Tuesday, June 2, 2009
HDR fun
I just got Photomatix Pro because everyone seems to be having so much fun with HDR photography. It's early days yet, but here is my first experiment with it. It's an HDR version of a picture from the previous entry, so you can compare the two images. I was very heavy handed with this one, but it's got me intrigued enough to continue to experiment with it. Any thoughts or reactions from the peanut gallery?
Avebury Circle HDR
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
post while on IR
Sorry for the long absence on the blog, but my broken hand has made both photography and typing rather difficult. I thought, though, I could at least share some of my photos from my recent trip to England. Photoshop and Light Room at least are still one-handed activities. As always any comments and insights are welcome. Take care.
Monday, March 2, 2009
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Sad to say, I didn't get accepted to the New Jersey Arts Annual that my previous post was all about. Nonetheless I was very happy with the entries I submitted and was glad I entered because I forced me to sit down and create something that had long eluded me: the artistic bio. When I first started this blog, I talked about struggling to write an artistic statement. I finally got a basic one done and was happy with it. However, I never had any luck doing an artistic bio.
There are a number of reasons for this I am sure. I don't like to write about myself because it is difficult. I feel like you are caught navigating an impossible strait between Scylla and Charybdis. On the one hand, you don't want to build yourself up so much that it appears that you are arrogant and full of yourself, but on the other hand, you have to have *something* to say about yourself or why else would anyone want to read about you.
I also feared that by talking about my past, I would only highlight what a relative newcomer to fine-arts photography I am and so only provide people another reason to give short shrift to my work.
Lastly, I just didn't see how it was relevant. Yes, I could state where I was from and what I used to do for a living, but who cares? It doesn't help anyone connect with any of my work. However, there I was wrong. A gallery director friend of mine once told me that the most common request from potential art dealers was to know more about the artist and the past history of the work. They want to have some kind of window into the art, something that will help them contextualize it. An artistic bio can help do just that.
But I was still stuck with what I saw as an impossible task regardless of how necessary it now was. Fortunately, I met Nancy J. Ori who founded the New Jersey Media Center where, among other things, she runs workshops to help develop emerging artists. The last workshop I took with her, she covered how to write an artist bio. It was a very helpful experience that helped me finally get past my issues. While it's still a work in progress, as is my life so it only makes sense, I'm happy with what I have now.
It's a combined artistic statement and bio as you can see. I think it's a good start, but it definitely needs work. I'd love to hear any comments or suggestions anyone has. It has been a tough task, but one that in the end I really learned from. Thanks and take care.
There are a number of reasons for this I am sure. I don't like to write about myself because it is difficult. I feel like you are caught navigating an impossible strait between Scylla and Charybdis. On the one hand, you don't want to build yourself up so much that it appears that you are arrogant and full of yourself, but on the other hand, you have to have *something* to say about yourself or why else would anyone want to read about you.
I also feared that by talking about my past, I would only highlight what a relative newcomer to fine-arts photography I am and so only provide people another reason to give short shrift to my work.
Lastly, I just didn't see how it was relevant. Yes, I could state where I was from and what I used to do for a living, but who cares? It doesn't help anyone connect with any of my work. However, there I was wrong. A gallery director friend of mine once told me that the most common request from potential art dealers was to know more about the artist and the past history of the work. They want to have some kind of window into the art, something that will help them contextualize it. An artistic bio can help do just that.
But I was still stuck with what I saw as an impossible task regardless of how necessary it now was. Fortunately, I met Nancy J. Ori who founded the New Jersey Media Center where, among other things, she runs workshops to help develop emerging artists. The last workshop I took with her, she covered how to write an artist bio. It was a very helpful experience that helped me finally get past my issues. While it's still a work in progress, as is my life so it only makes sense, I'm happy with what I have now.
