Dirty Again
January 5th, 2008
The Dirty Show http://www.dirtydetroit.com/news.htm in Detroit presents me with a dilemma. I entered last year with some hesitation. One of my photos was selected for display. I went to the opening to see what it was like and to see what the other work on display looked like.
Well, the attendance at the opening was amazing. I’m used to openings with a few dozen people being considered a great success. There were thousands of people at the opening night of the Dirty Show. That’s quite an accomplishment for any art venue.
With that many people in attendance…and the crowds seem to be that large each night of the show…it’s no surprise that print sales are much better than at the average art show. My work sold very well from the “store” where loose prints are sold.
The show itself…well…I’d say that about 1/4 of the work on display was excellent art work. The other 3/4 was just…well, just dirty. Really bad art work that featured extremely dirty subject matter. It seems that if the work is “dirty” in the extreme it will get in the show regardless of quality. Maybe that’s why so many people show up to see it…I just don’t know. And then there’s the “entertainment.” I was looking forward to that because I’d heard so much about it. Again, it was a disappointment. Mostly really bad burlesque. And I mean really, really, embarrassingly bad. I can’t really describe just how bad it was…you’ll have to trust me on this.
So, there’s my dilemma. I don’t do dirty pictures. I don’t consider my work to be erotic at all. That’s not what I’m interested in in my art work. But I do like the print sales at the Dirty Show…so I entered again this year and one of my photos was again selected for display in the show. So, I’ll send my matted and framed print and I’ll send along boxes of loose prints of work I am proud of for the store and hope for enough print sales to make it all worth the effort.
I haven’t decided if I’ll attend the show this year or not. I might. There are some models who are interested in going. If several of them want to ride along with me for the opening I’ll probably make the drive and just enjoy their company for an evening of partying. Otherwise I’ll pass and stay home and let others tell me about it this year.
New Years in Vermont
December 31st, 2007
As has become the custom for our family in recent years, I’m spending the New Years holiday in Vermont at my mother-in-law’s home near Middlebury. That means very limited dial-up internet access, so I’m not doing much on line. But I do need to make note of some of the things that have been happening while I’ve been up here.
First, thanks to Chris at http://www.universdartistes.blogspot.com/ for letting me know and announcing on his blog that I’ve once again been published in French PHOTO magazine. If I’m counting right that makes 6 years in a row that I’ve had one photo included in their annual contest issue. One year they also published a second of my photos in the next issue as well. Every time I’ve sent them photos they have selected one for publication. I’m quite honored that the French seem to enjoy my work so much. When I return home I’ll do a post with the photo they selected. The model is Theda http://www.theda-b.com/eeyore.htm, who is undoubtedly one of the greatest figure models in the world. I’m pleased that she was the model in the shot they chose.
The other notable event in recent days is the announcement of the Golden Fluffy awards http://www.fluffytek.com/blog/default.html. I didn’t win one, but I did receive a mention as a runner-up to my good friend, Dave Rudin http://figuresofgrace.blogspot.com/, who won the Fluffy for best Overall Nude Blog. Way to go, Dave R…a richly deserved honor.
I don’t usually shoot landscape photos, at least not without a nude woman in the composition. But I love the look of that farm in the first photo. I photograph it every time I visit in Vermont. I’ve worked at finding the best angle, but have decided the best place to shoot from is my mother-in-law’s living room. That’s were I was when I took this one. It snowed last night and that was the view out the window when we got up this morning. The second photo is also taken from the warmth of the house, looking out across the driveway to an old fence. The snow has pretty much melted off the branches now, but there may be a new coat by morning again. It’s a beautiful place up here any time of year, but especially in winter. And this year it isn’t even all that cold.
Thanks again to Chris and Richard and Lin. I wish them and all of you faithful (or not so faithful) readers all the best in a happy and prosperous new year.
Eloquent Nude
December 28th, 2007
No photo with this post. My wife gave me the DVD “Eloquent Nude – The Love and Legacy of Edward Weston & Charis Wilson” for Christmas. We watched it last night.
Documentaries about famous photographers seem to have a tendency to be dry and boring. This is definitely NOT one of those. This film is wonderful! I encourage every photographer and model reading this to get a copy and enjoy it. You will enjoy it. It isn’t about photo technique or posing or the body of work that Weston produced. It’s a love story. It’s a very human story. It is beautifully photographed and intelligently told. It’s one of the best documentaries on any subject that I’ve ever seen.
Really, you should get and watch this film. You can order it here: http://www.eloquentnude.org/
I don’t get anything out of you buying this DVD, but you will. Trust me.
More Dario and Patty
December 26th, 2007
I hope Christmas was good for all of you who come here to visit. It’s a busy time so I’m not doing much writing, but here’s another photo of Dario Vaccaro and Patty Foster from the Lois Greenfield workshop earlier this month. I’ll post some more from the workshop and then I plan to share photos from the dance concert I photographed at Ohio University in the fall.
More from NYC
December 21st, 2007
Duet In Flight
December 17th, 2007
Another dance shot from the Lois Greenfield workshop. The dancers are Dario Vaccaro and Patty Foster. This is from the second day of the workshop. When the dancers were arriving I noticed that Patty and Dario knew each other but had not known they were both going to be dancing for the workshop. They were obviously very happy to see each other. It looked to me like they would really like to dance together, so I decided I’d ask them to do that when my turn to shoot came.
