Constructing an image - allowing time to figure it out.

One of the difficulties about constructed images is figuring out the composition. I have always been very interested in the space between painting and photography....so, perhaps what I'm doing these days is closer to photo-illustration than it is photography.  When a painter does a "photo-realism" painting, technique seems to overwhelm the viewer. The internal discussion is about the painting technique - how amazing it is that the painter made such a realistic copy. 

When a photographer creates a photo-illustration, the questions are also about technique (and I'm learning to minimize that dialog, since it's not really the point of the image). But, what's kind of cool is that, since it's a photograph,  we still get to include an assumption about "reality" which makes the discussion more complex. We bring to each photograph the assumption that this is real...or might be real. So, that's probably our most effective tool.

With that in mind, my biggest issue is the composition: what am I trying to say, where is the best location for the object, how big should the environment be relative to the object? Back when we shot with film, there was an automatic visual "buffer" built into the system. We evaluated the result usually a day, week or month after taking the image. There was the joy of discovering discovering an image you just didn't remember taking.

Compositing/Building images is a different story - you're faced with the choices as soon as you make the object - which is why you almost have to create a "waiting" or "maturation" period for the image. With this image, I started with the Melody Apartments - a local personal landmark. My idea was to take this "art work" out of its busy location and place it somewhere on its own...so we could really see it. I knew I wanted an "empty" space - but that opens a new can o'worms, since empty isn't actually empty, if you get my drift. My first choice for a location was fairly sparse (I actually made it more so) and there was a single soft set of mountains in the background, which I felt could work as a balance for the subject. I experimented with placement and objects...but it just didn't quite fit. So I waited a week or so and came back to the image.

Looking at it after that week I changed to a different location with a softer light and more color because it had a strong sense of "magic"...how's that for a technical term? It felt like there was a resonance between the soft colors in the structure and the soft light and textures of the new location. 

The intensity of the sky bothered me a bit, it clashed with the softer tonalities I was trying to work with. So I tried it with a sky tonality that seemed more in keeping with the overall feeling I wanted the image to evoke. 

And finally, without the tree...not sure which I'll go with...so it's back to time and maturation. Allow the image time to find itself.

Anatomy Of An Image

Where do we find inspiration? Sometimes it's by getting an "inside" view on how an image was created. With that goal in mind, I've created a You Tube Video showing how this image went from the  original on the left to the finished version on the right. The video is on my YouTube channel, which has additional tutorials on Lightroom and Photoshop. I was inspired both by the travel posters (see below) of the 30's and 40's as well as my love for vintage Los Angeles architecture.  Here's a link to the video. 

New Ways to Photograph

Back when I was a little more limber and was teaching a beginning photography class, one of the opening group exercises I would do  is to have them stand on top of their desk (luckily we had strong tables) to see how the world looked different. Then we would reverse the experience and everyone had to be on the floor - placing their eyes two inches from the ground. Strangely enough, it was this second viewpoint that was the most unusual.

The whole idea was to take people in their everyday setting and look at how differently you could change things simply by using a different viewpoint. We forget (or never knew) what the world looks like from someone else's vantage point until we're literally placed into it. So today I though I would look at how many of those different viewpoints you can use to change the look of your image-making. 

From February's Month of Creativity:

Altitude is the first one and includes everything from a "god's eye" view to an "ant's viewpoint." Think about shooting from ground level up to knee level...to beyond - 10ft above, even thirty feet above. In each of these situations you've got a whole different set of compositional and design options. Don't forget that you can even go below ground level to really change it up.

Scale - shooting details - getting as close as you can. Consider shooting a series of shots that in each step you move 50% closer with each step. See what happens to our sense of the subject as we start to lose our reference points.

Additional methods of changing what happens within the frame: 

Time - how an object changes over time. This could be anything from a decaying object to an organic element that grows and morphs. Think of Nick Nixon's great series on his wife and her sisters - photographing them annually over several decades.

Compositional shape - think of the different energies found in a panoramic shape vs. a square frame. By its nature the square, with it's equal sides, is balanced and calm while a pano has a very dynamic energy as it makes the eye move over its landscape.

Tone or light is a way to direct the eye - try creating a shot where the majority of the image is in darkness and the subject becomes an island of light. Do the opposite, fill the frame with light and sketch the subject with only the slightest change in tonality.

Morning Time

Everyone has their own unique "mental sweet spot." What's great about identifying yours is that it has the potential to be your optimal time for creativity. One of the problems with having the world in your cell phone is that it's way too easy to wake up and reach over for that phone and see what everyone has been up to...and that will immediately shift where your energy is going to go.

