Light of the Day

Down at Venice Beach several times in the last week to photograph for a non-fiction children's book being released in Canada. My friend, Lizann Flatt is the writer. The publisher is in Canada. The editor/packager is in England. They want a family scene, perhaps with surfers.

Different than what I usually do. The first pics sent were too "edgy." The latter fine.

What this has done: on an assignment rather than on my own, I see the beach a different way. Filled with families, I have to curb my tendency to isolate the loneliness of the landscape.

Rather than outside, I am forced to be "in," to speak with my subjects or their parents in order to obtain the requested image. To ask for a release for here, when taking pics of children today, everyone with a zoom lens is looked upon with suspicion. Swallowing my fears, I again am surprised how warmly received is my request. Those who will not appear in the book will get emailed pics from me as thanks. One good deed does indeed deserve another.

At the same time, at the beach in the early am (before school to catch the diehard pre-teen surfers) and in the later afternoon after school on a 100 degree day in LA, I who live within hearing/walking distance to the beach and know well it's marine layer, am yet again caught by the distinct landscapes of only a few hours apart. Here are two of them: albeit different days but characteristic of them both. The first of course: 8am when the layer still is loosely hemmed to the sand and mysterious hidden objects abound. The second: 5pm, the layer burned off all day but returning to warm the night, the waning sun starting to create shadow, and the beach releases the people to their homes and landscape and the birds take over.

New York color

From the spare, quiet vistas of New England to the gloriously intense color of Times Square viewed from the careening taxicab from Grand Central. A couple of hours makes all of the difference.

Two prints, the first a comp of the taxicab ride. The second - a seemingly vintage Clark Kent view of Gotham - from a friend's window downtown and with the high speed, very grainy Leica D-Lux3.

After all this, a full day in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, photographing NYC's third Chinatown followed by a terrific opening in Nolita at Jen Bekman Gallery of her "Hey HotShot! 2009 First Edition."

From there, without my main camera system, I walked back past Little Italy through the Manhattan Chinatown and caught some evocative images with the Leica - no large or even "table" tripod.

New England Light

Wandering around the Northeast for the past few weeks: some history, some friends and family and some photography. Returning to Boston's Chinatown for a summer view and today traveling down to NYC to capture the third Chinatown around New York: Sunset Park in Brooklyn and perhaps yet another?

In Nantucket, my work has been invigorated by the glorious light and spare design of these New England churches and many quiet hours have been spent photographing in the First Congregational, Methodist and Unitarian Universalist. With luck before I leave today, I'll also visit the African American Meeting House, the second such church in the country, and the Quaker Meeting house.

Whether this series ultimately resolves as "Sacred, Silent" or "Waiting" or a combination of both, it has fed a contemplative moment for me and my work. Several of the Nantucket images here.

Alan Rapp on Editors & Publishing/Self-published

Alan Rapp, the remarkable former Chronicle Books editor whose last work for them was David Maisel's evocative book, LIBRARY OF DUST, has joined Hey, Hot Shot! as Associate Director of Jen Bekman Projects. His thoughts on self-publishing AND the need for an editor - "all content benefits from editing" - is right on point here.
http://www.heyhotshot.com/blog/2009/08/20/self-publishing-interview-with-alan-rapp/.

The collaborative process is incredibly creative and fun, especially when you have the right editor!

Staying up late nights to create and upload a MagCloud magazine before I leave for an East Coast trip, without time for proper editing although not quite finished and looking forward to some good editing before it is formally published, I am totally in agreement. More later but here's my cover.

Always Change

I have learned that the work of promotion is to keep your name and your work in front of those whom you feel can be helpful to your career. To this end, promotion should remain fresh and current. A static website, one postcard a year, will not accomplish this.

Promotion is a challenge to the writer or photographer/artist as the creative process involves not only new projects but updates or revisions to the old. It requires us to be constantly thinking about how this work is presented to others, even while the process of creation is ongoing. While the general rule is that the work should be in its best and somewhat final form whenever a formal presentation or pitch is to be made, bringing a project up for some sort of "public" examination during the process can be a helpful way to hone a project. The task is daunting.

