he printed it.  When people complain about using Photoshop or other digital processing devices to enhance images, I've often heard Ansel Adams' processing used as the justification -- "he did it, Photoshop is just another tool to do the same dark room processing."  And it's true.  I think that most people who take pictures casually think that Ansel Adams just had a particular knack for pointing his camera at something beautiful at the right moment, having no idea at how much adding filters and manipulating the tones of the image through dodging and burning were key to the images that resulted.  That one woman (his editor, I think) estimated that 40-50% of the work (or artistry) on the image was done in the dark room processing.

And that brings me back to the concept of processing a photograph to highlight what you want to say about an image.  I liked hearing Adams and the experts talk about how it was that he did that.  Making the sky darker to create drama, bringing out the lights and darks of the striations in the rock faces to illustrate strength, etc. It reminds me that the art of photography isn't just in knowing how to adjust the settings to get the depth of focus you want, or in composing the image to define the boundaries of the image.  It's also about using color and light and tones to allow the photograph to say what you want it to, so it illustrates the truth you were feeling at the moment you clicked the shutter. 

The film also made me appreciate the total freedom we have today with digital cameras.  I loved hearing Adams' son talk about his taking his famous Moonrise over Hernandez, NM photo.

 How he spotted the scene, pulled the car over, and was racing to get his camera set up while the light was still illuminating the town -- and those cemetery crosses -- so beautifully.  How he had one photographic plate left, so he had one chance to get the exposure right.  How, as one expert said, he had hours and hours and hours of experience setting up shots, knowing how to get the effects he wanted, so it wasn't luck -- it was his expertise and skill that allowed him to get this in one shot.  (So it reminded me of that question people ask artists a lot: How long did it take you to do this?  And the real answer is a lifetime of work.)

As I was watching this, I was imagining your seeing it and wondering what you'd think.  Can you identify a British photographer who is as famous to the UK as Adams is to the US?  Do Adams' photographs seem less relevant to you because the landscape is not a familiar one?  Is there work you know of (from any photographer) whose images capture the English landscape in such a definitive way?

I'll be interested to hear what you think of this.

And what's your pick for next week?

Responding to Born Into Brothels

Dear Diane,

Well you beat me to watching my own pick of film, but I got there in the end! Dennis refused to watch this with me saying a tale of children living in an Indian Red Light District would make him sad, cameras or no cameras. And he was right.

The very end made me sad, but it was not actually the fact of where the children had been living that made me feel that way. I mean no one wants to see children in a bad environment but maybe as a child protection lawyer I am a bit inured to that now. What made me weep a little at the end was the fact that some of the parents did not want their children to leave for better things. Of course, if you love your child it must be hard to let them go away to school. I understand that. But all the same it was sad to know that some children had a chance for better and those adults who should want the world for them chose to deny it to them.


Aside from that, thought, I found it quite an uplifting programme. I loved how the children found interesting things to take photographs of everywhere they went. They clearly took on board the tuition about composition and the like but they seemed primarily to take photos out of joy and curiosity and to bear witness. I can think of no better reasons.

By Gour

By Suchitra

The children were also so wise and thoughtful about their work. I paused the film to note what one child who had taken a picture of unwashed dishes and junk on the floor said about his work:

I take photographs to show how people live in this city. People live in chaos. In the village people may have a mud house but they are happy. Nobody lives as filthily as we do in our country. Wherever there are dirty plates we find shoes next to them. In no other country have I seen this. That is why I like photography. I want to put across the behaviour of man.

Also, it was amazing what a good eye the children had for composition. Or, maybe its only amazing because we as adults have made composition a thing of conferences and tuition DVDs when in fact its a matter of looking and seeing what looks good. You actually chose the same photo to illustrate your post as I again paused the video to look at for a good long time.

By Suchitra

This is a fabulous photo, taken against washing on a brothel roof with a basic camera by a child who was being nagged by a friend to take her picture. I love the strip of detail down the right hand side an the pastel colours and how the negative space on the left balances the business of the rest of the picture.

Did it involve a drone and a mega-pixel camera? No. Did it require a degree and a high tech lighting rig? No. It didn't even involve the use of a cheap portable reflector and a changeable lens. It required the love of photography and a willingness to find a place to place the friend and the effort to have the camera to hand and put it to her eye. There is so much we can from these kids.
I wanted to look at their images more so I ordered a copy of their book. You can find it here in the UK and here in the US.
So, now I am looking forward to watching the Ansel Adams film which should be totally different!

Until Next time,
Helen.

