Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Very Occasionaly a new person arrives and it's evident in their online galleries that there, among a wide range of images, is one common thread of individual expression that is like a thin vein of gold among the strata of a rocky outgrowth in a desert! Is there a substantial treasure to be discovered? Is there magic to be fashioned based is this sighting a distraction or else nothing more than "fool's gold"?
So I am taken the brazen action of suggesting to one such individual, (whose work I have just begun to probe), a path to B&W photography that might be explored and modified as needed for him and anyone else on the edge of making such a journey and commitment.
This picture also looks back at civilization from the untouched natural world. It works especially well in B&W. This puts your work into a class which leaves behind the luxuries, beauty and signals of color for just the physicality of the elements. The latter can still have their identities, but everything now competes in a common medium of the intensity, shapes, contours, junctions, contrasts, rhythm, variabity, balance, extent of symmetry and miore of what is boiled down to a shared vocabulary of black or white marks or gradients constuting, or not shapes we might explore, perhaps recognize, but at a minimum hold our fascination.
If one is going to work in B&W, then it should be, IMHO, an artistic or functional commitment to the work, not a weak choice to "cover all bases" and at least please someone!
So, as yourself, what is the best way of exploring my topic? Does color provide an essential component. If not, am I able to map these colors to tonalities all along the grey scale so that a unique image is made that appears authentic to my self and vision? If not, stick with color until you feel differently.
I would look at the work of Antonio Correia as he has a good sense of monochrome work for both landscapes and especially for his extraordinary portraits. The set up is simple but the experience has roots in years of refinement and ability to make folk trust him. Look at the photographs of architecture and city bridge, monuments and statues by Paul. Also download for yourself 6 pictures each from Henri Cartier Bresson, any Magnum Photographer, Elliott Erwitt, Penti Sammallahti, Ruth Bernard, Sebastio Salgado, Helmut Newton, Steiglitz, Steichan, Strand, Bob Kolbrenner and Edward Weston.
Just one a week!
It doesn't matter which order, but after each download and an hour of reading about that photographer, go out and take more pictures on your theme, "Looking Back to Civilization", for example. However, do not attempt to copy any one else's style, rather accept each photographer's work as examples of private and contiguous expression. Be formal in writing down what you intend to do and what you are not going to do and then shoot.
When you return, print your best 3 pictures in B&W and make 5 photocopies of each. Get a wax red pencil. Now mark them up with your comments on what is perfect and what you might reprocess or reshoot.
Do not buy a bunch of books or take courses. Instead, visit galleries and public museums. You might not get to read that book. The class is a distraction usually and the museums show coherent works, each voice, the photographer's own expression from deep inside thenselves. These are your colleagues, not mentors. You make the work for yourself, but imagine you are now in a club, so you better do work that best represents you.
Asher
So I am taken the brazen action of suggesting to one such individual, (whose work I have just begun to probe), a path to B&W photography that might be explored and modified as needed for him and anyone else on the edge of making such a journey and commitment.
Thank you Asher. I just looked up Cem's photographs and I like the industrial one of the people sunbathing. And the one that you liked is also one that my biggest critic and supporter both liked and that is my wife. And I never thought of my photography as "outside of "civilization" looking in" but those pictures are the ones that a lot of people like and I never thought about it till now.
This picture also looks back at civilization from the untouched natural world. It works especially well in B&W. This puts your work into a class which leaves behind the luxuries, beauty and signals of color for just the physicality of the elements. The latter can still have their identities, but everything now competes in a common medium of the intensity, shapes, contours, junctions, contrasts, rhythm, variabity, balance, extent of symmetry and miore of what is boiled down to a shared vocabulary of black or white marks or gradients constuting, or not shapes we might explore, perhaps recognize, but at a minimum hold our fascination.
If one is going to work in B&W, then it should be, IMHO, an artistic or functional commitment to the work, not a weak choice to "cover all bases" and at least please someone!
So, as yourself, what is the best way of exploring my topic? Does color provide an essential component. If not, am I able to map these colors to tonalities all along the grey scale so that a unique image is made that appears authentic to my self and vision? If not, stick with color until you feel differently.
I would look at the work of Antonio Correia as he has a good sense of monochrome work for both landscapes and especially for his extraordinary portraits. The set up is simple but the experience has roots in years of refinement and ability to make folk trust him. Look at the photographs of architecture and city bridge, monuments and statues by Paul. Also download for yourself 6 pictures each from Henri Cartier Bresson, any Magnum Photographer, Elliott Erwitt, Penti Sammallahti, Ruth Bernard, Sebastio Salgado, Helmut Newton, Steiglitz, Steichan, Strand, Bob Kolbrenner and Edward Weston.
Just one a week!
It doesn't matter which order, but after each download and an hour of reading about that photographer, go out and take more pictures on your theme, "Looking Back to Civilization", for example. However, do not attempt to copy any one else's style, rather accept each photographer's work as examples of private and contiguous expression. Be formal in writing down what you intend to do and what you are not going to do and then shoot.
When you return, print your best 3 pictures in B&W and make 5 photocopies of each. Get a wax red pencil. Now mark them up with your comments on what is perfect and what you might reprocess or reshoot.
Do not buy a bunch of books or take courses. Instead, visit galleries and public museums. You might not get to read that book. The class is a distraction usually and the museums show coherent works, each voice, the photographer's own expression from deep inside thenselves. These are your colleagues, not mentors. You make the work for yourself, but imagine you are now in a club, so you better do work that best represents you.
Asher
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