The only reality I worry about

Here is some grab shooting.  There is no flash, there are lots of blurry bits.  Because it was low available light, motion blur is an issue.  There are bits in the frame I don't like.

So rather than fight it, I just went high key lighting, soft edges and selected stuff in PhotoShop and blurred the hell out of it.

In my photography, the only reality I worry about is the reality I see in my mind's eye.

I was struck by the obvious connection between these two.  So the only important parts of the frame are the faces and the lines along the arms and hands that connect them graphically.

Monochrome speaks of abstract seriousness

I usually shoot black and white photography.  Lately, colour has dominated my visual landscape; not sure why.

Here are black and whites from the petal and skull photos.  Colour can be evocative but monochrome speaks of abstract seriousness; the philosophical dimension of the medium.

Breaking the rules with glee and delight

This one is in the tulip petal series but barely.  I wanted a composition with the classical pyramid/triangle so I stacked the bottles, threw the remaining tulip petals on a plate and aimed all the reflective surfaces at the camera so I'd get maximum contrast.  I processed it in Silver Efex Pro and went for the contrasty look there too.

It is way over the top but I like the final result.  It is part of breaking the rules with glee and delight.

Petal me

my flower,

petal me

one by one.

my spring flower,

petals over me,

tender  thrill.

shiver  still.

I eat you with my eyes, 

savour your petal face,

lie down like a clown

in the wake of your smells,

inhale you,

breathe in your graces.






(copyright.paulbailey.2012)

Hero descends headlong to oblivion in ecstatic rage

As the tulips in my studio faded, I thought again of the memento mori.  So it was natural to do a skull redux with the last petals of the tulips.  The dry petals literally fell off the flowers and curled, their colour intensified.  I imagined them falling out of skulls eyes;  Weeping flower petals.

It conjures up a whole lot of poetry for me: Baudelaire's  Les Fleurs du mal; james joyce's "apologize, apologize pluck out his eyes" and the wondrous drunken rant in Malcolm Lowrey's Under the Volcano, where in the day of the dead scene, the hero descends headlong to oblivion in an ecstatic rage.

And yet, it can all be beautiful too, as an image.

Tulip series 15.....a cup of them

These tulips are more interesting than the last ones.  But that's how it is with photography.  People always ask photographers what their favourite photo is and they invariably say "the next one".  It's taking and making that keeps us going for the most part.

The black espresso cups still sit around from the coffee series and I decided to lay the tulip, now on its last breath, in the cup.  I love the idea of the blazing, curling, intensely fading flower in the black cup. (The soft box light was high on the left.)

Wittgenstein used to say that metaphor was hammering with a saw.  Art is like that too.

Good art says, "Hey.  What about this?"

Tulip in colour...part 14

Here are two more tulips in colour: one on seamless grey and one backlit. I was trying to get a ghosty effect with the backlit so I popped the skull into the frame for a lark

Tulip series version 12a....black and white photos

Here are the monochrome version of the recent tulip files.  I think they translate very well.  All were made from a finished colour version using LightRoom 4 and then Silver Efex Pro to convert to black and white.

Tulips series....the even dozen...twelve

I picked another trio of tulips later today and shot the tulips for the twelfth time.  They had different character entirely.  I also tried seamless white and some light spill on seamless grey.  My costume skull is pulling his/her weight.  I have some lovely monochromes from silver efex pro also.

The point of the skull photo above is that beauty defeats death: is that too obvious?

Tulip series part eleven...reprise encore

The tulips in the front garden are almost done.  I decided that I wouldn't diminish their beautiful lives much by cutting them and photographing them.  They are big, colourful and just past their prime.  The red ones have already lost petals in the slight wind and rain.

That I cut them just before they were about to expire reminded me of my ongoing memento mori series. Therefore, the second image is with the skull.  In fact, I have added cracks and white teeth to my skull with paint to spruce it up. Looking good!    I blame Damien Hirst.

The skull is ready for her/his cameo however.

Mud man rides again

When I think of influences on my photography, I think of three people: Rembrandt, Karsh and Irving Penn.

Images of Rembrandt paintings were in our grade three readers in public school.  His Aristotle contemplating the bust of Homer  was an image that I saw as a child before I knew what fine art was or meant.  But it whacked me in the eye like a bolt of lightening.  Rembrandt showed me that visual images were only about light.

Karsh showed me how light could be used in photography and that it was flexible and a creative tool.

From Irving Penn I learned how to simplify a set, strip it away to the bare bones.

