After a while.

Wow. Nothing since 25 September, almost two months.

Two months of intensive work with both my terrific photo editor, Paula Gillen of Gillen Edits and, best of all, working with my new gallerist (Announcement soon. A good one in Los Angeles and I am honored to have the representation by someone whose eye I trust so much!), to define my work and create several new promotions for it, both for the gallery and for fine art publication as well as museum and other exhibition.

Hard. Revealing. Understanding collaboration - not just an edit but working and adjusting for goals and allowing views I respect to incorporate and change my own work. Again, not unlike the world of publishing BUT, a different art form and I should have expected a different emotion and artistic approach. Thus, lessons thought to be learned needed to be taken in again.

What this is presently all about? MagCloud. Discussed before but being worked seriously now. A magazine, built from "cloud" computing, i.e. totally via the internet where design is uploaded but a real "hands-on" magazine is published in a POD (print-on-demand) format, available by subscription or just an individual online order. Many are creating their own issues here. And I as well, although not so much for subscription but as a series of promotional tools, helping others to better understand, especially with the Chinatowns, the large body of prints from this 9 year+project.

The work was intensive enough to create an entire book, both from edit and design. However for my purposes, the magazine format is better. It can remain current, capable of change in an ongoing project such as this. It provides the capability to informally "publish" the work at different stages of photography and sequencing, permitting others to take a peek into the process as well as making my own formatting and choice of powerful images all the tighter. There is opportunity to have others "guest edit" the same body of work, a concept most intriguing for the Chinatowns.

Here's the cover image of the first issue, brilliantly suggested by Paula:



And then in the midst, as always, other projects. What fun for a photographer to use another photographer! In this case, I asked Martin Cox, both a commercial and fine art photographer, and a fellow member of the Los Angeles League of Photographers (LALOP. See the LALOPBLOGSPOT I write there!) to do a commercial photo shoot for me: To photograph the interiors of a small co-op owned by my family for purposes of marketing it as a rental.

I had fun being the assistant for the day and, while Martin's work is absolutely wonderful and showed this basically unfurnished unit to its greatest advantage - the realtor loves the pics! - the day of the shoot was incredibly overcast. Even though the gray days by the beach are filled with romance and emotion, for a marketing brochure, blue is better. So I worked in post-production to drop in some sky, pics taken by me from that same unit on sunnier days.

Having done so, I loved this YOUTube video from Tim Grey whose daily photographic tips are quite wonderful to receive each morning. Wish I had seen it BEFORE I did my work!

Here's one of Martin's nice clean shots with a little more blue and clarity from another day:

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.