I am immersed in this process now: finalizing a presentation for a gallerist to see how my work is exhibited (see my post of 22 July); preparing several pitches for children's books and two different proposals concerning my Chinatowns project in preparation for a trip to NYC to see publishers and art galleries and museums; following up on a proposal sent, at their invitation, to a museum of photography for inclusion in an upcoming exhibition; gathering - and hopefully organizing - marketing information and ideas constantly with respect to the chinatowns series and; cleaning up my studio!!!!

Much of this is the reflective process of creation, edit, produce and then revision. But promotion is always a concern for ultimately, the writer and photographer wants the work to be seen and experienced. Rather than tacked on at the tail end, in today's world the writer/artist must factor in presentation both as an editing tool and as a necessity for the final-end product, if in fact there is an "end," for the work and approach is always so fluid. For me, thinking about promotion helps the creative.

What this has meant for me:
1. The Photo Website:
Yet again, an update/review of my photographic website for that is the easiest portfolio to which to refer people to take an introductory review of my photographic work.

a. The Chinatowns project is presently working. I have added only a few new images in the past few months and feel confident about the work at this time, helped in the Spring by Paula Gillen of Gillen Edits, terrific photo editor and consultant.

b. The Gridlock project- still being photographed - needed an update. With a static perspective - shot from the car while trapped in traffic on the freeways and highways - many newer images take a different approach, adding more figurative compositions to those of detritus and concrete. That said, they remain focused upon abstraction and curiosity about what is unseen or left behind. I have been printing in 20"x30" on Hahnemuhle's amazing art paper, the PhotoRag 308 gsm. The rich matte brings out the grittiness of this series.

Once again, I am consulting with Paula Gillen by email and ftp, and once again, she's come up with a better approach and critical review than I was able to make alone. See www.sarajaneboyersphoto.com and the screenshot above introducing this post.

c. I am also considering whether it is time to add my photographic resume to the website. Many photographers do. I had always been reticent but now, I am feeling more confident about the recognition my work has gotten.

2. Fine Art Presentation of the Chinatown Prints:
a. Trying out several image sizes - printing a lot - to determine how both the portrait and landscape images work together. Determining the size of the white surround border - deciding I did not want a pure bleed - part of the artwork as opposed to adding a mat in the framing stage. In long conversation with a framer about the frame itself, finding that my preferred frame - a natural maple - may work well for one print, but not to unify the whole and thus reluctantly, although they are beautiful, choosing black for a consistent exhibition look.

b. Choosing the two images I plan to frame: one portrait (vertical), one landscape (horizontal). Chosen not only for their own integrity but because, like the website and like a portfolio, these two are intended to best show what I do in a complete/final form. That process is not easy.

The size as well: Although today's economics may require a smaller format for exhibition and I am more than willing to listen to this - who IS selling right now?????? - I am printing and framing my preferred exhibition size. We can go up or down from here but there are moments when the artist makes a statement and here is mine.

c. Using my publishing experience:
a. Just like a book - pictorial, a novel or non fiction -the flow of the work tells its own story. Even if each image is unique in subject matter or presentation or creator, when combined with others for exhibition, website, portfolio, there are several stories about the work, the artists, or those simply standing in front of it and those must be woven into a dramatic narrative that is both visual and emotional.

Just as a writer during the revision/editing process may take a mss. and read it aloud to himself/herself or others to understand the cadence of the language/narrative flow, it behooves the photographer to continually review the order of the work presented, to ensure that one image flows to the next and that the themes inherent in the prints spell out the totality in an evocative manner. For me, this is a powerful tool, especially in a project as large as are the Chinatowns. Every time I do this, I gain further insight into my own work.