I'm suggesting that you find a way - if mornings are workable for you - to put off attaching to the outside world, because one of the elements of creativity is really learning how to make your own world. Ideas sometimes can flourish when there's space left for them.

A very productive process for me, has been to introduce a physical activity, such as walking, that I can do first thing in the morning and I take along a recorder. Many of these postings, and my ideas, have started life as a recording. I also have included the process of transcribing by hand - there's a part of the brain that is activated by that physical act - and I've found it very productive...plus it takes a bit longer, which gives the ideas more time to mature.

So...on your day off - grab on to that morning space, when you've just woken up and your defenses are down and the dream state is stronger. Take that time and use it - or if your life is not morning oriented - grab some time and use it as a "cool down" from work. Get out - hole up in a coffee house somewhere, and start dreaming.

The Future of Photography

For the New Year...I thought I'd write about where I think Photography is going.

I love L.A.,  or at least my visual corner of it. This is a city made of fantasy, and that's where I find my inspiration - in this delicious mix of style and fantasy. An avid film lover, I cut my visual teeth on a combination of Blade Runner, One from the Heart and Fool for Love. Those films fascinated me in their ability to start with threads of the "real" and then build their own vision on top of that. Ten, fifteen years ago, it was unusual for a film to create a new visual world - now it's the norm...often whether we know it or not. Our vision of the world is slowly being remade to blend the divide between what we know to be real and what is not.

Recently I read a review of the film Lincoln and it occurred to me when they discussed the visual approaches used ("the smaller, plainer America of the mid-19th century evoked by the brownish chiaroscuro of the cinematography") that this is the new frontier of visual communication. Our recent dialog in photography has focused on film vs. digital...but I think we were missing the boat on that one. We should have been exploring the much broader world that digital was leading us to - a massive break from the age-old connection between photography and representation. By making the capture digital, we forever broke the idea of "image as documentation" and instead moved into a world where all is equal...copies, edits, composites...they are all originals, they can all feel "real." 

Also, along the way, digital removed the photographer as technology's gate-keeper, since now anyone can take an image. When you add the boom in social networking and the life-changing explosions of smart phones and tablets...it has remade the world we live in. In many ways, video games are setting the pace with their visions of dystopian alternative realities while opening up our expectations of what images should accomplish and how our environments could look.

So, what do I see as the future for photography...or photographers? Our future (or one of our futures) is to push the boundaries of what our world looks like, with a vision that gives texture to each frame.

Here are a few photographers I think are worth watching:

Erik Johansson: Many of these guys are also retouchers...he's one of the best with a nice sense of humor.

Dariusz Klimczak: Wonderful work, interesting characters.

Rocky Schenck: I've loved his work for ages, strong sense of place and mood.

Alison Carey: Both a photographer and sculptor, she creates new worlds and then photographs them beautifully.

You know you're a photographer when...

Between storms and elections - it's been a stressful few weeks - so this week I figured we could all use a bit of humor...

You know you're a photographer when: 

You save old shoeboxes just in case you might want to make a pinhole camera.

You have more than 10 photo apps on your phone.

You "fake" some of your Instagrams with your 5D.

At a party, you start talking geek with a friend and realize everyone else is totally bored.

Samy's on Fairfax is the mothership...or B&H for the east coast folks. 

You're seriously considering learning wet-plate.

You used to shoot with zoom lenses, now you mostly use a fixed/prime, and it's often wide-angle.

You've made a roadtrip to the Salton Sea.

You have a laptop, desktop, iPhone and maybe an iPad...and often are 

using at least 3 of them at the same time.

You have a tripod in your trunk...and you lust after a gitzo. 

You have out-dated film or (better yet) Polaroid in your fridge.

The smell of fixer makes you nostalgic.

You're sick of the photographer being the psycho in movies.

You keep looking for the perfect camera bag. This gets worse if you're a woman, 

because you also want to use it as a purse. 

You make a lot of u-turns. 

You cringe when you see a 5D in the hands of someone other 

than the photographer at a wedding. 

You've made your friends jump for a photo.

You've included your feet or shadow in a shot on purpose. 

You've got to figure out where the light reflecting on the wall is coming from. 

You once mistook a lighting strike for a really big strobe. 

Gradation filters used in movies & tv shows make you crazy. 

You think it would be cool if in the future they figured out how to take pictures through your eyes. 

You notice when something's 18% gray.

Your Lightroom catalog has almost no family photos, but tons of shots of 

that cool town you found in the desert. 

You've taken a detail shot of a plant. 

At twilight you often think "you can't get this on film."

You won't eat at places with ugly lighting.