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Born into Brothels

Helen's pick for #2 in our photography movie series was "Born into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids," a 2005 Academy Award winning documentary film from filmmakers Zana Briski and Ross Kaufman.  I have to confess, I was apprehensive at first, not appreciating what it would have to do with photography as I knew nothing about it before I started watching.  I hunted it down -- finally found it available (in full, for free!) on Youtube, here.

Documentary filmmaker Zana Briski went to photograph and film the prostitutes of Calcutta's red light district. But along the way, she realized that kids were everywhere living in the brothels.  She started a photography class, giving the kids cameras and teaching them how to use them, how to compose, what makes a good photograph.

And Helen, I have to say -- I loved this movie. In terms of photography, I loved that it said a lot about what photography can do.  How each person's view of his or her life is important.  How (as one kid says) a photo may show something hard to look at, but we have to look because it's true.  How holding a camera is empowering, and can lead to the realization that our view of the world is valuable.  The film work in this movie captured the chaos, the crowding, the noise, the dirt, the grim reality of life in that place, too.  So there was the added layer of movie cameras filming, and saying on a bigger level what the kids were saying with their own photos.

It was hard not to get attached to each of the kids -- some so lively and quick, some serious and worried, seeing the reality of their likely futures.  And so watching as "Zana Auntie" tries to find schools who will take them, tries to get one talented boy a passport so he can travel to another country as an award for his artistic ability -- was poignant and gripping.  I'd love to know where those children are today.  (Actually, I went and looked to see if there was any information.  There's an update from November, 2006 here and another from 2010 here.)

I found it hard to separate my emotional reaction to the content from the film and imagery -- which I guess is what good film-making and photography are all about, eh?

By the way, maybe you need to team up with your lawyer/photographer friends to do an exhibit at your friend Nisha's restaurant, to raise money for Kids with Cameras!

So, great pick. I don't think I'd have heard of this movie but for it being on the list and your picking it for us to watch!

Oh - and here's my pick for this coming week:  Ansel Adams: A Documentary Film (2002).  It's also available, in full, on Youtube here.

Responding to Finding Vivian Maier

This post is my response to Diane's post about watching the film Finding Vivien Maier. It will make more sense if you read her posts here and here ffirst.


Dear Diane,

I am so glad you suggested this film. I watched it on my iPad in bed having retired early on Wednesday night while my Husband watched some tedious historical drama. (He loved it, the 'tedious' description is all my prejudice against the Tudors!). It's a treat just to make time to watch a film like that mid-week so that's the first good thing to come out of our joint project. The second is that it was a wonderful inspiring film.

You asked whether it made me want to go out and shoot street photos and whether my camera had a tilting screen to make it possible to do that from waist level. The answer to both is yes. So, I did go out the very next lunch time and have a go and the pictures you see here and very arrogantly) not Vivien Maier examples but my very first attempts at street photography. I learned that finding people doing interesting things in interesting places is quite hard! I am not at all sure I achieved it. ore practice and a copy of The Street Photographer's manual appear to be in my future,

I have to say that I tried the tilting screen but I found it easier and more natural to just have the camera to my eye and if anyone looked at me askance I just kept the camera to my eye as they moved past as if it I was in fact waiting for them to get out of my shot, or I moved myself slightly to a different angle as if I was simply taking multiple photos of a building.  I obviously got more confident as on my way back to work I saw this small girl who was giving her mother some trouble getting her across the road. I simply took the shot and then wondered if the mother who had noticed would be offended. Without really thinking I just bent and showed the little girl the LCD screen and said, "This is what you look like with a crying face look! Isn't that funny? Shall we take a photo of a happy face for your mummy?" The mother thought it hilarious, the child would not pose for me but she did stop crying!  

I took all these photos in colour and converted later in Lightroom and found that it made all the photos much better not to have the distraction of colour. I know that street photography need not be black and white but it is noticeable that it does tend to work best that way, don't you find?

But, to return to the film. I had several thoughts stemming from it:

1. One of the people in the film asked: what was the point of her taking the pictures if no one saw them. I think there must have been a point for her or else she would have stopped doing it. I am sure you could get into a lot of psychoanalysis abut her hoarding and was this part of it ,but I am sure the answer is simpler at its most essential level. She must have found pleasure in it. How often do we dismiss that as a proper reason for doing anything? Curiosity, fascination, creativity. No-one would say those were negative words and yet if you exercise them alone people ask what the point is. Odd isn't it? Yet no one asks why people sunbathe on a beach or go to see a film or paddle in the sea.

