Category: Thoughts (Page 1 of 3)

Rest in Peace, Maurice Eagle

March 23, 2017 / Rick / 0 Comments

The photography world and the local Houston music scene lost a member. Maurice Eagle had been battling colon cancer and succumbed to it on the morning of 23 March 2017. After having moved from Austin to Houston, Maurice brought a unique perspective to photographing bars.

When I first saw Maurice, it was just about a year ago at a show at Acadia (I believe it was Ten Ton Hammer). He had with him a unique setup – it was his camera (with what appeared to be a super wide angle lens) and 2 external flashes mounted on a wooden plank. I thought this was unusual so I decided to ask him about it. After he introduced himself, I immediately saw the reasons for his setup. I had been looking at his work on and off for a while. During our conversation, he took care to mention several times that he was NOT a concert photographer, but that he was a bar photographer and there is a difference. I didn’t press him on that point, but I understood that approach when looking at his images.

Blood Of An Outlaw (Scout Bar, Feb 2017)

Whenever I see another photographer at a show, there is always a sense of competition. There is the obvious – will he or she get a better moment than I? Will this person be able to capture more quality images than I can? Why won’t they move from that spot because I would like some from that angle as well? But those are in the moment, when I’m trying to realize my own vision and there’s someone else honing in to try to satisfy theirs. After the set is over, that sense is gone and we move on to the next. But there is also that sense of competition when I’m looking at other concert work, and it is competition with myself. When I see high quality work, I ask how I can push myself to up my own output. After that first conversation with Maurice, the more banal sense of competition was quickly dispelled when he told me he was a bar photographer. His work inspired me to push myself even further, and was one of the prompts for my experimentation with color photography as discussed here.

Beyond Oblivion (BFE Rock Club, Nov 2016)

That’s not to say I was going to try to copy his style. Maurice’s style was pretty unique and incorporated things with which I don’t care to work. These things include HDR processing and highly saturated colors. I’ve experimented with those elements in the past and it just doesn’t work for me. When they’re done well, they can really look good, and Maurice certainly did these things very well. In the above photo of Beyond Oblivion, the selection here (because photography is a selective process) illustrates why he did this well. The saturation of the colors doesn’t assault one’s vision in the way many HDR processing saturations do. This is due to the fact that the image has an analogous color scheme (green – blue – blue violet – violet), which not only is pleasing to the eye, it creates harmony and serenity. The HDR processing created the contrasts necessary for this work. Overall, the colors juxtapose nicely with the subject, which at the time was delivering an all out sonic assault. The venue’s logo, although partially obscured, does still have a prominent place, letting us know where there was taken.

Chaotic Justice (Fitzgerald’s, Sep 2016)

Here is another example of Maurice’s touch. Here he selected an image with complementary colors (a tinted blue and a shaded orange). The orange around the subjects stands out nicely against the blue light, framing the mostly black-clad performers. Again, the venue logo is obscured, but still occupies a prominent space in the frame so as to be unmistakable.

I did not talk about Maurice’s use of a super wide lens in this as it is not something on which I can comment in an intelligent manner. I’ve only used my super wide for landscape images, never for a concert performance. That stems mostly from the fact that when one gets close, the edges tend to distort. I’m a precisionist by nature when I make images, and it’s hard for me to break that habit sometimes. I’ve seen some concert photographers use it at shows as it creates a chaotic effect, especially when the performers and crowd are both in the frame. Since Maurice was a bar photographer, I imagine creating that sense of chaos wasn’t his intent. Sadly, I can only speculate that since his goal was to capture 1 single image that encompassed the whole of the stage, he had no choice but to use this type of lens.

Spectral Manifest (Scout Bar, May 2016)

Here is another example of Maurice’s mastery of color use – this time with a split-complementary scheme dominating the scene.

Although Maurice’s style is radically (for lack of a better term) different than mine, he still inspired me. He had a unique style and he worked it perfection. While I have a preferred style, I never pushed it to the same the level Maurice pushed his. Now I am in competition with myself to push my style even further and create great images for my friends in the local Houston metal community.

