I wrote in November that I finally got to work with Brooke Lynne. It seemed like I was the only photographer who had not worked with this highly recommended model, so I’m glad that our photo session finally came about.
Being during the cold weather months, the only location I had was my living room studio set-up. As I’ve written before, it is hardly an ideal place to make photographs, but it’s better than nothing at all, and with a good model like Brooke, one should be able to come up with something worthwhile.
I hope that all of my readers have had an enjoyable holiday weekend. (Well, at least those living here in the USA, anyway.) I wish I could write that I have, but the truth be told, I have not. I wrote in my last posting that I had planned to do some more darkroom work this weekend, but as I had written in 2007 after I got hit by a car, “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.“
Thankfully, I was not hit by a car again. However, I did succumb to a nasty stomach ailment that knocked the living hell out of me on Friday night and Saturday, had me laid up in bed most of the day Saturday and left me feeling weak and depleted yesterday. I’m feeling better now, but I still feel weak with a sensitive stomach and far from 100%, so I think it’ll still be a few days before I’m back to normal. Printing will just have to wait, I guess.
I did have the strength to scan a few photos today to make this post (though it was rather tiring and I’ll probably stretch out for a while once the post is up).
This past September, I made my first visit to the Big Sur area on the central California coast in a number of years. One of the places I visited was Point Lobos, a place made famous in the photography world by the photos made there by Edward Weston. I visited Point Lobos on last year’s trip and I hope to post some of those photos here in the future.
Today, though, I’m posting some of the photos I made at Point Lobos on my first visit to Big Sur in 1999. As I did last year, I made some landscape photos on that first visit, but I also made some wildlife photos, too – wildlife being these squirrels seen here (though it may have been only one). Here’s the story:
I was walking along and was passing through a group of school kids when I noticed a squirrel. Then I saw that some snotnose kid (as my grandmother would probably have called him) was intent on throwing a stone at the squirrel. Naturally, I challenged the kid and got him not to throw it. (Hey, nobody’s gonna throw a rock at a squirrel on my watch!)
Then I went over to one of the teachers escorting the group and reported the snotnose kid to her. (Hey, he deserved it.) She thanked me for my actions and when I inquired, told me that this particular variety of squirrel was a Beechey ground squirrel. I looked it up today and found that it’s commonly called a California ground squirrel, but the name Beechey is in fact part of its scientific name. (Click here for more.)
Naturally, after the incident had ended, I made some photos of the squirrel(s) – something which, as far as I know, Edward Weston never did. Sadly, though, on my recent trip, no squirrels were to be seen, even though I was looking.
At least I think I got some good landscape images.
It had been a while, but I finally did it yesterday: I got back into the darkroom and made some prints!
The last time I had done any printing was back in September, and that was an abbreviated session to make one print that I had promised to donate to the Friends Without a Border benefit auction. The last time that I did a full day of printing was in July.
Needless to say, it felt great to be creating art again. Developing film is an essential part of the process of creating photographic art, but the ultimate goal is to make a beautiful print. Of course, it’s also very gratifying to see the image as a print rather than just something on a computer screen.
Nude, Nevada, 2006, #3
The last few times that I printed I concentrated on my travel photography, printing photos from Asia and Italy. This time, it was back to doing nudes. I made 11 x 14 inch prints of Rhowena in Nevada in 2004, Carlotta in Nevada in 2006 and Rachel on Prince Edward Island, Canada, in 2006.
So, how long will it take me to make prints again? Time will tell, but I’m hoping for it to be soon. In fact, I’m planning for next week.
I’ll begin tonight’s posting by saying that I’ve been profiled on the blog of photographer Chris Henry. I’d made a comment on Chris’ blog, and after he saw my work, he asked if I’d be willing to answer some questions about my photos to appear in the profile. I agreed.
You can see the profile on Chris’ blog by clicking here, and I’ll say thank you to Chris again for featuring me.
One of the questions that I was asked dealt with the things that have influenced me and my photography. As I wrote, no art is created in a vacuum. All artists are influenced by the world around them, whether they know it or not. I answered that some of the influences on me have ranged from ancient Egyptian pre-dynastic sculpture to a painting by the French master Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres.
I’ve decided to illustrate those two things here today. First, let’s start with the Egyptian sculpture. I don’t know how much I’ve written about this before, but I earned the degree of Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) in ancient Egyptian studies from the Yale University Graduate School in 1985. (Yes, I am perfectly serious.) Art was important to know, and as part of my comprehensive exams, I was given about 30 or 40 photographs of ancient Egyptian objects and had to put them in chronological order. (As with many things, it’s not that difficult if you know it.)