2. I thought it was interesting that the major art intuitions refused her work and yet an exhibition of it was widely successful. I don't think there is anything wrong with institutions defining what objects they wish to acquire. In fact it makes sense for them to have a policy so their collection is cohesive and so that their funders know what they are giving to. But the fact that the big institutions do not accept a person's work does not in anyway mean it is not of worth.

3.I thought that many of the photographs were interesting mostly because if what they showed about the era in terms of dress and housing. I suspect that many of her photographs would have been seen as mundane and ordinary  (except of course of her ability to capture a particular expression or moment.) I wondered if she knew that? Knew that they were part historical documentation and that their time had not come and would not until after she died? It made me wonder what there is around to photograph that is day to day now but in thirty, forty, fifty years will seem isolated in its time. Or alternatively, what there is that is typical of where I  live that in other cultures will seem different. Even looking at the houses and brownstones in the film made me know immediately it was set in the US. Do we recognise enough the scenes that are around us all the time that are not to be found elsewhere?

I wondered what you might say there was to photography where I lived like that. Fish and Chip shops was the best I could come up with!

So, have you ventured out with your tilting screen yet?

As for our next film, if people want to follow along, I have nominated Born into Brothels. it doesn't sound cheery but apparently its about an amazing transformation that having a camera can bring.

Helen.

More thoughts about Vivian Maier

So I've been thinking about Vivian Maier's photographs since I watched the film on Sunday.  And here's what I've been thinking about it:

1.  Her photos conveyed emotion.  To be honest, I've never studied great photographers, I've done more reading on the techniques of taking photographs and processing them.  But I've been thinking about some of VM's photos, the images that have stayed with me -- and I've concluded that the reason they are staying with me is the way she's captured an emotion -laden moment.  Here are a few that have stayed in my mind:

2.  And that has made me think about my own photography.  I usually avoid photographing people.  In part it's a bit of reserve, feeling that it's somewhat intrusive to take someone's picture.  And I think it's related to my being essentially introverted -- my gut reaction is usually  that having people in a picture ruin it, I'd rather see the scene without people!  So it's far easier for me to see art in objects and scenes than in people.  I'm realizing that I need to think differently about it.  But my first impulse (in any art -- photography, drawing) is to avoid people.

3.  And then I started thinking about the photos of people I have taken -- other than family ones, I mean.  It's easiest for me to photograph kids.  Partly I think it's that kids are so expressive.  It's fun to watch them, and when they're little, their emotions flit across their faces so plainly.  Partly, too, they seem more accessible (in my world, anyway).  Some how having a child enter a scene I'm watching doesn't feel intrusive the way an adult entering would. (Hm.  Perhaps there is an issue for therapeutic exploration here!!)  And then they are usually so involved in their own moment, and they are often so oblivious to people around them, that I don't feel as if I'm intruding to shoot them.  I still am of course.  So is the intrusion I'm worried about my sense of invading their privacy, or my fear of being perceived as intrusive? By the way, you can see the few photos of people I've posted on Flickr here.   And, I'm pleased to realize, I think why I liked them enough process and post them is that they do have an emotional content to them. 

4.  And THAT makes me think about how (as someone commented in the movie) VM using a waist-held Rollieiflex probably made her street shooting easier.  It looks less intrusive and less obvious to shoot from the waist, versus the obvious "I'm taking your picture" act of bringing the camera up to one's face to point and shoot.  Does your camera have a viewing screen that can tilt out?  Mine does -- and that makes me think that perhaps we should each try using the camera as VM did, shooting from it hanging from our necks. 

Finding Vivian Maier

So, Helen -- what did you think about this movie?

[To our readers -- Helen and I both like experimenting with photography, and recently we came across an article online called "40 Movies About Photography Every Photographer Should See." We decided to watch the same movie within a short time period and compare our reactions.

I was up first to pick -- but the photography movie I most wanted to see wasn't even on the list!  The movie was "Finding Vivian Maier", from 2013.  We compared notes, found we could both access the movie, and decided it was up for our first joint movie venture.]

The movie tells the story of how a young man. John Maloof, bought a box full of negatives at an auction, and was so intrigued by the photographs that he begins searching into the life of the woman who took them. He buys up more of her negatives, and finds (and buys) her storage unit stuffed full with boxes.  She was Vivian Maier, a New York-born nanny and housekeeper who carried her Rollieiflex camera with her everywhere, taking photos with a truly remarkable eye.  So the story unfolds -- of an unassuming woman, her amazing photographs, the effect she had on the people around her.

So what did I think?