I only got to meet you once, Maurice, but that meeting was something I wouldn’t trade for anything. The only way I can thank you for your inspiration is to push my own style. You’ve earned your immortality, good sir, and I hope when we meet again we can share some good stories about shooting some great shows. Rest In Peace, friend.

You can view Maurice’s work on his Facebook page by clicking here.

Thou Doth Protest

September 18, 2016 / Rick / 0 Comments

Things get rather complicated when those who preach hate truly seem to believe they are doing it out of love for their fellow humans. Such is the case with an insular group from Topeka, KS. This group decided to visit Houston, TX to protest 2 locations – a transgender therapy clinic in the Montrose district and a gender conference taking place at the University of Houston. While the contingent was small (I really expected a larger number of members to appear), their presence was no less felt by students and alumni of the university, which saw a large contingent of counter-protestors to meet this small but famous group.

Early on, some counter-protestors decided to mix in with our guests. This only lasted a few minutes before they separated. One can imagine the police did this in order to keep the peace.

Despite the sunglasses, I’m pretty sure she was looking at me as I pointed my camera. Her smile was the dead giveaway. If the message is God’s love, why is she putting herself in the center?

The group is engaged in a song. This group is known for its parodies of popular songs.

Does God really hate America?

She’s only too happy to answer a reporter’s questions. I’m assuming they were denied the opportunity at the transgender clinic as they (the clinic) asked that no media come to that event.

Their websites are many, but the message is the same.

A couple of counter protesters in the median inside University Drive. The Baptist Student Ministry is in the background.

The discussions from students with members of the group were, for the most part, civil. Most of the antagonizing, unfortunately, came from the students who walked by the group.

The discussion between these 2 is still going on. No harsh words were exchanged by either side. Both were unyielding in their positions.

How is it love when they seemingly want to invite hate?

The discussion is still ongoing and remains civil. She chooses to only step on the flag rather than let it fall and be trampled. Could this be a safety issue? Or could it be more a demonstration of her control.

Their signs are their shields.

This is 3 of their group of 4 on the corner. The much larger counter protest is on the opposite corner.

On a day when tempers could easily be flared, a moment of love between 2 strangers drowns out all the noise.

I went in not really knowing what to expect. The last protest I attended was in Austin where a group of liberals was protesting the actions taken by Wisconsin governor Scott Walker to limit the power of the public sector unions in his state. The anger there was palpable, and the speakers were cheerleading that anger, but were careful to not incite it beyond a temporary emotion. The anger at the Tea Party rally was also palpable, but the crowd showed tremendous respect and restraint.

This non-political (in the government sense) protest was new territory for me. All in all, it was peaceful. The group wasn’t projecting the hatred for which they are known, but there was something more sinister. They believe theirs is the righteous position. Knowing their firm belief in this made them seem more powerful and insidious than they outwardly project. Even the website, which, prior to the death of their founder, was full of fire and brimstone, has taken a more nuanced approach in spreading the message.

As stated in the captions, the rhetoric that came from some of the counter-protestors was just as hateful as the signs carried by the guest protestors. At one point, a man who I believe is a student went up to the lone man in the crowd and asked if he perform fellatio on the protestor. Nothing was said by the target of this attempt to incite. A few minutes later, the same student, thinking I was with this group, asked me the same question. He walked away with an angry look on his face when I told him that I wasn’t with the group, so I wasn’t opposed to it. Unfortunately, my initial reaction was anger at the young man who seemed to just want to pick a fight, but I kept my cool (owing a lot to my military training). In the end, however, his embarrassment at his own false assumption was gratifying and my anger quickly dissipated.

I must say I did expect a little more energy from our guests. Perhaps it was the heat, their small numbers, or exhaustion from already having protested that day that kept their energy level on the lower end. My rational and romantic minds were both stimulated that day. The rational felt the darkness in their hearts and realized they mistake it for light. The romantic mind came away with a respect for their resolve, despite the abhorrence of their ideals and their message.

It (Was) World Photo Day!

