The Exhibition is up thanks to the hard work of Satch and the staff at Midland Arts and Antiques Market.
Now that the exhibition is up, Greg from Midland will design and install the furniture, accessories, art and antiques that will make up the center of the exhibit area. Midland is going to look great for the New Year and for Super Bowl visitors. Be sure to make a trip downtown to check it out.
Thanks to Satch who designed and installed the exhibit
Here's a quick video preview of the exhibit: (making these videos still pretty much terrify me, but it is part of the project so I press on!)
I am exploring making images using Polaroid cameras (a Polaroid 420 and a Spectra 2) with Fuji and Impossible Project instant materials.
In the past, Polaroid Type 55 Pos/Neg 4"x5" was my workhorse film. That film has been discontinued for quite some time.
I am excited about the possibilities that I am seeing. With regard to the instant photograph, do I simply have this photograph as the single original or do I scan it and enlarge it through digital printing? These are a couple of questions that I haven't answered yet. Making books of these images is another possibility.
So, here are some recent "Polaroid" photographs and a video by Satch.
9-29-2011
9-29-2011
I have completed the first phase of Truth From Perceptions. There are about 135 photographs from which to cull the exhibit. I have made over 500 negatives during the last nine months. Now the editing begins. In some cases I will be presenting differing perspectives and "contact prints" that will show the process by which I came to the final image.
This project has caused my thinking about my photography to be more focused and I foresee big changes coming. Final decisions and discussion about these changes will come after the exhibit.
Wall Series, Triptych, Truth From Perceptions (click on all photographs to enlarge)
So, it's a wall. It's just a wall, right? Why would anybody bother to photograph a wall? I'll try to explain.
• Interesting - just after I wrote the sentence above "Self Righteous Wall" by Ryan Bingham began to play on the stereo. Yes it was a total fluke. This was the first time that I had listened to that album! •
When I first came upon the wall that is in the series of photographs and in the accompanying video, I visually experienced the the elements and materials that shaped the wall's form and construction as well as the erosion of its face. The light played across the wall revealing the reflectivity of its surface textures.
View of the wall in context with surrounding buildings
Upon closer observation I began to see the wall's history and evidence of contemporary visitors.
I realized that a building used to exist where I was standing as evidenced by the outline of the old interior staircase on the whitewashed cement wall. Drilled holes and other imperfections revealed no longer existent structural elements. Time was taking a toll on the cement wall and the underlying brick structure. Parts of the cement wall that was littered with random marks, gashes and spalls had fallen away from the brick.
Visitors to the wall had made their mark, or marks, either by simply scratching into or painting the wall leaving evidence of their calling or proclaiming their devotion to another. Others took the time to etch shapes into the surface using the wall as a sort of an outdoor sketch book.
Metering for the last photograph in the slide show
So, in front of me was this wonderful wall, a facade full of abstractions, history, personal messages, expressive doodles, textures, shapes, forms, shadows and highlights. At this point it was my mission to discover, conceptualize and visualize the various elements in the wall and present them, and what I felt about them, through my photography.
I have visited the wall several times. Each time my understanding and view of the wall became more refined. Seeing more clearly I was able to progressively make better photographs. Photographing the wall has been a work in progress. In this post I'm presenting a slide show of what I feel are the best photographs of the wall in the order that they were made.
This series of photographs is closely connected with Alfred Stieglitz' concept of Equivalence which was also practiced by Minor White, Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan, all photographers whose work I greatly admire. The subject of Equivalence has been written about extensively so I will not delve too in too deeply with this post.
Within Minor White's 1963 essay, Equivalence: The Perennial Trend, there are these two passages:
"...in practice Equivalency is the ability to use the visual world as the plastic material for the photographer's expressive purposes.
When a photographer presents us with what to him is an Equivalent, he is telling us in effect, "I had a feeling about something and here is my metaphor of that feeling."
These two passages do a good job conveying the concept of the series of wall photographs that are a part of my project "Truth From Perceptions." Photographs such as these do defy a simple description although I have made an effort in this post to detail the inspiration for making them.
Making the first photograph of the Triptych
Here is a short video of when I recently visited the wall:
Here is the slide show of images from The Wall Series, in the order that they were made:
Click hereto go to the Flickr page of "Truth From Perceptions" where you can view the "Wall Series."
