This video will make you see differently!!!
Watch this amazing interview published by Phaidon Press in which Joel Meyerowitz talks about the importance of the frame in photography. It’s not only what’s in the frame, but what’s not!
For Meyerowitz photography is all about making the “ephemeral connections between unrelated things vibrate”.
Posted in Artist Interviews, Inspiration, Photography, Videos
Tagged Joel Meyerowitz, photography, seeing, technique, vision
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I purchased a copy of Aaron Siskind 100 this weekend after discovering it on the shelf of the Palm Beach Photographic Center’s Pro Shop. I spent many hours pouring over his abstract photographs in a similar collection while in school. Flipping through this book brought back many great memories and I couldn’t resist. Turns out today is his birthday!
Here is the book description:
One of the most important and influential artists working with photography during the twentieth century, Aaron Siskind is being celebrated on the occasion of his 100th birthday with the publication of this elegant and comprehensive monograph, bringing together both well-known and never-before-published images. Siskind’s prolific career spanned six decades and left its mark on both photography and painting.
In 1932, at age twenty-nine, Siskind began his career as a photographer and spent the next nine years under the auspices of the New York Photo League working on social documentary photography. Around 1940, Siskind made a shift toward abstraction and entered an art world populated by painters and sculptors. During the course of the decade, Siskind began to explore a vision that depended on the shallow plane, and utilized delicate, minimal designs. “For the first time in my life subject matter, as such, had ceased to be of primary importance,” Siskind explained. “Instead I found myself involved in the relationships of these objects, so much so that the pictures turned out to be deeply moving and personal experiences.” The photograph had become the object.
The Whitney Museum has this audio guide and photographs by Aaron Siskind on their website. You can look/listen here if you prefer.
“Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.” – Pablo Picasso
Inspiring! How can you use your creativity to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary?
Joel Meyerowitz talks about the day he met Robert Frank and realized that photography was a “medium that was open to incredible physical, sensual and even a spiritual dimension.” He was so inspired in fact that he went back to work and quit his job as an art director to become a photographer. It’s quite a story considering that he went on to become a master photographer himself!
Here are some recommended books by Robert Frank and Joel Meyerowitz. For more great books on photography, creativity & art please visit my photography bookstore. If you’re a photographer and don’t have a copy of Robert Frank’s book The Americans, you need one!
Posted in Inspiration, Quotes, Videos
Tagged inpsiration, Joel Meyerowitz, Robert Frank
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“The significant problems we face in life cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” – Albert Einstein
This explains a lot about creative blocks!
How can we expect to create new work if we continue to use the same type of thinking we’ve always used?
How do you break your creative blocks?
I have been spending a lot of time reconnecting with my photograms and my interest in light as subject. I am particularly interested in the layers of light as well as the strong sense of time and space in this image. The ambiguity of scale is also interesting. Is this something huge photographed through a telescope or a glimpse into the sub-atomic realm?
Click on the image for a larger view.
Aric Attas, *Untitled (Light Study), Digital Photograph, 2012
Today, October 25th, is the anniversary of Picasso’s birth so I thought it would be a fitting tribute to post this amazing photograph of him by LIFE magazine photographer Gjon Mili.
Gjon Mili, Picasso Draws a Centaur in the Air, Black & White Photograph, 1949
The photograph was made as part of a series Mili made of Picasso for LIFE magazine which came to be known as “light drawings”. The effect was created by photographing Picasso in a dark room using long shutter speeds while Picasso used a small light to draw shapes central to his paintings including centaurs, bulls, Greek profiles and his signature in the “air”.
To see more of this series of photographs by Gjon Mili visit “Pablo Picasso Draws with Light” at LIFE magazine here.
Here’s a photogram I created on black & silver photo paper back when I was working on my MFA. The image is made with two 24 x 20″ photograms mounted side by side on white PVC board. The piece is mounted to the wall so that it “floats”. The image is fairly large and immersive in person.
The work in this show was inspired by cosmology, quantum physics, relativity & alchemy. This particular piece was inspired by the idea of interconnectedness.
Aric Attas, Web, Unique Photogram, Black & Silver Resin Coated Photo Paper, 24 x 40″, 1996
Image Copyright © Aric Attas. All rights reserved.
Posted in Art, Photography
Tagged Aric Attas, art, photogram, photography, quantum physics
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Check out this video featuring the work of Jerry Uelsmann and Maggie Taylor. They each discuss their creative process and use of photography to create surrealist stories.
Uelsmann has been creating composited photographs using multiple enlarger WAY before Photoshop was invented (late 50’s, early 60’s). His images are imaginative and surreal. You can read more in this insightful interview with Jerry Uelsmann.
Maggie has embraced digital technology and references the history of photography in her images which combine scans and digital drawings.
Posted in Art, Artist Interviews, Photography
Tagged Jerry Uelsmann, Maggie Taylor, photography, surrealism
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Taking a quick break from shooting for my clients…
Aric Attas, *Untitled, Color Photograph, 2012