Riley A. Vann was born in New Mexico and grew up in Texas. Studying English at Texas A&M, the University of Florida, and West Virginia University, he went on to teach college writing and literature for fifteen years. After studying and teaching the stories we tell ourselves and how those stories identify us, he became interested in the ways we mark ourselves outside of words. With the camera, he began to capture the visual signs and symbols that also tell our stories. Drawing inspiration from photographers like William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, and Joel Sternfeld, he now uses his camera to discover that which literally makes our culture visible.
To borrow from Eggleston, as a photographer Riley Vann is at war with the obvious. His art engages the mundane objects of everyday life, the things that have become invisible to us, and rescues them from the background into which they vanish. This may involve more abstract studies in texture and light or a cultural anthropological “dig,” focusing on objects that act as signposts and touchstones for a range of social values and concerns. While his subject matter may vary, all of his images strive to find the beautiful in the strange and the strange in the beautiful.
It's a combined artistic statement and bio as you can see. I think it's a good start, but it definitely needs work. I'd love to hear any comments or suggestions anyone has. It has been a tough task, but one that in the end I really learned from. Thanks and take care.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Jersey Art Splash
I am finally entering my first New Jersey art show. It's the prestigious 2009 New Jersey Arts Annual. This is a very selective show which showcases the best of Jersey fine arts. While getting picked for such shows is always a dicey proposition no matter how good your work is because judging is such a personal process, the topic this year is one that I think my subject matter is well suited for: Local Life. This is how they describe what they are looking for:
"In these transformative times, the headlong rush into 'globalization' sometimes obscures the intimate, familiar details of life immediately around us. We are asking artists to turn their vision towards their own communities, their own homes, their own lives, their own thoughts, to explore life as an intimate experience, and through art find what is profound in the familiar."
Needless to say, if you read my entry about my struggle to create an Artistic Statement (one of my first entries), then you know how well this fits what I am interested in capturing already. Couldn't be more tailor made for me. As long as they don't interpret this to be a Norman-Rockwell look-a-like contest, I think I have a good chance, but as I said, you never know.
Without further ado, here are the 8 images I submitted:
The Duke in the John
Elsie
First Grade, Mrs. Maskew
The Santa of Christmas Past
Smiley
Spellcheck
Spigot
Take a Number
I'm very excited about this show and the images I've sent in. Regardless of the outcome, it's exciting to finally start my entrance into the New Jersey art scene. If you are interested, the show will run at the Morris Museum from April 29th to June 28th. Wish me luck!
"In these transformative times, the headlong rush into 'globalization' sometimes obscures the intimate, familiar details of life immediately around us. We are asking artists to turn their vision towards their own communities, their own homes, their own lives, their own thoughts, to explore life as an intimate experience, and through art find what is profound in the familiar."
Needless to say, if you read my entry about my struggle to create an Artistic Statement (one of my first entries), then you know how well this fits what I am interested in capturing already. Couldn't be more tailor made for me. As long as they don't interpret this to be a Norman-Rockwell look-a-like contest, I think I have a good chance, but as I said, you never know.
Without further ado, here are the 8 images I submitted:
I'm very excited about this show and the images I've sent in. Regardless of the outcome, it's exciting to finally start my entrance into the New Jersey art scene. If you are interested, the show will run at the Morris Museum from April 29th to June 28th. Wish me luck!
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Good Shot
I've been playing basketball with a very interesting group of guys most Friday nights at a local Catholic school. We usually don't get done till after 11 and afterwards, a few of us go to a bar close by to complain about our aches and pains and enjoy the sunset of our athletic careers (needless to say, both "athletic" and "careers" need scare quotes there).
This bar happens to be next door to a run down old roadside motel called the Boundary and when we pulled up the first time, I told Jon, who is kind enough to give me a ride to and from these games, that I'd love to take a picture of the road sign for the hotel. He expressed great surprise and asked me why. To him, it looked like one of a countless number of motel signs not worthy of a second look much less a photo. To me, though, I had a knee-jerk reaction to capture it with my camera. At the time, I couldn't articulate to him why I wanted to take the picture; I just knew that it interested me. Jon got me thinking about a lot of things though and this post is a delayed answer to his question.