You're addicted to making panoramics.

You keep shooting cloud pix...even though they never look as amazing later.

Your pet is sick of posing. So are your kids. So is your spouse.



Hope some of these made you smile...if so, congrats - you're a photographer!

Asking The BIG Question...

An interesting exercise I recently tried had me tapping into my  stream of consciousness - I had to write down (or ask) 100 questions in a row.  It came from the book How To Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci. The book posits that one of Da Vinci's true gifts was his curiosity - that the basis for creativity is curiosity.  

It's strange but it occurred to me  that I've been doing this blog on creativity for many months now and have never asked a very simple question - what is creativity? Is it a single entity? Is it an actual thing that you make - as in you make stuff, therefore you must be creative? Interestingly enough, it reminds me of our origin myths - they are the story of a creation - so at least creation holds a hallowed space. But what is creativity? Maybe it isn't just an action verb - maybe creativity is a byproduct of curiosity.

There's this fatal neurological disease called Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) where the patient slowly loses their language capabilities. Within the disease, there is a small group who develop new creative skills in music and art. The individual becomes driven to create and wildly does so even after the ability to communicate with words has disappeared. Apparently there's a part of your brain that is a governor - it's the part that stops us from wearing our jammies to the job - well when this governor is laid of...the rest of the brain goes on a creating frenzy.

I digress ... back to my original thought, which is - what if creativity is merely a byproduct of something else? Isn't our curiosity where much of it all starts - that dreamy stare into space that starts the brain on the road to figuring out how to go to the moon? We're intuitively drawn to something and that's when the questions start. "What if I try this?" "What if I did it in blue?"

So, back to the exercise, they ask you to write down 100 questions and you've got to do them all at once because there are layers to your thought process and you need to get past the group at the top of your head. Somewhere towards the end you'll start to go somewhere new. I tried it and I must stay that #87 took a completely wild turn and I ended up with an extra 20-30 that I'm very interested in exploring.

What's really interesting about the exercise is the intense focus on asking questions - rather than finding solutions. I do know that it's important to focus on process as opposed to just results. The power in questions is that they can reframe how you look at a problem. Your questions come from your assumptions about how life works. The right question can flip the subject and open possibilities.

So...the challenge for today is to give it a try. Find somewhere you can sit undisturbed and start writing them down. It's okay to repeat things, that just gives you a sense of what you're focused on...go for it and see what happens!

Money Does Not Equal Creativity

When you think about people's  early films...there's a certain zest to them at that point and I think part of the reason is it really is important to have to deal with compromises in creativity. When you have every resource available to you, it often means that all you do is follow your first path, the first thing you thought of and you lose the magic of discovery.

Here's a good example - I was in a Kamikaze show, which you can read about in this previous post - and I knew I really wanted to do something different, still tied to who I am and what I do, but with a different quality. I wasn't quite sure what that was, but I knew it was out there somewhere. I also knew I didn't want it to be about a traditional approach to photography, where you take the image and then you put it in a frame...I didn't want it to go there. 

I've always loved handmade papers and I think a good technique when working creatively is to drift towards the things that inspire you.  With paper, I love the tactile quality of it...especially handmade paper - I love the irregularity of it. I'm still amazed that we live like Pharaohs...think about how hard it was for the average person to be able to record their thoughts or create something on paper...anyway...I digress. 

As I said, I had this idea...I really wanted the image to almost come "through" the paper...I was thinking it should be very light and so I tried some great handmade paper that I'd had for ages, found an image and ran it through. Initially it wasn't impressive - but then I saw it back lit, with the light coming through it ... it was just astounding. "OMG this is what I'm going to do, I'm going to do these images and then I'm going to put them on light boxes." Then I thought "OMG, where am I going to get a bunch of light boxes? I called around to see if I could rent them easily - I didn't want to spend a ton of money. The show needed to be a creative endeavour, I didn't want it to be about "Oh, let's drop another grand." 

So...I kept working and eventually moved into a different kind of image. I've always loved the way a bed looks in the morning, before it gets made, where it has that imprint of what happened that night. Loved the abstract quality of it as well...it's just sort of this shining thing. I thought, "okay great, I'll photograph that and just print it really light as if the light was coming through it." So I did a couple of those...and it just didn't move me either. Finally, taking some of my own advice, I thought well, what if instead of making it very light, I make it very dark, I just sink it into the paper instead of wanting it to lift out of the paper. I did the first print...and it was love instantaneously. 