Later, before I did any photos, I had a chance to talk with Dario. I told him I was interested in shooting choreography. He said he had a small dance company and was a choreographer. I encouraged him to show me some of his choreography when our time to work together came. He was very pleased to do that. When we were getting ready to shoot and talking about what Dario and Patty were going to do, Patty said she thought the photos would work better if she didn’t wear a top, so she would match Dario’s outfit. I didn’t have any objection to that. So I ended up doing some partial nudes even at the dance workshop.
Dario was very impressive with his strength and his talent as a dancer. Patty was there with him at every step. They made a great duet couple. I’ll post one or two more shots of them together in future posts.
Thanks Dario and Patty. It was great to meet and work with you both.
More from NYC
December 12th, 2007
Here’s another of my photos from the first day of Lois Greenfield’s workshop. The dancers are Julie Blume and Samantha Clark.
Something different
December 9th, 2007
It’s not dance (although those are pointe shoes), it’s not figure, it’s probably not even art. It’s just something I like, so here it is.
While I was in New York City for Lois Greenfield’s workshop I also got together with a few friends. Theda was one friend who joined several of us for dinner one night. We ate at the Cheyenne Diner, one of the last, if not the last, metal car diners in the city. Good food too…and we hung around all evening and talked and they didn’t mind. Check it out if you are in the city. It’s right across from B and H.
The next night I stopped off at Theda’s apartment on my way home from the workshop and we did some available light photos just for fun. I use the photojournalism definition of available light: any light that’s available. In this case it was a lone bedside lamp in her bedroom. I used my 50mm f/1.4 for all the photos that evening. On the D200 it is effectively a 75mm (in terms of 35mm cameras) so it somewhat limits the possibilities. But it also has the speed to work in low light and the shallow depth of field that is fun to play with. This shot was done at 1/15 sec at f/2.2. ISO was set to 800.
I like the shapes in this photo…the angles of the legs, the curves of the pointe shoes, and the selective focus and the play of the colors against each other.
Whenever I go to New York one of the first things I do is contact Theda to see if she is available for a shoot. She is a wonderful model and a “sure thing.” I always know, no matter what the situation, if Theda is modeling I’ll come up with a photo that is a keeper. Add to that the fact that Theda is a fine person and a lot of fun to work with and I just have to shoot with her whenever I get the chance.
I have more dance photos from the workshop to post and those will be coming. But I was looking through the shoot with Theda tonight and really liked this shot, so I’m sharing it.
Back Home
December 5th, 2007
I’m back from New York. I spent all day yesterday driving. It was snowing part of the way in the Pennsylvania mountains which resulted in a few white knuckle moments, but no serious problems. And I was back to Ohio just in time to use my new snow blower to clear the 4 inches of snow that came down last night from the walks and driveway.
After doing the snow duties this morning I sat down to start working on my photos from the workshop. A little experimentation showed me that PhotoShop CS can indeed open the raw files from Lois’ Leaf back. So, the problem I thought I was going to have of how to access the files was really non-existent. I’ve been looking through them and I think there are several that I’ll be sharing here.
Today you have the first of them. This dancer is Mayte Natalio. The photo is from the first day at the Lois Greenfield workshop…my first time using the Hasselblad with the Leaf Valeo 22 back. Mayte is obviously a tremendously talented dancer and she was a pleasure to work with.
It was nice shooting with a Hassy again…it had been a while. I think I had a bit of an advantage over some of the younger photographers attending the workshop because I was already familiar with the camera. And I’m old enough to remember what it was like when we had to advance film and cock the shutter back in the old analog days. The Hasselblad Lois uses is one of the wonderful older models designed for film…and the shutter has to be wound manually after each shot. That also returns the mirror to the viewing position.
Of course the files from that 22 mp back are wonderful. And the Broncolor strobes that Lois uses on reduced power produce a flash of very short duration which guarantees even the fastest movement by a dancer will be frozen and sharp.
More photos from the workshop will be coming in the next few posts…
New Dance Stuff
December 3rd, 2007
I’ve spent the past two days in a dance photography workshop with Lois Greenfield at her NYC studio. It’s been a great experience. Lois is every bit as wonderful a person as I could have hoped for. The workshop was a lot of fun. I met some other dance photographers from around the country and the world. It was a very small, select group of photographers but from as far away as Norway.
And I met and photographed some wonderful, amazingly talented dancers from NYC. I hope I’ll be staying in touch with some of them and shooting more dance with them.
I’ll be getting the photos I shot at the workshop on a DVD from Lois in the near future. We all shot with her Hassy and 22 mp digital back. Between that kind of technical quality and the great skill of the dancers, I am sure there will be some eye popping photos.
Meanwhile, here’s something I shot last month with my own equipment at Ohio University. It turns out my lighting setup is pretty much identical to Lois’ setup, for all practical purposes. Her strobes have a shorter flash duration, which makes a difference some times on stopping very fast action, but we tend to place our lights in the same basic locations.
This dancer is Amanda Kurtz, a senior dance major at Ohio University. She was the choreographer for one of the dance pieces that I photographed there in October. It was interesting to me that when she had her dancers show me the dance before I photographed it they did not use any music, but just went through the dance. That’s sometimes the case and it really doesn’t matter to me since I don’t photograph the music. I watched and thought about what moments I wanted to photograph. When I was leaving I just had a feeling about how the dance felt and I expressed it to Amanda by saying, “John Cage would enjoy that piece.” It wasn’t until I was photographing the piece in dress rehearsal that I heard the music…compositions by John Cage.