I thought it was absolutely fascinating.  The photographs were mesmerizing.  I've never been drawn to taking street portraits, but gosh, I was really struck by how strong hers were.  She captured strength and frailty and love and pathos and all sorts of emotions.  I was also struck by that aspect of art that always draws me in -- turning the most mundane moments of life into art.  It's a special sort of eye to do that, I think.

Were you as intrigued by the mystery aspect of the story as I was?  Finding out who she was -- and I loved hearing about how Maloof was so intrigued by so many photographs that were obviously from the same European village that he hunted and hunted and compared photographs until he found which village it was.

I found the descriptions of her from the families she worked for and lived with interesting too -- but mainly interesting in how different their views were of her.  It made me wonder whether she was different in each setting, or if they had her at different times in her life, or whether it reflected more about the people who described her than it did about her.

Mostly though, I came away feeling that it's important to just take pictures, and keep taking pictures.  In part to develop one's eye, but maybe more importantly to make onself see what's there... to see the art that's in front of us all the time.

I'm thinking one could learn a lot from studying her photographs.  Oh -- the film mentioned how Maloof posted the first photos of hers that he developed on Flickr -- and I've just gone to look.  There are a lot of her photos there.

Oh -- another thing I loved -- how Maloof laid out various collections on the floor and shot them from above -- her boxes. Her paper ephemera.  Her buttons and doodads.  I'm always drawn to seeing collections of things laid out so graphically like that. 

I'll be interested to hear what you think. Did it make you want to get out and take photos?

And now it's your turn to pick!

They're all just creative tools

When I woke up on Saturday morning, the dream from which I was emerging involved being with you at some sort of garden center where we had been walking around looking at plants and flowers, and we were heading into a cafe for tea and cake.  (I woke up before we even got to the cake counter, gosh darn it!)  But as I was putting on my robe and heading downstairs, I was wondering whether your Saturday morning had been spent at a cafe/garden center, and your Saturday was psychically drifting into my sleeping subconscious.  I would not be surprised, the way we can overlap each other's thoughts so eerily sometimes.

So later, when I'd made coffee and was cruising through my Feedly blog pages, I was bemused to see your Saturday cafe post.  So perhaps there was a psychic overlap.  At any rate, your Saturday blogging spot looked very charming to me from the photos -- although those chairs do look awfully  stern and hard compared to the saggy softness of the Cedar Farm sofas!

I am delighted that using a different brush has changed your painting experience!  I went and looked at the Rafael Soft Aqua brushes -- I do not have any but now I must try one or two!.  Your colors do look much brighter and I"m glad you're getting the look you want, not to mention the satisfying feel of the brush you like!  I often really like how something looks (color and value wise) when it's just painted and still damp ... and then, of course, it pales as it dries and I don't like it as well.  I know that learning to anticipate how it will look dry as you paint wet is part of the watercolor learning curve.  And learning how to go back in and add more depth with more darks is, too.  Seems like the last stages of anything I sketch are always about MORE DARK.  MORE DARK.  STILL MORE DARK.  And then I tip over into ACK, MUDDY MESS.  It's a fine line, that last stopping point.

When I was in Washington two weeks ago, I did a bit of sketching and definitely struggled a bit with painting a lot of beigey-brown shells, and getting the darks right.

Anyway.  I'm going to try some of those brushes. (By the way, you will laugh at this.  I just paused to go look again at the brushes, I put a few in the online shopping cart and got  a message:  "Congratulations!  You are just $86.14 away from free shipping on your order!"  I stopped myself for shopping for $87 worth of additional art supplies which I no doubt could have found quite easily.)  I know a lot of people love the waterbrushes, and I carry a few for the total convenience of the water-with-you-at-all-times aspect... But I don't like the color results I get with them, they feel far less predictable to me.

And I love your bulb recipe page!  Very clever and charming!  And bright!

Congratulations on the new camera!  I have (now, because of you) read about the new mirrorless cameras and they sound great -- capable of great photos AND light and compact.  You asked about how I decide to sketch or photograph.  For me, it's about my mood, and how much time I have.  I view them as very different activities, actually. 

Taking pictures, for me, is more about capturing something in the moment.  It's a sort of fast thing.  It's not that I don't take time, or think about what I'm doing.  And really, it's the seeing before taking the photo that is the part that takes time.  I'm consciously choosing what I want to photograph, and thinking about different angles or light or what settings would give me the result I want.  I do snap a LOT of pictures -- I am not inclined to stand and ponder and fiddle with settings and then take 2 pictures.  (I went on a photo walk with someone like that once.  I think I took 50 photos to each of his.)  Anyway. And while traveling, I use my camera as a way of capturing images as I go.  For me, it still makes me look at things differently, notice color and pattern and light and value in a more specific way.  But I can snap a bunch of photos and keep going.

