4 posts tagged “photography”
I have a new passion for blogging. I need to be writing and combining that passion with my photography. I need to be sharing ideas and expressing myself. But these aren't really the reasons I'm all fired up about blogging again.
The real inspiration came during a long conversation with my good friend, Pardeep Toor. I was feeling incredibly down about photography, writing and journalism in general. Pardeep wanted me to continue on with my creative endeavors but I had just shot another wedding in an evangelical box with barely any aesthetic quality and had to fight through numerous camera-wielding relatives to get my shots. I wasn't feeling it.
We talked for awhile and I felt something building. I realized what it was when we watched a TED talk by James Nachtwey. The line that caught me was, "There is a vital story that needs to be told..."
Here is a man who has spent his life showing the western world the horrors and atrocities of war and he's still passionate about telling the story. That's what I'm passionate about. Telling stories. Visually, verbally and effectively. I want to stand between those who know and those who need to know. I want to portray the stories that don't get told.
I want to spend a night at a frat house and photograph the insane drunkenness. I want to spend a day with a family from a completely different culture and show their struggles and joys. I want to write about the 17 year old boy down the road who is the eighth generation to farm his family's land. I want to show what it's like to be dying in a hospital.
Walter Fisher's Narrative Paradigm Theory explains life a whole lot better than rationally ever did, and I've changed the name of the blog to pay him homage. What I want to explore in the coming months is the different stories all around us and what we can learn from them.
I hope you enjoy the journey.
Every fall semester, the Spring Arbor University art department has a show of the student's work from the their classes and extracurricular work.
I'm not even an Art Major. I'm I Visual Communications major. I didn't expect to do very well in the show but figured that I would try my hardest anyway. I entered for pieces. Over 250 were entered by all the students and there was some very good photography. I was a bit intimidated and tried not to get my hopes up too far.
I went to the opening of the show this afternoon. I listened to Professor Shaw talk about how students should not worry if their piece didn't make it in because they had narrowed the pieces down to 91. I was bracing myself for the shock of not seeing any of my work.
"Photography is an area where we are always having the debate of fine art versus commercial" said Shaw. "1st place goes to Ryan Maloney. It's a very nice piece that we were all drawn to. An honorable mention goes to Michael Metts. Congratulations."
I couldn't believe my ears. Not only had I gotten a piece in but I had gotten an award. Wow. When we were let into the gallery I found that three of my pieces made it in. Unbelievable. Here they are, with the honorable mention photo first:
In short, I am so grateful to God for an amazing day. He blesses far beyond our expectations.
The time has come for a rant.
We see images all t he time. In today’s culture we are practically forced to be inundated by images selling everything from soda to mp3 players to cars to underwear. The thing about all this advertising is that almost all of them are image-based.
I wouldn’t say they’re photography in the strictest sense. True, cameras with either sensors or film are used to capture the starting points for the ads, but most ads are so photoshopped that all the camera really does is provide the graphic artists with some objects to work with. As we can see in this Diesel ad, almost every surfaced has been airbrushed into oblivion and the only recognizable elements are almost cartoonish.
I’d also like to share a second illustration with you. I have a friend who is currently working as a freelance photographer’s assistant in New York City. He’s been working with some of the biggest names in the business and his duties include everything from setting up lighting, holding reflectors, cleaning, and photoshopping models faces. I asked him to give one of my photos the same treatment he usually gives a client and the resulting comparison accompanies this article.
The photo on the right is the “untouched” version where the model’s skin is left exactly as it was seen through the camera. The photo on the left is what’s left of her after applying the usual treatment advertising photographers request. As you can see, almost any character of the girl’s face is gone. Wrinkles, creases and zits are all gone.
First, this problem affects photographers. Because of increased awareness about the uses of photoshop, people begin to disbelieve that things really were seen the way photographers see them. When I showed a friend a photograph of the collapse of tower one on 9/11 by James Nachtwey - one of the best photojournalists of our time - their response was, “How much of that was photoshopped in later?”