First, let's get a look at what inspired all this:
The Boundary
I finally remembered my camera one Friday and this is the shot I got. I'm not entirely happy with it. Night photography has never been a strength of mine and it was after 1am, about 20 degrees outside, and I was in sweaty basketball clothes, so I didn't spend as much time on getting it perfect as I would've liked, but I still find the image very compelling. The real question, though, is why?
I can certainly read the photo as it exists now and try to reverse engineer the process that led to my concluding this was a good subject. The worn texture and general shabbiness of the sign contradicts the promise of comfort and class promised by cable TV and HBO. Think about this hotel, probably opened in post-World War II America where travel and mobility promised romance and adventure on the road whereas the state of the sign and hotel generally as it is today suggest that it is only used for romance of a more carnal nature. Such Americana always draws my eye and certainly fits in with my interest in engaging with mundane objects that normally escape our attention as my artistic statement tries to explain.
However, that doesn't really answer the question or at least it only does so to raise another question. I certainly don't take pictures of *all* mundane things. I still have some kind of filter in place that helps me decide what I to photograph. Why this sign and not the last 100 motel signs I'd seen?
The question finally boils down to this: What makes a good shot? There are certainly rules that most people agree about in terms of composition such as the rule of thirds and questions of sharp focus, but there are as many exceptions to the rules and reasons to break them as there are rules. Plus, these are rules for what makes a good photo not a good subject for a photo, so Jon's question is still unanswered.
I want to say that, ultimately, what makes a good subject is a personal choice of the artist that can't be explained rationally. The reaction is the result of a gestalt of as many things as go into creating the individual's personality itself. Maybe it's one of the things that marks the artist as "artistic," this ability to hone in on what has potential artistic merit as a subject. The success of that artist would then be how many other people also respond on some level to the subjects s/he focuses on. Other people weren't attuned to the potential artistic worth of the subject until the artist "distilled" it into a work of art.
In this scenario, the artist him or herself doesn't have to be consciously aware of what specific elements go into drawing the artist to the potential subject. The draw, the unconscious pull, is enough. Let me give you another example. Here is a photo I took on my recent return to Charleston, WV:
Take a Number
It's a picture of the shelves at a local shoe repair shop. When I went in with my camera equipment, the workers were already giving me the fisheye and when I asked if I could take a picture of their repair shelves, they rolled their eyes, looked at each other and said "Knock yourself out." To them, it was only their workplace. Nothing but a place for them to practice their craft. What could I possibly find there of aesthetic value. They didn't come out and ask me the question, but it was there in their eyes. I don't know that I would've had any more of a satisfactory answer for them than I did for Jon. I was moved by the repetition of the bright yellow tags and big, bold black numbers. The way the bags are all shelved in a row, some straight and some askew suggest a real tension between organization and chaos, the age-old battle between entropy and enthalpy.
Pretty highbrow stuff for repaired shoes on old shelves, but if I look at the image now, read it as if I hadn't taken the photograph but am only a viewer, those are the themes I see at work. None of these thoughts were in my mind when I had the urge to take the photo, at least not consciously. I only knew that it was a subject I really wanted to capture. According to the principle I've been describing, this would be fine. As an artist, my only immediate need is to act on this impulse. Some of these urges will result in more successful photographs than others, but overall, the instinct to find a certain subject photoworthy is reason enough to capture it. The judgments and explanations can come later, by me or by others.
However, Jon didn't seem very satisfied with this answer which essentially is "I dunno why I find that worth taking a picture of" so I wonder if I am missing a step in the artistic process. Am I not enough in touch with my process or professional enough in my approach to my work that I'm missing some preliminary, preparatory stage where I should be able to articulate my interest before I pick up the camera? Am I taking the easy way out and not rigorously enough challenging myself as an artist? One flip answer I gave Jon was "If I could describe in words what moves me about the subject, I wouldn't need the camera to capture it." I think there is some truth to that, but I'm not sure it doesn't evade some very important issues that I've tried to tease out in this post. That's where I'm stuck in the thought process. If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions on where I can go from here, I'd love to hear them.