I'm really happy with my new direction and you know, if I had unlimited funds...I would have just sent some of "daddy's money" over to make light boxes. That's why I think it's important to have restrictions. They make us more creative...they make us come up with more solutions. You don't find salvation through a new lens, computer...whatever, you find it in the everyday struggle to deal with the realities life sends us.




One of my happiest re-discoveries in this process was the paper shop McManus & Morgan Paper. It's located over by McArthur Park in LA.  Gary Wolin is the owner and here's a great video, Ink&Paper, about his business and the Aardvark Letterpress next door - which is the last letterpress printer in LA.

ink&paper from Ben Proudfoot on Vimeo.

Vintage Cameras - a new voice

I love working with vintage cameras and buy them when I can. What's cool about them is that each one has their own voice. In an age of digital cameras - even with Hipstamatic - it's still really nice to find something very uncontrollable that has a quality built over years - the true essence of a unique voice. The above image was taken with this 120 Tower camera that I found in a local vintage shop for $28. The Tower was made by Sears in the 50's and 60's.

I'm starting a new series and am trying to find its voice. Vintage cameras allow for an interesting lack of control, which I appreciate for its "zen" of image-making mentality. Plus, let's face it, they're so cool. What I really love, is that nobody takes me seriously when I'm working with this, so I can pretty much go anywhere and shoot.

Buying vintage is fairly easy, remember that they were made for the general public and it's still just basically a dark box with (maybe) a lens.

1. Shutter: this is the first item I check to see if there's any point in continuing. Sure you can fix shutters, but I want to take images...not repair cameras. I like to open the back of the camera because it's easier to see how the shutter's working when you hold it up to the light. This process can vary by type.

• To open one of the older box cameras - on the side there's a metal winder for advancing film, you need to pull this out before the back will slide off. There may be a few "latches" that you just undo. Once the back is off, then just click the shutter as you look through the back of the camera. I look for the cameras that have a tab I can switch from "I" to "T" which lets me do long exposures at night.

• To open the newer roll cameras (like the Tower) there is usually some kind of rotating switch on the back or bottom of the camera, just turn and you should be able to pull the back off. With the newer cameras need you to "cock" the shutter by rotating the film advance knob. The upside and downside of this type is you can't do multiple exposures. My Tower had a timer function, but if you look closely you'll see it's broken (the missing gray button on the right side).

2. Format: now that the back is off, you'll usually see a label that lists what size film it takes. I've decided that I'm sticking with what I can find at a good camera store (yea Freestyle) and I like a larger format negative for image quality. Of course this is a bit ironic when you consider I often leave the dust on the lens. 120 film is inexpensive and they still make it in many speeds. It's been around since the early 1900's and is a roll format that's backed with paper - which has markings for 16, 12 and 8 shot cameras (rectangular or square). You'll find a lot of 620 cameras, it's the same film, just on slightly smaller reels, so if you're really devoted, you can reload 120 onto a 620 reel.

3. The Lens: first advice is DON'T clean the lens until after you've shot a test roll. That lovely atmosphere in the top shot...dust from half a century of hanging around. Since it's dust on the lens it acts as a diffusion filter, if you find the effect too fogging, try cleaning it in stages. All I know is I found this out the hard way. Otherwise, it's great if your lens has some type of focusing mechanism and even better if it's got aperture controls. On the primitive versions it's a tab you pull out that has a series of various sized holes that go in front of the lens. Simple, yes, but remember you can't do half-stops (crescent-shaped images).

4. Folding Cameras: folding cameras are the ones that have bellows. The older ones were considered "pocket cameras" which says something about pockets back then.  The fun trick is figuring out how to open them...there's a "button" you push, it's under the surface material and it's usually on one of the flat sides. This will pop open the front, then gently pull it down and pull the lens out on the track. Many of these have leaks in the bellows, but you can usually tell by looking at them if they're in good shape. Some people bring flashlights, I just hold it up to the light with the back open. The back usually opens with a slider on the rounded ends.

5. Viewfinder: odds are that you'll barely be able to see through these. Sometimes it's a real lens, but in the box cameras it's just a very dirty magnifying piece of glass. Don't worry about it, they're not very accurate anyway. Remember the image is flipped.

That's the basics of how to get started with vintage cameras. You can find them online, at yard sales, flea markets...you name it. Occasionally you're going to find someone who thinks they're worth much more than they are. Just because they're old, doesn't mean they should be expensive. Most of mine have been under $40. For film processing, I've been doing mine manually...but there are plenty of places which can process and even scan if you want that extra step. Several that do mail order are The Icon, Richard Photo Lab and A&I in Hollywood.

Bottom line though - remember, it's not the camera that makes it an interesting image - it's the partnership in how it translates your voice and vision.