Penn did a great series in New Guinea in the 1970s of Asaro Mudmen.  I think his point, apart from making great images, was that everyone decorates their bodies; there is no bad fashion, just photographers and people who can't see the beauty in "foreign" culture.

The kids in grade three recently made masks that reminded me of the Penn Asaro portraits so I got some help from a family model to be a mud man for the camera.

It is transformative how masks change people.  There is something Jungian here, and what it is ain't exactly clear.  But it pokes around in the psychological/artistic territory I call neo-baroque.

The coffee lemon rides again

The lemon from the coffee series got into my visual head a bit. There is a glass candle holder that seemed appropriate too. The apple and orange came along for the ride. 

Coffee (cups)....part 7

I'm using the black espresso cup in these images; because they're black and shiny, they make a nice surface for the light.  I like the shape. I like how they can stack, sit, or hold something unusual.

Who doesn't love, still loves coffee...part 6

I'm reading a book on creative photography by Bruce Barnbaum.  He is an American art photographer and uses large format cameras.  He is the real deal.

In a section on creativity and integrity, he said that a photographer who is trying to express an idea can take any liberty s/he likes to create this kind of expression.  It was a surprise, but as pleasant one.  So many people today claim that one should be careful with digital processing because one can go too far with an image (I'm talking about attempted art.  I too frown on fraud and mischief like landing people in trouble by fabricating out and out lies.)

His view is that we are not making photographs of reality, we are making personal photographs that express our ideas.  I agree strongly with this view.

Coffee series, part 5: Art keeps us sane

My coffee series continues.  It is all a surprise.

I conceived the coffee series in black and white, yet this colour image is one of my favourites.

I was going to stop the coffee series for the self portrait in oil, yet the painting has ground to a halt after two days.

Perhaps I need a break.  I'm reading an excellent book on Rome by Robert Hughes.  It's bloody. The Rome I remember was more of a Vatican, Trevi Fountain tourist fantasy.  And of course, the art.

Art keeps us sane, civilized and in the end, sees us through.

Planter cafe, c'est pas pour les gens fragiles...part 4

I decided to try the silhouette for the coffee series.  There is also one in sepia with extreme detail.  I find the extreme detail ones gritty like the coffee plantation, where the labour to produce coffee "is not for the fragile people" as Jacques Prevert said in his poem "Planter cafe".

The silhouette is more abstract and elegant.  I don't think it's sanitized, just different.  For me the silhouette leaves questions unanswered; preserves an element of mystery.  In the era of reality shows, which are heavily written and directed, I think we could use a dose of mystery, just to preserve an element of wonder.  We don't need to know everything.  We can't anyway.  Reality, like reality shows, is an illusion.

Speaking of illusion, I may start a new self portrait in oil.  I am going to try a new approach; taking my time.  Some of may favourite painters apparently spent at least three months on every picture.  So if I miss the occasional post, that's where I am.

Coffee, coffee, coffee...part 3

I continue to explore the shapes and I have moved in closer still to aspects of these coffee cups and pots and saucers.  The dust is glistening and the stains declare themselves.  I'm not sure if this nitty gritty is it.  Usually when I see it I know it.  But when I'm trying to push through an idea, it isn't always apparent.

I have given this set a sepia tone.  I am considering silhouettes for this idea and I may put some coffee in the cups!

Everybody loves coffee...part 2

I'm trying to get inside the experience here.  Penetrating the surface is difficult.  It isn't as easy as just getting closer.  One has to select the part that represents the interior whole: Like a portrait.

I'll just keep trying.

Who doesn't love coffee?

Who doesn't love coffee?  I suppose people who prefer tea.  Then there are those who swing both ways: coffee in the morning and tea in the afternoon.

How civilized!

When we lived in the big city, we were lucky in that most in the neighbourhood were people of Italian descent.  Good coffee and the means to make it were readily at hand.

Pictured above is an espresso maker.  One puts water in the screw tank at the bottom, adds ground coffee to the funnel and drops it into the water tank.  Screw the whole thing together and put on medium heat for about five minutes.  Remove at the moment the water is exhausted and the coffee has bubbled up into the top reservoir.  Otherwise, everything burns.

Nothing automatic here.  Old school.

The shots above were made with the large soft box on the left low (Rembrandt lighting) with the new Canon 5d markIII.

Flat light, old trees, hard rocks

We drove north to the edge of pre-cambrian shield country.  The light was extremely flat.  There is always a contrast in this landscape with rocks and trees so if one can find an interesting composition, it can work.