August 20, 2016 / Rick / 0 Comments

As legend would have it, the date for World Photo Day came about because it was on 19 Aug 1839 that the French government purchased the patent to the Daguerrotype process and announced that it was being given away to everyone for free. It seems a good a reason as any to choose a date for celebration. If it had not been for the generosity of the French, photography as a process may have taken a very different path to development. This year marked the World Photo Day’s 7th year of celebration, which isn’t too shabby considering the growing pains it had to endure its few couple of years.

I had pretty much decided that I was going to take the day off from making images and, instead, reflect on my own personal views in this world. I’m going to be honest, between work, watching preseason NFL Football, and enjoying an incredible Italian dinner, I didn’t get much thinking done. In fact, I had even planned this blog entry to coincide with the ending of World Photo Day in the Midwest, but ended up falling asleep early. Bad, Rick.

I did, however, think about my own evolution in photography. Some of my earliest images are lost forever due to hard drive failures and getting lost in moves from one hard drive to another (1 lesson learned – file organization is important). I did come across this one, however:

Williams Tower – Houston, TX (2007)

I recall my own innocence (for lack of a better term) in taking this photo. I was still learning everything I could about photography, but it was very slow going at the time. Magazines such as Popular Photography seem to assume one has a baseline of knowledge. I didn’t even have that baseline when I took this picture. It wasn’t until a little over 2 months later that things would finally start to gel for me.

Beneath The Massacre at Summer Slaughter 2007 in Houston, TX

An early concert photo taken in 2007 (before the image of Williams Tower). This was among the first taken with my DSLR.

Cy-Fair College – Houston, TX (2007)

That was my first film image taken after I enrolled in a photography course at Cy-Fair College. I was amazed at how one class worth of lecture crystallized everything for me in terms of the camera settings. I had achieved a baseline of knowledge (and quickly learned how very little use a certain magazine had for me in terms of teaching). I knew I could only get better from there. I had to, since this negative was pretty messed up by my repeated attempts to load it on the film roll for processing. It also awakened the artist that was always inside me and had been suppressed since graduating from high school.

I’d like to say that I did get better. In these early days I still had my innocence (again, for lack of a better term) about photography. I learned technical aspects (such as metering for extreme lighting conditions), effective composition, and color balancing. I would go on to learn about conceptual things such as the language of photography (which eludes me a little, but with each day it gets a little slower in avoiding my grasp), the essence of photography as an index and how it relates to art, and the limits and possibilities of the medium. The conceptual stuff destroyed my innocence, but gave me new focus (pun not intended) in terms of how I was going to proceed.

This is an interesting time for photography. Like the proliferation of hand held cameras in the 1960’s and 70’s, cell phone cameras have brought an old challenge back to photography, albeit in a way that is much more intense. A couple of years ago an artist was inspired by an exhibition at the Museum Of Fine Arts Houston that explored photomanipulation prior to the advent of Photoshop. He created a little project of abstract photos taken with his iPhone. He said that he was “faking it” by attempting to create art with a cell phone camera. Not much was discussed about that project (he was submitting 2 for critique), but it does illustrate the challenge posed and the resistance to it. The explosion of social media has also brought new importance of the snapshot just by virtue of the proliferation of snapshots in the wild.

The 2 issues above pique my interest each in their own way. The proliferation of cell phone cameras (along with their growing capabilities) has led some agencies to actually eliminate photo staff and rely on the field reporter to get images for a print or web story. Can an untrained (relatively speaking) photographer capture an image that will have the same effectiveness as one captured by an experienced professional? That is the biggest question. The growth of social media, fueled by the growth of cell phones, challenges our personal relationship to photography. The snapshot is generally a personal image made to document our relationship to the world. When those images are out in the wild, is it still “just” a snapshot? How has our relationship to the world changed when a personal photo is published for all to see? How is medium challenged in general? Is “art” photography elevated or cheapened? These are just a few of the questions we find ourselves asking.

Thus ends my contribution to World Photo Day. I will leave you now with a recent image I created, just to show my own progress in photography. I will also leave a snapshot I created at the same event. Maybe it will help my faithful and not-so-faithful readers to ponder their own questions regarding the medium within the context of my discussion. If not, well, that’s perfectly fine with me. Not everyone thinks about it the way I do, but I do hope you at least enjoy the images.