Sketching is a whole different thing to me, although there are overlaps in the seeing and thinking.  I'm still noticing color and shape and pattern and such.  But when I set out to sketch, I know that I will want to sit somewhere for a bit of time and just relax and draw and paint.  I'm looking to find ONE thing or scene that grabs me and makes me want to sit and explore it through drawing and painting.  It feels much more leisurely, and so far anyway, I don't like having to sketch faster than I usually do, or hurry to sketch that scene over there, and then that building down there, and then that clump of people over that way....  I know there are people who love recording things that way, and their fast sketching is a shorthand communication for them.  Maybe it's because I've not learned that approach and haven't tried it much, but for me the enjoyment of sketching has a lot to do with the sense of peace and meditation as I sit and really study what I'm drawing, being in one place and absorbing the ambient sounds and smells as I draw.

So, choosing to sketch or photograph?  It depends on my mood and what I feel like doing, plus it depends on how much time I have.  When I traveled with my sister, some days we set out knowing we planned to pick somewhere and then sit and sketch. And other days, we knew ahead of time that we were going to go and walk around and take pictures, and then come home and sketch, mostly because it was so dang hot and we wanted to be back inside in the worst heat of the day.

You asked if I ever do both sketching and photographing in relation to the same subject.  And at first I thought that no, I don't usually -- unless I sit down to sketch somewhere out in the world, and take a few photos of the sketch subject in case I run out of time or someone parks smack in front of my subject which seems to happen ALL THE TIME.  But then I remembered that when my sister and I were in Yosemite earlier this summer, I did do both.  There is so much gorgeousness to see there, and we only had a day there.   So we both took tons of photos.  Here's one, for example:

(You can see more here.)  But we wanted to just sit and BE there, too, so we planned some time for sitting and sketching, too.

 And now that I think of it, we did the same thing in the little gold rush town of Columbia on that same trip.  We walked and took a lot of photos.

 (More of Columbia here, btw).  But then we also made a point (well, I insisted!) to just sit and sketch, too.

Oh look, I took a photo of this very scene before I started painting.

So it turns out that I did both.  And they felt like totally different activities to me. 

What do you think?  How do you anticipate using your camera versus sketching?

By the way, I've heard some longtime sketchers say things that struck me as rather disparaging of the process of photography, and I've always disagreed.  Things like photography being like mindlessly xeroxing while sketching is thoughtful, individual interpretation, that sort of distinction.  And I think it's absolutely wrong and reflective of ignorance about the artistic process that can be involved in photography.  So I know that in the sketching world, some people express disdain for people who use cameras or choose to photograph a travel experience rather than sketch it.  I think that's just silly.  Both are ways of seeing and capturing and interacting with the world in front of you in a creative way.

 I put that photo up top, by the way, because you can see the reflection of me taking the picture in the glass.  A subtle selfie!  Seemed appropriate for this post.

By the way, you know that by the time this posts I will be on my way to a quilt retreat.  In the past I've tried to do a sketch each day, which has usually involved wandering outside and spending an hour or so drawing and painting. I'll bring my camera and sketching supplies as usual, but this time I suspect I'll take a lot more photos and maybe not do too much sketching, as I have a lot of sewing I want to get done.  I'll let you know!

Also, I'm glad that you posted. I've missed our TT4T postings!

Cracked it!

Dear Diane,
Hey! How are you?! I couldn't get a table at our usual BocBoc cafe so I am re-trying a farm shop about fifteen minutes away. I came once and it was not that good but I am giving it a second go. As you can see its more countrified than our usual place and the chairs less comfortable but it was a nice sunny drive through country to get here, and its a quite place to blog and journal for a while so that's fine.

But look, I just have to show you this, I am so excited. You know how much I have struggled with  sketchbooking ( is that a word?) and how I like the immersion in the process but tend to be really disappointed with my output at the end. Well, I declare myself 95% happy with this spread. And the 5% unhappiness only relates to the ink smudges. They happened because my Platinum Carbon pen had been on a flight and like all fountain pens tended to leak a bit on first use after landing. Must be the cabin pressure or something. I didn't notice it was on my fingers. But, then again it reminds me of being on holiday so, maybe I am only 3% unhappy.