3. Promotion and Procrastination, or what I started this with ...
a. In the midst of this, I am again looking at MagCloud to create a leave behind for meetings. A great example: My friend, Ann Mitchell's, first magazine, DESERT DREAMS, Issue 1: Diptychs .

b. I started SaraJaneBoyersAloud on the premise of procrastination. As well to feed my need to write, the companion career that this year or so has taken second fiddle to the photographic one. The need to write, to journal, yet matches the need to capture the world with my camera. For the moment, this blog is helping me continue the periodic, if not the required daily, exercise of that skill. But..... enough today. Whether writing or photographing or editing... where it all comes down to... it is time to return to the work! More later...

Samuel Freeman Portrait

Am delighted to see that my portrait of Bergamot Station gallerist, Samuel Freeman ("Samuel Freeman in Holly Mascott"), has been published in the Blue McRight catalogue from her 2009 exhibition - no one you know - at the Samuel Freeman Gallery. http://www.samuelfreeman.com/nav/a_mcright.html

Blue speaks about "personal residue" from not only the trailers ("embedded histories") but also from vintage songbird model kits.

I am drawn to this work perhaps because in her own style, the artist too seeks what it seems I am searching for in my continuing photographic exploration: lives lived and so often evidenced in the items that we design and sometimes, never notice or leave behind or, have been designed around us and sometimes for us, but not always with the sensibility and understanding of who we are.

Presentation

The redone website has been up since late Spring. The promos are done and, for once, the email lists recorded NOT ONLY in my email log but actually, with some sense of order in word files. We'll see how long that lasts ....

Is the website working? I believe it is as I have already fielded a museum invitation to submit based upon their curator's review of my portfolios on site; a recommendation from a retired cultural attaché, a career diplomat, to definitely submit my Chinatowns project to the US Embassy in Beijing; and the clear identification of what it is I am doing by a simple link to the URL.

So, here I sit: website in hand, several proposals out but with a large question: When and if I land a more substantial exhibition/book project, et al, HOW do I present the work? I've already seen it in online format. I have already printed the showcase prints for the portfolio. I've exhibited in some smaller shows. But now, when the opportunity arises for a more serious review, how do I see the work being exhibited?

These questions have to do with
1. THE PRINTS, OF COURSE, and the questions encompass
HOW LARGE?
WHAT MEDIA? I have shot the Chinatowns in film - 35mm and 645 (medium format) transparencies - and in digital. I have printed for exhibtion in cibachrome and on archival digital media. I love cibachrome and I love my master printer, Frank Green, at The Lab Ciba.

Some say ciba/ilfachromes are "old school" but hey - how can you beat that incredible color saturation?

But, I also love my Epson 7800 and Hahnemühle Photo Rag which gives an entirely different matte look to a print. Whether in the darkroom or in the digital lab, choice of paper and other production and presentation questions when making an art print remain the same.

WHERE IS THE ELEMENT OF CONSISTENCY? For in the Chinatowns Project, work varies in size, vertical vs horizontal and the extent of the crop. It is not studio work and the type of camera, lens and approach may change, not only due to locale but also due to the duration and evolution of this 9+ year project. For the Gridlock work, the concerns are different since camera, format and print remains consistent throughout.

HOW TO PRINT? Should I center? When I decide the size of the print, how large on the paper should the white space be? Will I need a mat or? Today, the mat seems less important than placing the image on the paper and determining the nature of the impact of that total vision.

2. HOW TO FRAME? I love wide, flat wood frames. I love large prints. But there is a reality, especially in today's market: what do I do that preserves my vision AND permits the print to be accessible/saleable in my "market," i.e., that of an emerging photographer. Saleable and, at the same time, affordable for me to do so that the exhibition can be out there.

The economics of exhibiting consist of many variables and, much as I want to show in exactly the way I want, I have to consider the context. More than many emerging photographers, my experience both in the music industry and in book publishing helps me here. Sometimes.

I know how to compromise. But I also know when to stop, at least in music and books. The question now: In this area of my passion, my time and my expense, gladly undertaken as I seriously further the career, can I rationally weight and compare these considerations?

We'll see.

In the interim, I've posted a garden comp on Facebok for a writer friend's birthday. Sometimes it seems important to just shoot and, on a foray into my own garden, this is what I do. It starts this ramble. And, when I think about it, it too is about presentation.