The “professional” image

The snapshot

Generalized Thought Patterns

February 23, 2015 / Rick / 0 Comments

(Un)fortunately, I lost (as in the relationship was destroyed) a family member last week over a disagreement over some words that were uttered by this person. I felt the need to point out something I felt was wrong with the statement made. I probably should have kept my mouth shut, but what’s done is done. The result was for me to be called brain dead and told to fuck off. After being told to do so, I made a comment about epistemic closure (a bit of a misapplication of the term, but I felt it was apt in this case) and the “friendship” on Facebook was terminated by the family member. I was attacked later that day by the same family member over something unrelated. After a bit of a back and forth, it was done and I went on with my life. It was a couple of days later I was showed a comment made on the original thread where I was called brain dead and told to fuck off a 2nd time. Only this comment was made immediately before the Facebook relationship was terminated and the privacy controls were set to prevent me from seeing it. To say I was angry is an understatement as I felt what was done was something that is usually relegated to the elementary school playground in terms of maturity level, not to mention cowardly. I had the opportunity to respond directly, but I chose not to do so. Instead I made a snarky comment on my own Facebook page using language ambiguous enough so only those who knew what happened would get the reference.

I’m not really sure how I feel about it at this point. I mean, I looked up to this family member and never had a bad thought about him. Unfortunately, something happened a couple years ago that caused the relationship to begin to sour. Over the past few years a transformation has taken place to the point where he is no longer the person I admired as a young adult. I realize that people change and I’m not so naive as to believe that changes in my own life have affected my outlook on people, events, etc. On the one hand I’m hurt that our relationship has gone bad. But then again, do I really need this source of stress in my life?

The Fall 2014 semester started out with me and one of my professors having an adversarial relationship. I’m not sure why, but there was definitely a tension between us that lasted a good portion of the semester. It started to dissipate late in the semester as we both seemed to back off each other. It was unspoken and just sort of happened. The anger I felt was powerful (and I want to thank my friend Claire for putting up with me through it), and letting it go allowed me to breathe again.

In terms of the adversarial relationship with the professor, I wondered out loud on many occasions if art school actively tried to cultivate adversarial relationships as some sort of twisted method of fueling inspiration. The theory has legs, but those details would need to come in another entry in about 20 years.

I was having a conversation with my friend Shannon Duncan outside her studio space this past weekend and she mentioned something about strong personalities. That particular phrase seemed to crystallize things for me. Strong personalities tend to create adversarial relationships, even when views and goals are somewhat aligned. It reminded me that my own hardheaded nature can sometimes be detrimental. I already knew this, but sometimes a reminder is necessary.

Facebook tends to amplify those strong personalities because it’s much easier to snipe at people from the relative safety of a keyboard (especially when one is 1200 miles away). Face-to-face confrontations tend to be a lot less dramatic and people are more easily swayed into accepting compromise when their counterpart is right there. I’m not saying I’m immune; my opening paragraph is my testimony that I’m not immune to that phenomenon.

As I was laying in bed the other night, for some reason a particular moment from 1991 came into my mind’s eye. I was on the confidence course at Lackland AFB enduring my basic military training. I was on the very last challenge – monkey bars over a pond. I failed the previous challenge (after successful completion of the 13 that lead up to that point), where I was to catch a rope and swing across a pond (I missed catching the rope). I was very wet and very tired. Monkey bars were never my strong suit on the playground growing up, and this was a long set. The bars were also wet from previous airmen who had failed the rope swing. I got just under halfway done negotiating this obstacle. I was having trouble gripping and my forearms were burning. I knew I would pass the confidence course portion of basic training even if I failed this challenge. In one instant I just said “fuck it,” let go of the bars, and dropped into the pond.

I had given up when I had a chance to really and push myself beyond anything else I had been capable of prior to that moment.

