Exploring Color Once Again

My personal vision is rooted in a close up, wide perspective of contrast, values of gray and line. Every so often I venture into color photography just to try to better understand my relationship to it. I will probably do this periodically for the rest of my career.

Most recently after listening to several interviews with William Klein and having several discussions about the work of Saul Leiter, I have again become excited about working with color. I'm not sure I will ever develop my own unique style of color photography but I'm gaining a better idea of where on the spectrum of color photography I'm most comfortable.

As I've said in the past, I work best in color when I make color the subject of the photograph. Looking at the work of Klein and Leiter I'm understand that the use of longer lenses than I would normally use is key to isolating color as subject. So lately I've been shooting color transparency film using 50mm and 135mm lenses.

 

Cafe window on Valencia Street, San Francisco. ©2013 David W. Sumner

Another interesting approach to color I have been exploring is using the various photo sharing camera apps made for the iPhone. These apps come with a variety of filters that recreate vintage "looks" to the final image. Some look like old Polaroids others like faded family Christmas snaps. Some combinations of these filters can achieve very interesting color palettes. For me the most interesting are those giving the low resolution images I make with my iPod Touch a similar look to early color processes such as the Autochrome.

 

The Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco. 

iPod Touch photo in Eye-Em App

©2013 David W. Sumner

It's all great fun and good visual/photographic exercise. For a while I'll be posting more color work to my Flickr page, but I do hear that dominant, black & white side of my vision clearly calling.

More Basics

 

Consider the the simplicity and comfort of the familiar.

Photo: ©2011 David W. Sumner

When Does it Become a Project? Part 2

I never set out to shoot a "project." I never try to think of a concept that I can turn into a project.

I have created only a few projects and in every case they developed out of an unplanned exploration of a subject. The more I work at photographing a particular subject the more potential I see in it, the more it attracts me. Eventually I see a pattern or structure developing in the work or I don't. If what's there still intrigues me I figure I'm on the verge of greeting a project.

Photographing Alcatraz over a period of four years developed in that way as has my eleven years of photographing in Golden Gate Park. Most recently it has been my flag imagery that has taken the shape of a project. It's finished now and still it has not provided a satisfying resolution to the conflicting notions of what the flag represents. The times we live in are too complex for such a symbol to stand for a single truth or any truth.

It may be easy for some photographers to say I want to do a project on this or that then figure out how to do it. But for me a project emerges out of my practice of a deeper seeing. It's not always apparent. I'm often not aware of how deeply I'm seeing something until I start looking back at the images and begin to see the pattern emerge and define itself.

Part 1: Here

Photo: ©2012 David W. Sumner

The Bigger Picture

I've never liked the 50mm lens. I've tried. I even own a few and put one on a camera now and then.

I know, it's the 'standard' lens. So many of the legends have used it to great effect. But I don't like it.

Our natural human vision takes in more, sees a wider angle of view than a 50mm lens allows. I want that wider view in my images. I'm a 28mm shooter because that's the way I see things.

I shoot wide and close. I try to keep my subject in a proper context by shooting this way. It's natural to me. It feels right, it looks right. That's my vision.




Photo: ©2012 David W. Sumner

Workshops 2013

“Defining Your Vision” January 12^th 2013

As a photographer, defining your personal vision is much more than finding a style. Both vision and style take a long time to develop and only find root in the fundamental understanding of what we are actually seeing when we view the world around us.

A long practice of focused, critical seeing is the way to discover what attracts us to a particular scene or image. Only when you understand the attraction can you begin to shape your personal vision.

It is this process of critical seeing that we will begin to explore in this one-day, six-hour workshop, “Defining Your Vision.”

We will begin this exploration by spending some relaxed time viewing photography and painting in the galleries of SFMOMA. You’ll experience a method of seeing that will help you identify the elements (emotions, color, light, line and form) that resonate with you. As we look at the imagery, we will make brief notes, often a single word that describes the essence of the piece, an emotional response to it, an impression of its graphic impact or its use of color.

Next we will meet for a guided discussion of our experiences with the art and our responses to it. With this information, we’ll take to the streets to spend two hours freely shooting images as we make our way from the Financial District to North Beach.
Meeting up in North Beach, we will talk about our experience shooting on the streets: What scenes we were attracted to, how we saw them, what influenced our seeing, and what we observed that was new to our seeing.

What you will learn:
- The difference between looking and seeing that will define your vision.
- Identifying the essential elements necessary to help achieve your vision.
- How to better express your personal vision through a practice of critical seeing.

Schedule:
January 12, 2013
11:00am – Meet in the atrium of SFMOMA (151 3^rd Street). Introduction & brief instruction
11:30 – 1:00pm – View art to make notes of impressions or inspirations
1:00 – 2:00pm – Meet on the 5^th Floor Roof Top Garden for discussion & brief instruction
2:00 – 4:00pm – Photo walk (individually or in groups)
4:00 – 5:00pm – Meet up at Caffe Greco for discussion & wrap up

What to bring:
A camera – film or digital, SLR or point ‘n shoot
A small notebook or sketchbook
A San Francisco street map
(You may want lunch during the ‘photo walk’ portion of the workshop so be prepared to buy your own lunch along the way or better yet pack a brown bag)

Cost:
$70.00 per person (Includes admission to SFMOMA)
Fees are refundable up to 48 hours prior to the workshop.
(Space is limited to 5 people per workshop)

Registration:
To register for this workshop email your name and address to: dave@bigcrow.com
Your registration will be confirmed once your payment is confirmed. 

Use the Buy Now button below to secure your space in this workshop.

Ever insightful Daido Moriyama

Where Do Projects Come From?

That's never an easy question to answer, regardless of your chosen media or your personal work style.

For me projects usually come about as I start to recognize a body of work developing as I go about shooting day after day. I'll notice something on the street or shoot from a perspective I've not tried before. As I explore this new subject or point of view I may see some sort of story or narrative developing, and that usually happens as I start asking my self the "I wonder" questions.

"I wonder why that woman is in such a hurry?"

"I wonder if other people around here are in a hurry?"

"I wonder what this street corner would look like at lunch time through a 20mm lens?"

"I wonder what kind of images I would get shooting through the window of a moving bus?"

That's actually the project I'm working on now: "Through the Bus Window." In a previous post, "An Old Dog's New Tricks," I talked about exploring the various program settings on my auto focus cameras which I had always thought less than favorably of - the settings not the cameras.

My first experiment was shooting pictures through the window on the bus ride home one afternoon. It was the light of that time of day that inspired me to shoot just then and I happened to be on a bus so there was little else to do but shoot out the window. Once the film was processed and I saw the images I was satisfied that the program settings worked well enough, but I was really excited by the images themselves. 

I started looking for opportunities to shoot pictures through bus windows and I started hearing the "I wonder" questions.
 
"I wonder if I can find a window with just enough grime to shoot through and not lose the image?"

"I wonder where those people on the sidewalk will all end up tonight?"

"I wonder if those people are tourists from Europe or Idaho?"

So, "Through the Bus Window" is starting to take shape and I'm having a blast doing it. I'm also taking pictures in a way that's new to me and there is a lot of chance involved and a lot of not knowing how it's all going to come out, which I find quite refreshing.

Best of all I'm getting those "I wonder" questions, one of which may actually turn me on to my next project.

Photo: ©2012 David W. Sumner