Kodak goes bankrupt

Ocean Liner

I love the medim of photography, for with its unique realism it gives me the power to go beyond conventional ways of seeing and understanding, and say "this is real too".
Wynn Bullock

More Street Stuff

"There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs"
                                                                                  Ansel Adams

                                              This is another sampling of photographs taken in March in Downtown Los Angeles.

On the Media: War photographers change their focus

While this blog is primarily designed to feature issues involving fine art photography, I felt that it was important to share this article that appeared in the L. A. Times on-line today 4/23/2011. The life of the war photographer has been somewhat glamorized by stories of photographers such as Robert Capa, George Rogers and W. Eugene Smith's globe trotting romanticized adventures. The reality is that photojournalist are putting their lives on the line everyday to show us the story, and some end up making the ultimate sacrifice. This is not "El Salvador" starring James Woods, this is real life--or death.

On the Media: War photographers change their focus

Mayor's Proposed Budget Released: Arts for LA

Mayor's Proposed Budget Released: Arts for LA

Shooting on the streets

I have done everything from fashion to portraits (when your are starting out you gotta do what you gotta do), but nothing gives me more satisfaction than taking my camera out in the streets and finding images. Go to to any downtown urban location (except Sacramento on a Saturday) and you will find amazing images. The people, the architecture, the energy, all come together to create and environment where a photographer can find photo opportunities everywhere--if he or she is prepared and knows where to look.
My approach is simple, I usually carry one camera body and one or two lenses (I always find that the lens I left at home is the one that I needed the most). I mostly shoot black and white (Tri-X, what else) but on a rare occasion I might shoot color. I works best for me if I am only shooting one or the other because I get confused when I try to go back and forth. You have to SEE in black and white or color, never the twain shall meet.

When I am shooting, I feel like a hunter stalking prey. I feel alive because I am so focused (pun intended) on everything around me. I am not just looking at stuff I am SEEING what would make an interesting image. I like to photograph people, but I am always looking for other visual elements like line, tone, texture, and especially light to photograph.  Sometimes when I find great light, I will just wait there until someone or something interesting walks into the light.

Still, after all these years, I can't wait to process my film and check out my take. The developer I use for my Tri-x is Ilford ID1I. If you haven't tried it you should.

If you think you might be interested in street photography I have a great link for you
www.in-public.com  Check it out.

See more of my street photography on my web site  www.rodericklyonsphotography.com

Leica Digital

I was talking to a guy at Samys recently who was shooting with a leica digital camera. It looked like a real camera until I saw that big LCD screen in the back. It was kind of like when a guy shaves his legs, It looks good but there is just something that is so wrong.

Black and White Versus Color Photography

Since this blog has more to do with the aesthetic aspects of photography than the technical, I feel strongly that one of my first post should deal with that age-old issue of color versus black and white in art photography.

Let me say at the beginning, I love all photography; I love great images regardless of the medium. But from the very beginning almost 40 years ago I have preferred to work in black and white and nothing has changed. Clearly, there were a number of reasons for this. When I was in my early teens, long before I became involved in photography, I would spend hours in the library pouring over copies of Life magazine. The images in Life would help transport me all over the world. It was through Life that I realized that life did not start and end in South Los Angeles.

Then, years later, after I got into photography, I had a wife and child and could not afford to have color film processed and printed so I started doing black and white because I could do it myself. Over the years I began to admire the work of Edward Weston and Brett Weston, W. Eugene Smith and above all the technical elegance of Ansel Adams.

I also fell in love with the process. Taking Adams’ lead, I studied the zone system of exposure and internalized the concept of pre-visualization. It was a sense of having total control over the image; a must for any artist.

In addition, from an aesthetic standpoint, when working with color we are more concerned with the fact that the apple is red, the grass is green and the sky is blue. And, unless the medium is in the skilled hands of a master like Joel Meyerowitz, Stephen Shore or William Eggleston, among others, color photographs tend to look like glorified postcards.

In my classes I like to paraphrase Edward Weston who said that to make our photographs interesting, we should photograph things we see everyday, but photograph them in a way that it is though we are seeing them for the first time (Weston experimented with this theory with his now iconic photographs of bananas, sea shells and peppers). Of course this can be accomplished in color by varying lens selection or camera viewpoint, but with black and white, this happens automatically because black and white, is, by it’s very nature, abstract.

Because a black and white photograph is showing us the world in a different way, it is naturally more compelling. Studies have shown that we spend a lot more time looking at a black and white photograph as opposed to a color photograph, (all things being equal) because of the abstract nature of the photograph.

In the next post I want to talk about the future of black and white fine art photography.

Please feel free to post and share your images.

What you see is real but only on the particular level to which you have developed your sense of seeing. You can expand your reality by developing new ways of seeing.

Wynn Bullock

http://www.annenbergspaceforphotography.org/

http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/focus_makingscene/

http://www.bandwmag.com/

The Death of Kodachrome

Read an article yesterday that stated Kodak will no longer produce Kodachrome film. While I never used Kodachrome that often, it was always nice knowing it was there. When they stop producing Tri-X life will never be the same.




"The first 10,000 photographs are the worse"

Helmut Newton