Well, Jon, that was a hell of a question. Thanks for the rides and the blog entry topic.
This bar happens to be next door to a run down old roadside motel called the Boundary and when we pulled up the first time, I told Jon, who is kind enough to give me a ride to and from these games, that I'd love to take a picture of the road sign for the hotel. He expressed great surprise and asked me why. To him, it looked like one of a countless number of motel signs not worthy of a second look much less a photo. To me, though, I had a knee-jerk reaction to capture it with my camera. At the time, I couldn't articulate to him why I wanted to take the picture; I just knew that it interested me. Jon got me thinking about a lot of things though and this post is a delayed answer to his question.
First, let's get a look at what inspired all this:
I finally remembered my camera one Friday and this is the shot I got. I'm not entirely happy with it. Night photography has never been a strength of mine and it was after 1am, about 20 degrees outside, and I was in sweaty basketball clothes, so I didn't spend as much time on getting it perfect as I would've liked, but I still find the image very compelling. The real question, though, is why?
I can certainly read the photo as it exists now and try to reverse engineer the process that led to my concluding this was a good subject. The worn texture and general shabbiness of the sign contradicts the promise of comfort and class promised by cable TV and HBO. Think about this hotel, probably opened in post-World War II America where travel and mobility promised romance and adventure on the road whereas the state of the sign and hotel generally as it is today suggest that it is only used for romance of a more carnal nature. Such Americana always draws my eye and certainly fits in with my interest in engaging with mundane objects that normally escape our attention as my artistic statement tries to explain.
However, that doesn't really answer the question or at least it only does so to raise another question. I certainly don't take pictures of *all* mundane things. I still have some kind of filter in place that helps me decide what I to photograph. Why this sign and not the last 100 motel signs I'd seen?
The question finally boils down to this: What makes a good shot? There are certainly rules that most people agree about in terms of composition such as the rule of thirds and questions of sharp focus, but there are as many exceptions to the rules and reasons to break them as there are rules. Plus, these are rules for what makes a good photo not a good subject for a photo, so Jon's question is still unanswered.
I want to say that, ultimately, what makes a good subject is a personal choice of the artist that can't be explained rationally. The reaction is the result of a gestalt of as many things as go into creating the individual's personality itself. Maybe it's one of the things that marks the artist as "artistic," this ability to hone in on what has potential artistic merit as a subject. The success of that artist would then be how many other people also respond on some level to the subjects s/he focuses on. Other people weren't attuned to the potential artistic worth of the subject until the artist "distilled" it into a work of art.
In this scenario, the artist him or herself doesn't have to be consciously aware of what specific elements go into drawing the artist to the potential subject. The draw, the unconscious pull, is enough. Let me give you another example. Here is a photo I took on my recent return to Charleston, WV:
It's a picture of the shelves at a local shoe repair shop. When I went in with my camera equipment, the workers were already giving me the fisheye and when I asked if I could take a picture of their repair shelves, they rolled their eyes, looked at each other and said "Knock yourself out." To them, it was only their workplace. Nothing but a place for them to practice their craft. What could I possibly find there of aesthetic value. They didn't come out and ask me the question, but it was there in their eyes. I don't know that I would've had any more of a satisfactory answer for them than I did for Jon. I was moved by the repetition of the bright yellow tags and big, bold black numbers. The way the bags are all shelved in a row, some straight and some askew suggest a real tension between organization and chaos, the age-old battle between entropy and enthalpy.