And in a roundabout way it was the holiday that made this page so happy-making. When I was in Florence I visited an art shop looking for useful souvenirs. Anything art related I didn't already have. And I ended up buying some Softaqua watercolour brushes by Raphael because they said they held twice the amount of colour of other brushes. And boy, do they! Much of my previous dissatisfaction - even after swapping to Daniel Smith paints - was my inability to get bright solid colour and to control fine lines. Turns out it was my brushes.  I don't know if, once post don line, this iPhone snap really shows it but there is a big difference in my work with these high paint  load brushes. I love them! You can get these brushes in the USA here and the UK here.

Now I need to find a good travel holder for them:)

I had had the soiled stained notes I scribbled(about what bulbs I had planted where)  set aside to write up into my garden journal for a week. Meanwhile I was debating whether or not to sign up to the storytelling class at Sketchbook Skool, simply because I am saving up for new camera lenses and I thought maybe I should put the cash in that direction. Then, hours before the class started I signed up on a whim and watched the first class early this morning in my PJ's. I have discovered that using Apple TV to watch on the full sized screen is a very good thing to do. And of course that class, on documenting a recipe ( or effectively) a creative process inspired me to go immediately and do this page.  I was amazed when I surfaced and realised I had spent nearly two hours on it. Where did that time go?!

[interlude: My soup came and it had an onion bhaji in it which was weird but absolutely fantastically delicious! If had dot photograph because of the strong side light from a window. I  am glad I tried here again!] 

Of course, whilst falling down the creative well like that is always a good thing, at the same time its not always possible for me to find such  a long time in one go.  And that brings me back to photography.

I know you love both your camera and your sketchbook and I am eagerly awaiting the delivery of my new Olympus mirrorless camera. So, I was wondering: when you are out travelling, or indeed, if you are pottering at home, what factors influence your decision to sketch or to photograph? Do you ever do both in relation to the same subject? How does the process differ for you?

I paused watching the Sketchbook Skool videos to make some toast and thought : I should draw this toast making process. Then I thought: but then the toast will go cold! Maybe I should take clever food photographs of my toast. But then, because I am still at the point and shoot stage and eagerly awaiting proper lenses and time to read my pile of photography books, I thought: but maybe a styled photo of toast isn't actually that quick. I don't know. Guess I will find out as I learn!

It will be interesting to see how the two different ways of making an image make me feel, how I experience the different media. Because I think for me a lot of making art is about that - how it makes me feel. My Softaqua brush trial gave me a "Yes!! At Last!" feeling.  Which I think ought to be celebrated with apple and berry crumble Don't you?  I'll nip down and get them. Do you want cream or ice cream with yours?

Helen

PS Something else deeply satisfying I learned whist typing this post. If you are in iOS 8 on ipad or iPhone, if you go to settings - general - keyboard - edit you can delete that IRRITATING emoticon key on the new keyboard that I kept hitting by accident. 

Seeing fast and slow

 Helen,

This morning I did this sketch for my lesson in Sketchbook Skool.  The semester's theme is "seeing," and the lesson was to sketch something "fast and slow": fast being a first, fast, loose painting of color to get a shape, and slow being (after the paint dried) a slowly-drawn, detailed line drawing over the top of the colored shapes.  It's a clever assignment, I think, because it does make one think about the different ways of seeing -- a quick glance, a fast impression of color and shape  versus a careful study of details.  And it was fun, too.  It reminds me that wonky is not just good, but darn fun.  I want to do more of this.  Have you tried it yet?

As I was doing this, I was thinking how the fast glance vs careful study of details applies to life, too.  Emerging from a 20 year marriage, I am often struck now at how things seem so different to me.  When I was living it day to day, caught up in the whirlwind of work and child-rearing and keeping clean laundry in the cupboards and making 3 meals a day for everyone, I think my sense of what I was doing was like that fast glancing. Sure, I was in the middle of it, and I tried to stay in the moment, especially with my daughter, and I tried to notice and appreciate the details of every day.  (I think that's why I got so immersed in photography years ago.  It slowed me down and made me stop and look at things.)  I saw a lot, I know.  But I suppose it's like what you see from driving somewhere in a car -- you  are moving along at a good steady clip, you're appreciating the scenery, but you can't absorb things really closely.  You're just moving too fast. 

But now, as you know, I've found myself looking at certain things in a different way.  How my husband and I related to each other, how we communicated, how we handled important or wonderful or hard things, how we challenged each other, or ignored things that were hard... How figuring out our daughter's special needs and how best to help her with things acted, in some ways, as blinders, too -- I know I became so focused on her and parenting and schooling that I just didn't have the capacity to look beyond that.  I have come to understand that I was consciously looking past an awful lot.  And I know, now, that that is a very common reaction to living with an alcoholic, and that embracing denial is not just a coping mechanism but in some situations a survival strategy.