I don’t know why that moment flashed in my mind when it did. All I know is the phenomenon are related somehow. My job at this point is to figure out why.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for taking this journey with me into my own mind. A lot of art is about thinking, and I’ve been doing a lot of that over the past 2 weeks. An exploration may be in order soon. To that end, I will leave you with 2 images – 1 made by me and the other made by the aforementioned Claire. We all made a book a few days ago in one of my classes. I called mine “Something Had to Change/Undeniable Dilemma/Boredom’s Not a Burden/Anyone Should Bear.” This entry is definitely different from any other… I wonder if that day was prophetic?

Claire Gage

Shannon Duncan

When It’s Not Your Best Side

November 8, 2014 / Rick / 0 Comments

Normally I would wait until I got home and had time to think about the images before I would even think of posting them. This particular case, however, is one where I felt I needed to get it out. I’m literally in my school’s lighting studio right now, posting this with my laptop on the school’s wi-fi.

This semester is one where I’ve turned inward. In my past work, I strove very hard to minimize myself in the photograph and to keep it about the subject. Aside from silly selfies with my wife, I normally fiercely resist putting myself in front of the camera. I felt the need tonight.

I looked at the shots halfway through. An overwhelming sadness came over me.

I think I better go home now.

In the Moment

June 1, 2014 / Rick / 0 Comments

Right now I’m thinking about how I feel like I wasted some energy last night in trying to add to what is quickly becoming a bit of an opus for me. More on that project later, but the short of the long is that I don’t believe I thought through everything I was doing last night and now I’m ending up writing off all but a few images. The results are not enough to really qualify it as a series within the larger project. Well, at this point I get to look forward to next week.

Believe it or not, this actually segues into my main topic.

This past 28 May found me shooting the Houston stop of the Revolver Golden Gods tour. The House Of Blues – Houston, where the Golden Gods show was held, only allows photographers in the photo pit (the area inside the barricade right in front of the stage where security keeps watch on the crowd) for the first 3 songs. If the act starts with 3 songs that are at least 4 minutes each, that gives 12 minutes to get some really good images. I ended up shooting nearly 800 images in the total 36 minutes I was able to be in the photo pit.

One would think that I would try to find other vantage points from which to shoot the performance after leaving the photo pit. I thought about it for a bit as I wasn’t sure of the venue’s restrictions on me going up to the VIP area to shoot the performance. I decided not to pursue it and put my camera away after leaving the pit each time.

This past February I ran across an interview with Karl Sanders of the death metal band Nile. He was asked what he thought of the proliferation of cameras at his shows. Karl answered to the effect that those who have their phones out either taking pictures, video, or texting are really missing out on the performance for which they paid money to attend. Not only that, Karl feels that those who do that rob others of the shared experience of Nile’s performance. In short, he doesn’t like cameras being used at the shows by the fans.

For those readers who may be unfamiliar with the culture of heavy metal – the live performance is considered by many to be a shared experience. The individuals feed off the energy of the group (performers and audience) as a whole, and the quality of a show often depends on how the crowd experiences the performance, rather than on simply how well the performers did their job that evening.

Last week I came across a link to an article on NPR regarding the proliferation of cell phone cameras and how they could be washing out our memories. Maryanne Garry, a psychology professor in New Zealand, believes “that the problem is that people are giving away being in the moment.” Basically, people are focusing more on documenting a moment rather than being a part of the experience of the moment. Later on, the memories of the moment becoming distorted because the person doing the documenting wasn’t part of it.

Pair the above with the findings of Pyschologist Linda Henkel, who conducted memory experiments with students at Fairfield University in Connecticut. In one experiment, a group of students were instructed to merely observe some objects while others they were to photograph. Henkel reports the following:

“The objects that they had taken photos of — they actually remembered fewer of them, and remembered fewer details about those objects. Like, how was this statue’s hands positioned, or what was this statue wearing on its head. They remembered fewer of the details if they took photos of them, rather than if they had just looked at them.”

Henkel asserts that the students “outsourced” their memories to their respective cameras.

It’s a reasonable assumption that Karl Sanders has met neither Maryanne Garry or Linda Henkel, but they are all 3 on to something with their observations (in Karl’s case, a belief) on photography. It was thinking about these things that caused me to put my camera away after each exit of the photo pit. I decided I wanted to be in the moment for the rest of each artist’s performance.

