My friend Ellen Butler just sent me a “heads-up” and provided a link to the Creativity Network. If you scoll down, you will find: Doug Stockdale and my recent SoFoBoBo book Places Amongst Us. very nice.
I guess I need to update my web site with some of the images from Places Amongst Us. That will have to go on the August to-do list.
Best regards, Doug
Still working on the editing of the work from Eastern China.
Seems what is working for me now is to concurrently develop the two series, with still the idea that they may come together. But one is a collection of found images while the other is set of found circumstances that help illustrate a project in the making. So they are two differenct bodies of work and two different intents. hmmmm.
So I will see how this develops. Stay tuned;- )
Best regards, Doug
BTW, this was again during the blizzard while I was in JiaShan. I saw these two guys coming at me, but they had no idea I was in the way, so I established my composition and then kept taking photographs as they approached. This is the best of the bunch for me. It really connects with me as to how I was feeling and getting blown around with my own umbrella, trying to keep me and especially the front of my lens from the elements. Not always successfully!
And I will be tied up with another assignement for the next week and a half, so my updates will probably less frequent for a short while.
When creating bodies of work, I see similarities between photograph and other creative works, such as music, novels and poems and plays. I guess that it can be argued a photograph is like a poem or perhaps a short story. I find myself thinking of comparisons to music, e.g. a musician will write a song and then it might be a single or part of an album. But now, how we access that recorded music has been changing, perhaps similar to how we are accessing photographs.
So while doing a recent road trip, I had an opportunity to listen to five hours of ColdPlay on XM (channel 50) and they kept bringing up & playing some of the songs that just did not make it, and what would have been the Side Bsongs. For those too young, that is the flip side of the “single” that carried the hot song of the moment. In the real old days, that was on a 45rpm record; the little platter, little spinner, the small licorice.
There seems to be a lot of dicsussion about the manufactured photographs again, such as Amy Stein’s work. I suppose that it has to do with the idea of a totally created work, such as a painting or drawing. An idea or concept is developed and you create the set and find the players. Not surprising, they look like advertising photos, which are very related manufactured cousins. I do admit that Stein carrys off the realtative illusion a little better than most.
Yes, editing and more editing. Does the image capture my heart, does it have an emotional connection, does it work with my head and stay within the boundaries I have arbitrarily chosen, is it a keeper, dud or maybe I just don’t know yet.
The photograph (an instant recognition and reactionary shutter release) that has taken a brief moment to capture, continues to haunt me.
Editing is hard work. very hard work.
So is it a keeper, dud or maybe I just don’t know yet…..
Best regards, Doug
BTW for this one, made in PingHu, I just don’t know yet…..
This is a follow up to yesterdays comments about my hiking about in the China Blizzard last January and observing the social conditions and making judgements as to the effects of the on-going changes.
This tiny little market and I think included a resturant (not sure) was not much to look at, and I did not think all that prosperous. But yet as you can see from my resulting photograph, they could get a nice laugh out of the strange looking Western who was out hiking in this awful weather. I know what I looked like a half hour later when I finally made it back to my hotel, a real mess. The little kid kept shouting “Hello” of which I keep repling “Ni hao”, until I relented with a good old fashion, “How ya doing” of which everyone starting laughing again. Probably had no clue to USA slang.
But the point is, they were direct, warm, open, cordial if not outright friendly. I did my best to try to capture that moment, but this is more of a personal photo for me than any that I am considering for my project. And if I think that the changes that are on-going to this society are bad, perhaps it is my perception, not theirs. But nevertheless, I feel that I need to photograph what I preceive and show it.
BTW this is also when my camera (Canon XTi) was as frozen as I was and intermintently shutting down and defaulting to some random settings. Really randome settings or sometimes outright stopped working. Thankfully it defaulted to a RAW settling this time and that allowed me to salvage this image, even as noisy as it is. If this was film, especially color transparency, it would have totally lost, a total gonner.
Best regards, Doug
I am where my emotional connection is developing with regard to my photographic projects from Eastern China, specifically the industrial landscape, such as this photograph. Kinda like the let down that occurs weeks, months or even years after a tragic life event occurs.
At some point, the defenses are far enough down that the events wash over and you make the emotional connection.
One thing that I have been striving to do is to include a stronger human presense in my landscape photographs. And seems that others have noticed as well. What I did not notice until it was pointed out to me recently, is that the people in the photogaph seem to be moving away from the camera.
They are seen but not really seen, a player in the landscape story, but an unknown player, perhaps more mysterious than they should. I keep them at a distance, I don’t get let them usually get close. These landscape images of mine are very autobiographical after all, eh?
Best regards, Doug
BTW I was in Xitang, the historical “Water Village” near JiaShan. I liked this architechial composition and the way the light was iluminating the surfaces. I found myself waiting for people to walk down the alley way (hutong) that was parrallel to the canal, past my small vantage point. This one was the one that interested me the most.
Well, I continued to think about the publishing strategy for my softcover version of In Passing. It seems that my logic for holding back the softcover version until I complete the Limited Edition was based on traditional book publishing rules.
But I am not doing traditional book publishing, eh?
I received my other book production proof this week, the second book that came in is the second production proof of the softback version of In Passing. It was my first book production proof of In Passing last April that set me off to develop my POD sharpening book.
I did not use the B3 custom color for the softbound version of In Passing, but I have no issues with a side by side comparison of the “duotone” color between the two proofs. I noticed only a slight tonal change within the images, but I think that this is a result of the slight contrast increase that comes with the sharpening actions.