When I was drawing this clock -- which I've had for about 25 years and which sat in my office at work for the whole time I was there so I glanced at it a zillion times a day -- I noticed for the first time that the roman numeral 4 on the clock face is represented as "IIII" instead of "IV."  For all the time I've had this clock and looked at it, I'd never noticed that before.


So it's kind of perfect for me to be thinking about "seeing" right now, as that is what I am doing in a new way on a whole lot of levels.  It amazes me how art processes can parallel life lessons.

And that's what I'm wondering -- have you had the experience of some art process or lesson paralleling something non-art related in your life?  Does reflecting on art or making art cause you to think in new or related ways on other aspects of your life?

Questions Answered

     I love seeing how your sketching is developing.  I know you are sorting through your angst and I'm confident that you will figure how, or whether, sketching fits into where you want your creative life to go.  I've been plugging away at the Every Day in May sketching challenge, although I do it loosely.  For me, my goal is to sketch SOMEthing every day, whether or not it's on the official EDIM list, and I don't worry about whether I am doing that day's challenge on that same day.  Here is the page spread for #15 (cookie) and #16 (stapler).  Do you get Girl Scout cookies in the UK, and have you ever had a Samoa?  They have a shortbread base, then a layer of caramel and coconut, then it's all coated in chocolate on the bottom.  Delicious!

 I made a small journal (using Cathy Johnson's maze book structure which she shows here) and it has just enough pages for all of May as long as I remember to put two things on one page at some point!  Each page is about 5x7 inches.

I never did answer the questions you asked in your last post, so I thought I would do that, finally! 

Has sketching made a difference to anything you do?
    Yes, actually.  In part it’s seeing things differently.  Noticing details, appreciating the beauty in simple things.  Nowadays, as the result of having discovered how much I like sketching buildings, I notice architectural detail more than I ever did.  I found that photography has had this effect on me, as well, but with sketching my sense of detail and really looking closely at things has changed even more.  I think I’ve come to appreciate funky or run down things more, too.  Something that can look junky and dreadful in person can actually be very fun to sketch, I have found. 

        And it has made its way into my quilting a bit. You might remember that I used sketches for one of the last 12x12 quilts on the theme Maverick:

 
 A while ago I had one of my sketches printed onto fabric via Spoonflower and I intend to turn that into a quilt.  Soon.  I have to finish a few other things in the work first! 

    Mostly, I think it has changed my level of confidence in myself as an artist.  I’ve told you how I always viewed my sister as “the one who could draw” which, be definition, meant that I was the one who couldn’t.  It has been such a pleasurable experience for me to discover that I can learn it and improve at it. 

I think you said to me once how when you see another person's messy, quick, gestural sketches you love them but when you do that yourself you hate them. Do you still feel like that? I certainly do.

    Yep.  And what’s more, I think that’s quite common. What seems charming and full of personality in someone else’s work seems distorted and wrong in our own.  But I think I’ve told you before that I try to remember to “embrace the wonky” and it has become a little mantra to myself.  I frequently find that I can do a sketch and feel dissatisfied, and then I’ll see it after a few days later and like it better.  And I ask myself how I’d feel if I saw that in someone else’s sketchbook, and almost always I realize I’d like it a lot.

     Here was my breakthrough on that.  In one of Jane LaFazio's classes (mixed media I think it was) she had us prepare page background by painting and stencilling a bunch of pages at one time.  I found it kind of pointless, preparing a page when I didn't know what I was going to do on it. One evening, I was in the mood to sketch, but just wanted to hang out in front of the tv.  So I opened my sketchbook to one of the pages I'd prepared, figuring I didn't like it already so I couldn't ruin it, and I figured a fast contour drawing would be fun. I did this, and when I was done, I loved it, wonkiness and all.

     In my Urban Sketching outings, I’ve made a friend named Pip who has (to my eye) a gorgeous style with very delicate and amazing watercolor skills.  I always see what she does and my heart sinks a bit and I wish I could have done something JUST LIKE HERS.  But she tells me she feels exactly the same way when she looks at my sketches.  So we make a good sketching pair, I guess .  But it’s a funny example of how so many artists judge themselves far more harshly than they judge others.