Being a visual artist myself, I can’t help but notice images in front of me at times, even when I don’t want to see one. That was the case with this right here: _MG_7020 I observed this gentleman for a few minutes during the second artist’s performance. He was watching, and I can safely assume recording, the entire show through his point and shoot camera. I found myself astonished that this man paid hard earned money only to come in and record the show on his camera. He wasn’t in the moment at all. I also wonder how his memory is shaped now that he really didn’t take in the experience of the live musical performance – he only documented it – and how much different it would be if he had put the camera away. He recorded the rest of the show as well, watching the entire thing through the 2.5 inch screen on his camera.

During the headliner’s performance, the band’s frontman, Zakk Wylde, did an extended guitar solo. At one point he came over to stage left, which was where I was situated, to continue the solo. I watched for a few seconds, taking in his amazing guitar skills. I then looked to my left and observed this:
The number of cell phones out recording this guitar solo blew my mind. All these people, who paid money for this experience, were not even experiencing it because they were focused on the recording. As for myself, I was caught between 2 moments, and chose to document this one precisely because of what I had been thinking about earlier in the show concerning the previous image. And my thoughts are the same – how have their memories been affected by their documentation of the experience? I felt it was only appropriate to use my cell phone for this particular image. I want to show that I’m not particularly immune to this phenomenon.

As for me, the labor of photographing, editing, and processing the images of the concert was my payment for entry. It was my job was to make images of the show. To me, being in the moment was a bonus payment from the organization that sent me to the concert.

What have I learned from this experience? I found myself taking a slightly different approach to the editing process this time around. In that, I found this little gem of an image of Zakk Wylde:

As for the wasted evening, I did manage to salvage at least 1 good image from the heap:
So, I guess the night wasn’t a total loss. But there’s one important thing to remember – I paid money to be at this particular show, and I was choosing to document it. Could what I’ve learned in the past week be behind why I feel I have to write off most of the images I took this night? Time will tell on that one.

On a personal note – I’ve long believed that some technologies are making us more stupid. We are outsourcing a lot of our brain functions to electronic devices, which at times seems a little scary. I actually observed a PhD Art History professor use Google to get to YouTube. This person actually went to the search bar, typed “youtube,” and had to check the search results to make sure that the chosen link was to YouTube. I was rather dumbfounded by this, but I digress.

Karl Sanders Interview With Metal Wani

Overexposed? Article on NPR

Discussion With Linda Henkel on NPR

Down Memory Lane

April 29, 2014 / Rick / 0 Comments

It’s almost the end of the semester and I’m finding myself at the digital printing lab trying to finish up my project. There’s another student with me, so at least I’m not lonely, but the stretch between these prints is rather long as it’s taking 15-20 minutes to print a 12″ x 18″ photo at 300 dpi. What’s a boy to do?

I went ahead and fired up Flickr and started looking at some of my past images. I sat there wondering if I would take the same image now, at least 3 or 4 years later. It’s a hard question to ponder. I would have to answer the question of how much my vision has changed over the intervening years. Before that, I would need to ponder how I’ve been affected by what I’ve seen, heard, studied, researched, etc. What is relevant now vs then? Too many questions must be answered. Sometimes it’s easier to look at old work and just enjoy it.

The above image actually appeared in my Primordial Light blog from a few years ago. This was taken from atop the lighthouse at Montauk Point in Montauk, NY on Long Island in November 2008. When I looked out over the balcony of the lighthouse, I was thinking of Hiroshi Sugimoto and his seascape photos. Keep in mind that I had only seen those photos once prior to this point and I could not remember the name of the artist, so I went off memory the best I could at the time. I didn’t really notice the fisherman until I had started looking through the viewfinder to figure out how to best position the horizon. When I saw him down there, I immediately realized that he needed to be in the frame. I had to figure out how to resolve the composition in my mind, however, as the rule-of-thirds with the horizon and the fisherman wasn’t going to be possible from my vantage point.