"Birdwoman"
Even before going for that degree, I spent lots of time in the Egyptian collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum – two of the best Egyptological collections in the world. The times spent there must have left an impression on me. Fast forward to 1995 in Woodstock, NY, when I was doing my second ever nude photo shoot. I asked the standing model to raise her arms over her head as seen in the photo at the top. I don’t know how much later it was, but at some point I had realized that I had seen that pose somewhere before. Then I remembered: it was from a pre-dysnastic “Birdwoman” figure that I had seen in one of the museums. You can see the photo of one here that I made last year in the Brooklyn Museum.
So, while I had not consciously tried to replicate that pose, it was there in my head somewhere and just came out.
Nude, Maine, 2003
The same can be said for this photo here, made of model Hope Hoffman on a trip to Maine in 2003. I saw an overturned canoe at the location and I thought Hope would look good on it with her back facing me – but ah, what to do with her arm? I asked her to stretch it out on her right leg in a languid manner. Again, I did not have anything specific in mind to copy, but some time later, I realized that the positioning of that arm was taken from Ingres’ 1814 painting, La Grande Odalisque, as was the pose in general.
So, there you have it. I’m sure there have been plenty of other photos of mine that have been influenced by other works of art. I guess the sources of those influences are still waiting to be discovered.
As I wrote last time, I was planning to drive up to Essex Junction, Vermont, this past weekend to attend the opening reception of the “Human Form” photography exhibition at the Darkroom Gallery, where one of my prints was selected to be in the show.
Well, I did in fact go there and return safely. Things got off to a rough start on Saturday when my GPS malfunctioned and I was unable to enter a destination, but thankfully I was about to get through to Tom Tom on the phone and got the problem straightened out without too much trouble. The drive up took about seven and a half hours with two stops, including one for dinner at the China Moon Buffet in White River Junction, VT.
The reception was very nice, with a lot of fine images on the walls, and the turnout seemed to be pretty good for a small town in Vermont. Besides me, four other contributing photographers were there: Bert Halstead from Massachusetts, local artist Denise Trotier Johnson, Will Swanson from Montreal and Juror’s Prize winner Magnus Snorrason from Iceland via Massachusetts.
Also on hand were body painting artist Dinash and her model Ollie, who walked around sans top through the event.
As you can see, I made some photos at the event, which I’m posting here. I’m also trying something new here for the first time: video. I made three interviews with some of the artists mentioned above speaking about their work and just posted them on You Tube. If I can figure out a way to embed there here, please take a look. The videos are not very long.
Of course, if you’re in or near the Essex Junction/Burlington area, I encourage you to visit the gallery and see the show itself. It should be up on the walls through February 19. See the gallery’s website here.
My friend Dave Levingston's photos
Bert Halstead with his photos
Ollie and Dinash
The winner of Dave Levingston's raffled calendar
Magnus Snorrason with his prize winning photo
Will Swanson with his photos
Yours truly with my photo
Ollie poses
Yours truly, Will, Bert and Magnus
And now, video!!!
Bert:
Dinash and Ollie:
Magnus:
That’s all for now, folks. Please let me know what you think!
One of the things that I want to try to do more often is to enter my photographic work into competitions to try to get them exhibited and/or published more frequently.
Like many of the things that a fine art photographer does, it involves spending money with only a small hope of a return. Normally there’s a fee involved in entering the competition. If it’s an exhibition that one is submitting to and one is lucky enough to have some work accepted, there’s also the cost of shipping the print to the gallery and then having it sent back (unless someone buys it, of course, which is something that you simply can’t depend on because of its rarity).
Still, I managed a couple of success in 2011. One of my photos received a Bronze Award in Black & White magazine’s Single Image competition early in the year. Then three of my photos were exhibited at a small gallery in Los Angeles in an exhibition of nudes in July.
So, what’s happened since then?
Silhouette and La Salute, Venice, 2009
Well, I once again submitted some work into the annual Photo Review competition, which is a competition for inclusion in a special issue of that publication. One of my photos of Japan had been published in it a few years ago, so I thought I’d try again.
The result? As the letter to me stated, “Unfortunately, your photographs were not chosen for reproduction in the 2011 Competition issue…The juror selected only 51 of the 573 photographers who entered the competition. As always, the juror made many difficult choices and much good work was not included…However, we have selected your work for a special web exhibition arranged around several themes that seemed particularly prominent among entries this year.”
So, I got into the web exhibition. I think of this as something of a consolation prize. Definitely not as good as getting into the publication, but better than nothing at all, I guess. (The web exhibit is not online yet, probably because the print issue isn’t out yet.) The photo chosen, by the way, is “Silhouette and La Salute, Venice, 2009.”
Childen, Lanten Village, Laos, 2006
Next in line was an exhibition on the theme of Travel at the Photo Place Gallery in Middlebury, Vermont. As followers of my blog will know, I take my travel photography as seriously as my figure work and I would like to get that exhibited, too, so I entered a number of photos.