Pretty highbrow stuff for repaired shoes on old shelves, but if I look at the image now, read it as if I hadn't taken the photograph but am only a viewer, those are the themes I see at work. None of these thoughts were in my mind when I had the urge to take the photo, at least not consciously. I only knew that it was a subject I really wanted to capture. According to the principle I've been describing, this would be fine. As an artist, my only immediate need is to act on this impulse. Some of these urges will result in more successful photographs than others, but overall, the instinct to find a certain subject photoworthy is reason enough to capture it. The judgments and explanations can come later, by me or by others.
However, Jon didn't seem very satisfied with this answer which essentially is "I dunno why I find that worth taking a picture of" so I wonder if I am missing a step in the artistic process. Am I not enough in touch with my process or professional enough in my approach to my work that I'm missing some preliminary, preparatory stage where I should be able to articulate my interest before I pick up the camera? Am I taking the easy way out and not rigorously enough challenging myself as an artist? One flip answer I gave Jon was "If I could describe in words what moves me about the subject, I wouldn't need the camera to capture it." I think there is some truth to that, but I'm not sure it doesn't evade some very important issues that I've tried to tease out in this post. That's where I'm stuck in the thought process. If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions on where I can go from here, I'd love to hear them.
Well, Jon, that was a hell of a question. Thanks for the rides and the blog entry topic.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
The Gathering
Long time, no blog, I know. We moved to New Jersey a month ago and have been living out of boxes for a while while we unpacked and generally got settled. Not there completely yet, but getting closer, so I thought it was time to update everyone on a very nice development.
Before leaving Charleston, WV, I worked with some fantastic artists to establish a new art group called the Quarrier Street Collective. The talented members included Traci Higginbotham, Bruce Haley, Betty Rivard, Betty McMullen, Larry Wolfe, Emily Roles, and myself. You can read a short article about the group here, even if it describes my work as "images of mundane yet ephemeral objects." I can't begin to tell you what that means.
The basic organizing principle for the group was a mutual interest in finding a community that could provide support and feedback in an environment of mutual respect. Without some form of critique and sharing of ideas, we each felt that it was increasingly difficult to continue to grow as artists.
You can't get a group of artists together without the idea of a show coming up, so we decided to have our coming out party this October at the Art Emporium in Charleston, WV, where we held all of our meetings. The opening for "The Gathering" was October 3rd and couldn't have been better attended. If you are in the Charleston area in October, be sure to stop by.
Here are the four images I have in the show, in no particular order:
Elsie
Duke in the John
School's Out
Smiley
Even though I have moved from Charleston and look to find new colleagues here in New Jersey, I want to keep working with these very talented folks in the Quarrier Street Collective. I have learned a lot from them and am proud to claim them as partners and friends. Take care.
Before leaving Charleston, WV, I worked with some fantastic artists to establish a new art group called the Quarrier Street Collective. The talented members included Traci Higginbotham, Bruce Haley, Betty Rivard, Betty McMullen, Larry Wolfe, Emily Roles, and myself. You can read a short article about the group here, even if it describes my work as "images of mundane yet ephemeral objects." I can't begin to tell you what that means.
The basic organizing principle for the group was a mutual interest in finding a community that could provide support and feedback in an environment of mutual respect. Without some form of critique and sharing of ideas, we each felt that it was increasingly difficult to continue to grow as artists.
You can't get a group of artists together without the idea of a show coming up, so we decided to have our coming out party this October at the Art Emporium in Charleston, WV, where we held all of our meetings. The opening for "The Gathering" was October 3rd and couldn't have been better attended. If you are in the Charleston area in October, be sure to stop by.
Here are the four images I have in the show, in no particular order:
Even though I have moved from Charleston and look to find new colleagues here in New Jersey, I want to keep working with these very talented folks in the Quarrier Street Collective. I have learned a lot from them and am proud to claim them as partners and friends. Take care.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Updated Website
For the relief of my ones of fans out there, I just wanted to finally announce the arrival of my newly updated webpage and new galleries of images. It has been a long time coming. Please let me know what you think of the photographs there. Thanks and take care.
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