I finally settled on setting the horizon at the top 1/3 line with the fisherman and rocks taking up a smaller proportion of the space in the frame. This, I felt, was a good symbol of how little land there is on Earth vs how vast its oceans are. The man fishing, to me, became the human spirit facing the challenge ahead and overcoming it in order to further his survival. Anyway, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I will be revisiting some of these older photos again soon and thinking about my thought processes when they were made. This will definitely serve as a good exercise of where I come from in terms of photography and where I’m going. As for now, it’s time to start my next print.

Forward, March!!

January 3, 2014 / Rick / 0 Comments

The Year 2014 is now upon us. Each new year brings with it new possibilities and new chances to start fresh on things we would like to improve, either with ourselves or our environment. It is important, however, to remember that from which we came.

For me, I’ve come off a rather busy semester and have been accepted into a program that, from what I’m told, will make this past semester look like playtime. I’m definitely looking forward to the challenge. I’ll be learning from 3 different professors: Delilah Montoya (the head of the PDM department at the University of Houston), Keliy Anderson-Staley (in her 2nd semester as a UH professor), and Arianne Roesch (making her professorial debut at UH). I’ve yet to learn from Ms. Anderson-Staley (although we’ve met) and Ms. Roesch, so this should be a very interesting semester.

I said in the 1st paragraph that it’s important to remember that from which we’ve come as we move forward. With this in mind, the image I present to you is the grid of all of the “daily” photos I took in 2013. There are 157 total images in this grid. Let’s face it, taking a pic every day can be mentally exhausting when there are so many other, more important, priorities throughout the day. Some days have multiple images associated with them. I removed all the context, yet kept them in their chronological order. I encourage any of my readers to share their thoughts with me on this or any of my blog entries.

At this point I will wrap up this entry and say,”good night and happy 2014!”

Click on the image to view the full size

Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction… A Primer (of Sorts)

August 15, 2013 / Rick / 0 Comments

You may want to grab a drink before you proceed. This is a concept I’ve been exploring for over a year, and I do have a lot to say.

“Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” is a text by Walter Benjamin that explores the loss of the aura of art in this age where images of an original can be mechanically reproduced in large quantities. One means of recording and mass production of an image of the original is, of course, photography. Written in 1936, during the height of the Great Depression, this text came at a time when photography, as a medium, was undergoing a transformation from a hobby of the rich to becoming also a communication tool. The impression that I get is that Benjamin basically blames photography for what he perceived as the diminishing value of art.

To be perfectly honest, Benjamin’s words are just as dry and difficult to read now as they were over a year ago when I had to read them for my Introduction to Critical Theory course, but I digress.

The Industrial Revolution brought with it new ways of mechanically reproducing art. Among these were engraving, etching, and lithography. These processes allowed for infinite reproduction of work. If you wanted an etching from an artist in Chicago but were located in New York, all you needed to do was order one and he could have a copy made for you. In the early-to-mid 19^th Century, research finally brought concepts from many centuries of fundamental knowledge together in order to create a process that could record a work of art exactly as it appeared in reality.

That process, of course, is modern photography. With one negative, countless prints of an image can be made. This ability resulted in a world in which, theoretically, there exists no original creation in terms of the medium. The still (and later video) camera merely records a scene onto a substrate coated with a medium. The scene itself is the original; the photograph is the mechanical reproduction of that scene.

As I understand Benjamin’s text, what separates an original artwork from a copy is the original’s presence in time and space. The Great Pyramid only physically exists at Giza in Egypt. The Alamo exists only in San Antonio, TX. The mountains photographed by Ansel Adams only physically exist at the various locations in the American West. An NFL game only exists for the prescribed time span at the prescribed location of the event.

Consider the wonder and awe you may have felt the first time you saw something in reality that you previously had only seen in a photograph or video. I felt awe upon seeing many landmarks that at one time only existed as photographs and videos in books and on television. These include the pyramids at Giza, the Sphinx, the World Trade Center, the Empire State Building, my first time seeing the F-15E Strike Eagle, and even my first NFL game live at the Houston Astrodome in 1996 (Houston Oilers vs San Francisco 49ers – the 49ers won).