The result? As the e-mail said, “From over 900 photographs submitted, (the juror) chose forty photographs for the gallery exhibition, plus an additional thirty-five photographs for display in the “Online Gallery Annex” on the PhotoPlace Gallery website. All selected works will be reproduced in a full-color exhibition catalogue available for purchase from Blurb Books…Although your work was not chosen for the gallery exhibition, we are pleased to tell you that (the juror) selected it for the Online Gallery Annex. “
So, relegated once again to the online gallery. Another second place finish. Another consolation prize. Still, it’s better than being a complete reject, and I did get into the book. The photo selected this time was “Children, Lanten Village, Laos, 2006.” You can see the online gallery by clicking here (scroll down, please), and the link to the catalogue here.
Shadows on Steps, Venice, 2009
After that came the annual juried show at the Center for Photographic Arts in Carmel, California. I had paid a visit to the center when I was in California in September and had a nice chat with its executive director (who has now sadly moved on). It’s a very nice space in a part of the country that has been associated with many of the great names in photography, so I felt that getting my photo on the wall here would be really great.
The result? To quote the e-mail sent to me: “Dave, Congratulations! Your photograph, ”Shadows on Steps, Venice, 2009”, has been selected by (the jurors) for inclusion in the web gallery of the CPA 2012 Juried Exhibition. This year, 286 photographers submitted 1396 images to the JE. 137 images were selected for the web gallery, so you are in select company.”
“Alright, already,” I began to think to myself. “What the hell is it with me and the damn web gallery???!!! Why can’t I get into the damn show on the wall?” I was really beginning to feel second rate (and “Feeling Second Rate” was going to be the title of this blog post at one point). Sure, being second rate is definitely better than being third rate – but it is still second rate.
Still, if one wants to succeed, one cannot give up, so I tried my hand again by entering some photos into an exhibition called “The Human Form” at the Darkroom Gallery in Essex Junction, Vermont. All three submissions that had landed me in the web galleries were travel photos, so perhaps a return to the nude figure would yield something better.
The result?
“Dear Dave,
Congratulations! Our juror for The Human Form…has made her selections. Your image, Untitled Nude, 1999, #1, was selected to be a part of our exhibition at the Darkroom Gallery, opening Jan 25th, 2012.“
Finally! Success!! I actually got one of my photos on the wall!!! Hooray!!!!!!!!!
As the message said, the exhibition opened on Thursday, and will continue to February 19. The opening reception will be held this Sunday, January 29, from 3 to 5 pm. I am planning to be there, so if you’re in the vicinity of Essex Junction (which is right near Burlington, VT), please drop by to say hi. The gallery is at 12 Main Street.
For those who can’t make it, take a look at the selected photos here. There’s also a catalog available; click here for information on that.
Alas, I have so far written about winning and placing, but what about “no show”? I decided to enter the Soho Photo Gallery’s annual Krappy Kamera competition for photos made with cheap cameras or lenses like Holgas or pinholes. I had entered this once before without success, but as the juror is different every year, photos that were rejected one year can be chosen for inclusion the next.
The result? Well, you guessed it: “Thank you for entering Soho Photo Gallery’s Fourteenth International Juried Krappy Kamera® Competition. Regrettably, your work was not selected for inclusion. There were over 1400 images submitted by 208 photographers from around the world. Our juror …was very impressed by the quality and variety of the entries. In fact, he had a difficult time narrowing the show down to 49 images. He easily could have selected another 50 images.”
So, there you have it. Five competitions entered. One win. Three places. One no show.
What’s next? This is the time of the year when I wait to see the annual contest issue of the French magazine PHOTO. My photos have been published in it five times since 1999, but the last was in 2007, so I’m due. The deadline for entry is November 15, and though the issue apparently hits the street in France around late December, it takes a while to get over here to the U.S. For a long time it usually reached newsstands around the second week of February, but the last few years March has been more of the norm.
So, I will just have to wait. Before then, though, I have a trip to Vermont ahead of me. :-)
Okay, this will be another quick post from me tonight. I’ve got a longer post in mind, but I just haven’t had the time to write it all up.
Scanning film to post here takes a lot of time, and while I’ve got plenty of film to scan – both of my figure and travel work – I have not had much time lately for scanning. So, tonight, I’ll go back to photos that I made with my pocket digital camera while on my travels.
Today’s photos are from my trip to Japan in 2010. I had taken a day away from the tour group to just walk around on my own, and one of the things I did was to see the beautiful show put on in the Pontocho section of Kyoto by the geiko (the Kyoto work for “geisha”) school there. Outside the theatre, after the show, I saw these beautiful and beautifully dressed women there.
Naturally, my camera went into action to record that beauty.