How I got into sketching–

    Some years ago (hmm, before we adopted Miss C so maybe around 1994ish) when I lived in New Hampshire, I was talked into taking a watercolor painting class with a friend of mind named Judy.  I mainly wanted to see her more often, and she persuaded me that the class was for beginners and I’d like it.  And I did, although many people in the class were serious painters who used it as workshop time to paint work they would then sell.  But it was the first sense I had that I could learn to draw.  I remember in the very first class, we were to draw and then paint using one color a chinese food takeout carton.  I was struggling with perspective, and the teacher came over and with one pencil stroke, changed ONE line and the whole thing sort of popped into place.  It amazed me and made me realized I’d not been that far off.  So I did a few sessions of that class, and started learning a bit about watercolor and paper and paints.

    But then Caroline arrived and life changed and I didn’t do it any longer.  But a few years back, I knew someone who had taken a class from Jane LaFazio.  And I so liked the sketchbook style of painting – not aiming for a formal, perfectly glazed watercolor effect, but just doing wonky drawings and using paint to add color, and I figured I’d give it a try.  And away I went.  Since then, I’ve taken a bunch of online classes that have been helpful – from Jane LaFazio, Val Webb, Sandy Holtzman, Laure Ferlita, Cathy Johnson... but really, I think mostly those have been most useful because they make me keep sketching and painting. 

How important is being part of a sketching group to me in whether I keep going?

    It’s not that important actually.  But I think that might be because my sister is always sketching in some fashion or another, and she inspires me... and now I have other friends who are pretty regular sketchers too.  I think I get inspired seeing other sketchers’ work, on Facebook and Flickr, and the various Urban Sketcher blogs.  And I enjoy posting my work on Flickr and Facebook at times because positive reactions are encouraging.  I really do like having others to sketch with, and to talk about it with, and to go someplace with and then see what they choose to sketch in the same location, that sort of thing.  But really, the biggest satisfaction I get from sketching has to do with the zen-like, meditative feeling I get when I’m sketching.  It brings me to the present moment and makes me look closely at something and every day life stuff just evaporates for a little bit.  It’s THAT feeling that keeps me sketching, and so I think I’d keep sketching even if I weren’t connected up with other sketchers. 

Did I do art stuff when I worked in an office full time?

    Yes, I did, mostly.  Maybe more crafty than actual art, but I always needed to do creative stuff to balance out the lawyerly side of life.   When I first started working as a lawyer, I was sewing clothes a lot.  I actually made a lot of my suits because as a new lawyer I couldn’t afford the tailored clothes I needed, and I have long arms and so it was hard to find blouses and jackets with the sleeves long enough!  So I made my own.  (I will always remember one of the first hearings I went to on my own, which ended up in front of one of the few (at that time) female judges.  And she was wildly complimentary about my suit, a gorgeous winter white wool suit if I do say so myself, and I didn’t want to say that I’d made it because I thought that would sound too girly and unlawyer-like! )

    And I grew up in a household where crafty stuff was encouraged, so I did needlework all through law school, and I did a whole lot of knitting when I was first working as a lawyer – that was how I first learned of Kaffe Fassett and even undertook one of his really complicated patterned sweaters. But as work got busier, I spent less time at it.  I’ve told you about the period of time when I was feeling burnt out about trying medical malpractice cases, and I started having some chronic fatigue health issues, and ended up taking a sabbatical from practice to address my health and sort out my career goals.  During that time, I remember the first thing (and only thing in a long while) that got me excited was discovering using fimo clay to make jewelry.  I became obsessed with just mixing clay colors!  And I remember thinking that I was definitely recovering if something creative was getting me excited again.  I felt that part of my sliding down into chronic fatigue had to do with the lack of balance in my life – work had far overtaken creative activities – and I concluded that doing creative things is necessary to my health on a lot of levels. 

    But even with all of that, I do understand how very hard it is to have time to work full time and manage a house and spend time with family members and then explore all of the wonderful creative things there are out there, too.  So I can appreciate your frustration with trying to find yet another 20-minutes-a-day for sketching when your days are jam-packed as it is.

   At present, I don't work full-time outside of the house, but at times I have long days of work at my desk, and on others I have a lot of ferrying of Miss C to appointments and events.  So my goal is to try to do something creative everyday.  Maybe sketching, maybe sewing -- and some days I figure that watching videos or looking at inspiration online via videos and flickr is all I have time or energy for.  But that's okay.  I feel happier when I relax about it.

  But now it is dinnertime, and the dog is staring at my intently to tell me it is past time for hers, so I will post this.  I look forward to see where you are going with all of this.