15 Hoods, Redux

15 Hoods, ©2013

The premier of 15 Hoods went very well.  Despite the event coinciding with Yom Kippur, we seemed to have plenty of people in the studio and throughout the Bakehouse as well.  Both the photo and the installation drew favorable responses from visitors and three inquiries for possible future shows.  Not bad, I think.

The photo, shown above, is about 30x40 inches as currently displayed.  However, because each portrait is a distinct image ranging from 10 to 12 megapixels after cropping, the image should be indefinitely scalable.  Projection on the side of a building anyone?

The models in the photo range in age from toddler to middle age, male and female and yes, the guy second from the right in the lower row is me.  The idea of the piece was to render 15 nearly identical images in black & white, except the middle image which is clearly identifiable as a young African American male and is rendered in full color.  Essentially, each of us can look nefarious in a hoodie under the right conditions but society's attention is still drawn to the black male above all others.

Along with the piece, the installation also included out-takes and informal portraits of the models intended to show that they are really just people in hoods and that at heart we are all the same. Rounding out the installation is a series of images from the vigil for Trayvon Martin at the Torch of Friendship earlier this year.

The installation will remain on exhibit through October, 2013 in the Bakehouse Art Complex, Studio 3U and by private viewing by appointment.

10 Things Photographers Should Not Do

Brian Auer has an interesting piece on Epic Edits listing 10 things photographers should not do.  My favorites are number 2, "Don't lust for gear", and number 9, "Don't ignore the rules". 

Photographers are a curious group that includes hard-core gear-heads on one extreme and the touchy-feely artsy crowd on the other.  While I love the gear (don't get me wrong I really love my gear) to focus (pun intended) on the gear misses the mark entirely.  Photography is about the images, it's about what you can capture and how you can display it.  To focus on the gear is not only super expensive but totally misses the mark.  The gear-heads might as well be talking fuel-injectors or hard-drives.

It's all about the images.

As for the "rules", yes there are compositional rules for photography.  In sum, you should learn them and commit them to memory so afterward you can intentionally ignore them.  That's the difference between accident and intent.

Click here for the rest of Brian's article.

My Father's Rangefinder

I first fell in love with photography at the age of fourteen, after borrowing my father’s Konica rangefinder camera.  I immediately appreciated the special magic of the medium: the little box in my hand enabled me to stop time. In a frame of 35mm film, I could literally capture a fleeting slice of existence that was here one moment and then gone the next.

I also very quickly learned an iron rule that governs this special magic: in photography, there are no second chances. What would be a great photo at one moment, may only be a snapshot a moment later, a blink of an eye, a parting of the lips might make all the difference. One moment you’re Robert Capa, a moment later, you’re just a guy with a camera.

Through this blog, I hope to more fully express my love for this craft.  I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I will enjoy writing it.