Tuesday 25 January 2011

This blog continues at www.explorenation.net...

Dear Reader and friends,

Please continue to visit my posts here as I shall be closing this blogspot site down to concentrate in maintaining one main website at www.explorenation.net


Steven

Monday 24 January 2011

They way I see it



All of us have at one time or another written essays seeking a 'compare and contrast' between two or more subject matters. They could be theories, or objects or points of views. In contemporary photography, critics and non-critics alike are always comparing and contrasting, evaluating the unknown with the known, to form an identity of that which is shaped by how much understanding, knowledge or intellect one has in a particular genre to be able to say, "I like this photograph...it reminds me of a...(name of famous photographer)... ."

Unfortunately, the honest gut feeling of what a good photograph is - what it represents, the subject matter, its composition, its context, its purest aesthetic form, it seems, are no longer so important, but rather " .. it looks like a Stephen Shore, a Gursky or an McCurry", even.

Because of modern digital media today allows almost every camera owner to post and receive feedbacks instantly, the saturation of imagery on the internet has allowed the comparing and contrasting to go awry, with no real judgment passed except perhaps limited to a few words like to "great shot!"or "nice photo!" There just isn't the time and knowledge, to give a more constructed analysis and critique of the hundreds of thousands of pictures that get posted daily. Besides, what if you don't like a photograph? You simply ignore and move on to the next one.

A lot photographs I see now tend to be emulations rather than creations and although this isn't so bad in a sense, since "everything has been photographed" as Sontag puts it, and imitation is the highest form of flattery, it begs me to ask then, why photograph? Aren't collecting perfect picture postcards sufficient ? What do we photograph at all?

It must be because we can add value to the image through our personal expression and understanding of what surrounds us in our daily lives. Just like a painter and brushstrokes, the camera operator can mark his or her expression with the click of an f-stop, or the turn of the zoom ring, or even shoot off the hip!

Can photographers become critics and curators? I can only recall a handful of art curators that have been established photographers in their own right. As far as I know, curators and critics are nearly always taught from an art background, subjected to art history as a major or even developed their visual skills as picture editors or journalists. Perhaps curators have to be all-encompassing in their visual interpretative skills, and can see instantly what a good image is, its intrinsic 'commercial' value. Whether the general public 'gets it' is anybody's guess. This can be said of contemporary conceptual works. Working as the artist's pundit, curators must be able to enter the artist's mind and skillfully scrape out the hidden messages and meanings which often, are securely embedded. The way I see it, photographers can never be good critics, especially of their peers. Curators, cannot be great photographers, as their remit is too wide.


The Camera is your Third Eye

Unexpected things happen when you least expect it. I was going through some of images shot in Rajasthan, India recently and came across this 'odd' photo of a black cow lying on the sandy ground, with a heavily cast shadow, of which must have been from our minivan. I don't remember taking the picture but must have been one of many, shot through the vehicle's window as we drove from Jaipur to Jodhpur. I nearly hit the delete key, but had a second glance at it. Then I knew I had a keeper.



Road to Jaipur, 2010


Daido Moriyama, Stray Dog, 1971

One of the strangest and most disturbing photographs which I have come across is the image above of the stray dog by Daido Moriyama, whose work I greatly admire. This photograph at first glance, a high contrast print, grainy, seemingly unbalanced and oddly out of proportion stuck in my mind. Once you have seen it, you will never be able to erase it from your visual vocabulary. Its menacing stance and almost perceptible growl affected me subconsciously and everytime I face a barking mutt, the image of this stray comes to mind. My image of the resting cow of India reminded me of the stray dog!

Similar, yet miles apart. The perception of blackness and negativity that emanates from both images evokes the same feeling for me. A feeling of brooding intent, a kind of fearful apprehension. In breaking down the images, I see mainly dark geometric shapes in both photographs, over-laid by the image of the dog's head and in my picture the texture of the sand from the tyre marks. Positive and Negative space. Dimensionally opposed to each other, one recedes and the other approaches. It is this 'tension' in the photographs which creates the drama much absent in many photographs today. Robert Frank's photographs of American suburbia have spades of it. So has Klein and in Ralph Gibson's works.

(Click on the images to enlarge)

Thursday 30 December 2010

2011 : A New Decade begins


We would like to thank all our participants and friends for your support in 2010, and we hope to be able bring more coaching sessions to you, making the process of learning photography fun.

Tomorrow sparks a new dawn of the next decade. For explorenation in 2011, Andy and I are planning a new series of workshops, with Cuba and Rome for the first half of the year.

Just quickly posting this photograph taken at dawn in Pushkar, at the camel festival, during our recent workshop to Rajasthan. I particularly like the mood and the setting of this image and its depiction. These are camel breeders come together once a year to these barren hills outside Pushkar, about 150 kms north of Jaipur, bringing with them over 30,000 animals, camels and horses too, to trade. Pushkar opened my eyes in many ways, to new experiences only gained through the act of travel and being there. No matter how many guide books I read about the festival, it does not really do it justice. I'm sure for those that came along, it was the same for you, a truly extraordinary experience.

Happy New Year!


Stay focused!

Thursday 16 December 2010

Happy Christmas to all my readers!!


Apologies for not having posted for a long while. Since my last post, we have traveled to Rajasthan and back. The group o f participants had a real blast in India, bu there were some rough edges too. India surprises the traveller. Explorenation is planning new and exciting destinations for 2011. Please visit www.explorenation.net for the latest. Cuba is scheduled for June, and there will be a weekend in Rome also.

Tuesday 2 November 2010

Rajasthan, back for more.

We leave for Delhi next week to begin a 10-day photography workshop around the historic cities of Agra and Jaipur, Pushkar and Jodhpur, in Rajasthan. It will be a fantastic tour as Andy and I visited the region exactly 12 months ago as a recce trip and absolutely loved it. India is slightly special, as it is a whole new continent of colours, experience and culture for all of us.

The Istanbul trip was a high, for everyone that came along. Istanbul Edge, the book I had put together with the best selection of photographs from all our participants is a treat, and I must say will be hard to surpass! And we made great friends too.