Black and White Photography

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Holga 120 Stereo Camera Continuing my obsession with stereoscopic photography. You only get six shots a roll and printing is a pain as you have to do two prints on one sheet. Still, it's fun

The first two stereoslides are cross-eyed. Last one is parallel.

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Adam Magyar

Adam Magyar 

It seems very cliché to say that photography captures, or even more broadly is about, time.  Adam Magyar in his mind-blowing presentation seems to be one of the few who actually represents time in extraordinary ways in his work. 

Leaving aside for the moment, his ability to create new applications of technology for innovative photography.  To mention one, the lowly scanner.  Thinking about what kind of person can look at a scanner and think, “I can use that to take a picture of time and motion” is just one of the many mind-blowing (and somewhat disheartening) aspects of his art. 

The images that resulted from his scanner work were stunning and pushed my brain to see things differently.  The juxtaposition of aesthetically beautiful prints with somewhat “off” subject matter, e.g., the different shapes of people relative to how fast or slowly they were walking, the abbreviated or attenuated busses in the background, and the oddly linear representations of the buildings further back helped to create a space in which time and motion take center stage. 

I personally have an interest in train station platforms and have shot a number of London tube platforms.  Magyar’s slow-motion videos of train stations, including shots from inside the train as well as on the platforms, again forced my brain to see in a way I had not done before.   

Finally, I am in awe of his commitment to his art.  He described spending a year getting to know a place, another year shooting in that place, and a third year processing the photos/videos.  I do not think I could ever get to that level but it is inspiring to me to think about ways I can do more to experience the setting I find myself in and, in light of Henri Cartier-Bresson's essay, maximize my attention to capturing the varia of the picture story, and in the darkroom or photoshop, bring the technical resolution to the highest I can.   

I am grateful for the opportunity to meet him and experience him directly talking about his art (as well as his time with us in class).  It is so much more than just seeing his work on a website. 

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Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri Cartier-Bresson – The Decisive Moment. 

“I was on the scent of something, and I was busy smelling it out.”  (p. 12) So concludes the opening paragraph of Cartier-Bresson's untitled essay.  What follows are scattered reflections on how I think about my photographic practice in relation to Cartier-Bresson's own reflections. 

I feel, after my first year of graduate school in studio art-photography, that I am on a scent, possibly a few scents.  I don’t know if I’ve had or taken the time to be busy smelling them out, but Bresson has attuned me to being more mindful—which I take to be a good thing. 

I need to think more about “photographic reportage.”  I’ve been somewhat happy with my sequence of medium format shots of neolithic sites in Scotland.  I think they tell an almost story (maybe still “stage management”) and that I can be more purposeful in shooting whatever sequence I choose in the future.  “The page serves to reunite the complementary elements which are dispersed throughout the several photographs”--his definition of moving beyond stage management. (p. 13) 

“The picture story involves a joint operation of the brain, the eye, and the heart.”  (p. 13) “Things-As-They-Are offer such an abundance of material that a photographer must guard against the temptation of trying to do everything.  It is essential to cut from the raw material of life—to cut and cut, but to cut with discrimination.” (p. 14) 

“There is subject in all that takes place in the world, as well as in our personal universe. We cannot negate subject.  It is everywhere.  So we must be lucid toward what is going on in the world, and honest about what we feel.” (p. 15) 

“If a photograph is to communicate its subject in all its intensity, the relationship of form must be rigorously established. Photography implies the recognition of a rhythm in the world of real things. What the eye does is to find and focus on the particular subject within the mass of reality… In a photograph, composition is the result of a simultaneous coalition, the organic coordination of elements seen by the eye. One does not add composition as though it were an afterthought superimposed on the basic subject material, since it is impossible to separate content from form.  Composition must have its own inevitability about it.” (p. 17) 

And... “But inside movement there is one moment at which the elements in motion are in balance. Photography must seize upon this moment and hold immobile the equilibrium of it.” (p. 17) 

For me, these portions of the first half of the reading come down to composition, even though composition gets its own separate section (following “The Subject” and “The Picture-story).  Composition is at the fore in the individual shot as well as at a meta-level of the Picture-story.  I had never thought that through before.  It seems obvious now. 

“To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression.” 

Food for thought and, again, mindful attentiveness in that decisive moment. 

P.S.  I also have to say that I had a chuckle over this: “I hope we never see the day when photos shops sell little schema grills to clamp onto our viewfinders; and the Golden Rule will never be found etched on our ground glass.”  He both foresaw and probably never could have imagined modern digital cameras that do precisely this and more (and, of course, Photoshop).   

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Final project, unmatted photos Neolithic Sites in Scotland I decided to crop the images square for the final project. I really liked the square format of my Bronica S (before it died). I only had enough matboard to mat six of the ten prints.

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Neolithic sites in Scotland

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Scottish coast

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Old St Peter's Church, Thurso, Scotland

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Medieval churches in Scotland

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Contact sheets from Scotland, Summer 2023 (project for ART 130) Zeiss Ikon Super Ikomat 530

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New pics from Nikon FM2n. Wanted to see what a dead camellia would look like in BW. Not particularly good. Forgot how much I like the black line frame.

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Contact sheet 35mm.

Because of the demise of my Bronica, I got out my trusty Nikon 35mm. It is such a joy to shoot with. I was experimenting with various depths of field setting in my back yart.

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Elephant reflection.

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Tulip Tree 7x7 on 8x10 glossy

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Flowering quince