We’re starting to lose appreciation for the hard work that photographers put in to images. We start to value the ability to capture a significant moment less and less assuming that these moments are easily fabricated on the computer screen.
It also has implications that stretch far beyond photography. The people that we see in ads these days aren’t real. They are photoshop people that don’t exist in reality. Any comparisons we draw between ourselves and them would be pointless.
The only way to counteract this is to make sure that we don’t inundate ourselves with these images. We have to take the time to look from side to side and appreciate the beauty God saw in us when he made us. The people we see everyday are God’s most impressive works of art, so remind yourself of that.
I've been going through a bit of a struggle with my photography recently. It all started when I went out to Aurora one Saturday to visit Jimi Allen.
To provide some background, I was planning on working for Jimi before I went off to Sweden last year. One night when I was in Sweden I was passing out sandwiches with the salvation army. I got into a lengthy, half-swedish half-english discussion with a drunk guy about life, the universe and everything. We got around to talking about why I was in Sweden, and I told him it was because I wanted to share Christ with people like him. He asked what I would have done if I hadn't come. I told him that I would have a job learning about and doing what I love; photography. He thought I was crazy.
I don't think I was crazy. Sweden was neccesary, and I learned so much there that will stick with me throughout the rest of my life and has made me who I am today. However, I found myself wondering from time to time what life would have been like if I hadn't gone.
This brings me back to Jimi. I came to Jimi because I wanted help with my business. I wanted to start building a client base in the city and I had no idea how. I came with a list of business related questions to ask him, expecting the appointment to be fairly straightforward. I got more than I bargained for.
Jimi ended up asking me most of the questions: "What do you see yourself doing in five years?" "What do you see yourself doing tomorrow?" "How is your Bible education going to help your photography?" "How can you combine your faith and your photography?" We spent about three hours talking in between his appointments with clients.
When we got the bottom of things, we had established one basic principle. Faith and photography shouldn't be separate for Christian photographers like Jimi and myself. Photography is the way we communicate with the world and one of the ways we convey God's glory to the people around us. Up until this point I had been struggling to think about why God had given me these two seemingly separate desires; to be a photographer and to serve him. These shouldn't be separate. In an age where the visual rules all, it is more important than ever that we glorify God in art and imagery. It is even more important that we affect people with our images. Images stir people to action; from what they buy, to what they wear, to what they do on the weekends. How much greater would it be if images inspired people to serve God?
You see, up until this point I had been taking a lot of pictures like this:
You see, I love images like this. I love the light. I love the lines. I love the way different compositional elements work together to create a strong image. However, when you get down to it, it's not really going to change anybody. It's lacks that power. It lacks significance.
The end result of my conversation with Jimi was that I sought to push myself harder to capture some significant moments. Ever since then, I've been wracking my brain, and trying to create a better image. It's taking time, but my eye excercises seem to be bearing some fruit. Take this example from a recent trip to millenium park:
Now this isn't Pulitzer prize winning photo by any stretch of the imagination, but it's an important step for me. It shows my view of how these people are interacting with the world, and in a way, it contains my feelings towards this interaction. I'm starting focus more on the people around me.
This got me started in another idea. I decided to start bringing my camera to the youth drop-in center I volunteer at. I wanted to produce some meaningful images that showed how the kids there interact with the world. It's going to take some time, but here is one of the firstfruits of this effort:
I don't like to talk about my photos very much, preferring that the viewer take as much out of it as he or she can, but I'm trying to make a point here. This photo is showing progress because this isn't the typical portrait of mine. It's not a high-school student dressed up in their best and ready to smile for the camera. This boy is so much more genuine than that. The first thing I noticed about him is that he didn't turn his face to the other side. He didn't try to hide his scar; he's not ashamed of it. His lip is also busted; he's probably been in a fight recently. His arms are crossed, which is a typical sign of toughness or defiance. However, this boy is probably 13 or so years old.
Okay, so these aren't huge accomplishments by any means, but I think that I'm growing. I'm thinking about things, and trying to impliment them. It's going to take some time, but as you can see, I'm pretty excited about what it means for me.