This sense of awe and wonder at seeing an original work in its prescribed presence in space and time are what make up a work’s “aura.”

According to Benjamin, the aura of an original can only exist because of the fact that an original can be reproduced mechanically. In other words, an original can only exist because it can be reproduced. The original and the copy cannot be be separated. This concept is key to understanding what Benjamin had to say. This may seem paradoxical, but in my experience this makes perfect sense.

I consider those places where photography is not allowed such as The Alamo. No mechanical reproduction is (legally) possible inside the Alamo. When I first visited the location in 1991 (part of my town pass from USAF basic training), I really didn’t find anything over which I could get excited. I knew the history of the mission, the Texas Revolution, and those famous historical figures who died fighting there. Armed with this knowledge, I anticipated an experience that I would not soon forget. At the end of my visit, however, I left the Alamo asking myself what all the fuss was about.

(Disclaimer – I grew up in Central NY State, about 20 miles from Cortland, NY and can remember learning about The Alamo each year in history class and wanting to visit it someday.)

Let’s contrast my experience with The Alamo to experience of seeing the Great Pyramid at Giza in 1993. Up to that point in my life, the Great Pyramid (and anything at all to do with ancient Egypt) existed as a photograph in my history texts. Upon seeing it live and in person, however, I felt an awe in the presence of history that I didn’t feel at the Alamo.

Mechanical reproduction allows a work of art to be liberated by the constraints of space and time. Not everyone has an opportunity to travel to Giza, China, France, Washington, DC, etc in order to view the original works. Reproduction brings the art to the viewer’s home so he or she can view it at their convenience.

I may not look it, but this was a good day for me in 1993

It is at the point of creation of the image and that creation’s reproduction that the aura of the original is created. Seeing the photographs of the Great Pyramid created the aura of the original, whereas in the example of the Alamo, no aura is created because there existed no reproduction for me to see. Growing up, I was allowed to spend time with the Great Pyramid and to get to know it, which served only to enhance that aura. The same cannot be said for the Alamo. In fact, because no (legal) reproduction of the inside of the Alamo exists, according to Benjamin, there is no original Alamo; the Alamo simply exists.

Mechanical reproducibility does have another effect – it allows for the creation of art that which has no other purpose but to be reproduced. All of those paper plates with little flowers on them in the grocery store are an example of art made for reproduction (the “Footprints” posters also come to mind). But even art that is created to be mass produced serves to create an aura for the original work. Warhol created much of his art with reproduction in mind. More than 8 million people have visited The Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, PA to see the original versions of pieces that can be purchased in a reproduced format on just about any purse, backpack, folder, canvas… just about any object that can accept an image.

It’s hard to know if Benjamin approves of the trends he outlined when writing “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” On the one hand, Benjamin was a Marxist, so the liberation of art to the people from its lofty location in space and time would seem appealing, as it would seemingly equate to the liberation of wealth from the bourgeoisie to the proletariat. At the same time, however, he seems to decry the fact that the Industrial Revolution brought us these ways to “destroy” the value of art and give rise to an art that cheapens the experience of creating and viewing art. This can be attributed to the fact that I find this rather difficult to read. Of course, I don’t think Benjamin would approve of some of the ways in which much of the mechanically reproduced art is used, most notably in the pursuit of commercial endeavors.

No discussion of Benjamin is complete without a discussion of Sherrie Levine. I can’t say what motivated her “After Walker Evans” series. For those who may not know, Levine made her career out of photographing already existing works of art. Examples are photographs (most notably Walker Evans) and some Van Gogh paintings (from a book, no less). Is this a subversion of Benjamin? Or is it perhaps an attempt to prove Benjamin correct by trying to strengthen (or even create a new) aura around the work she photographed?

In my mind, the aura around the original Walker Evans photographs remains unchanged. This is because, while she acknowledges the source, Levine is taking a work and making it her own. There are no other elements save the source material for her photographs (which she strives to reproduce exactly as it is). This does start to get into appropriation, but that is an issue unto itself. In the end, I feel that Sherrie Levine neither strengthens nor subverts Benjamin’s theories. Honestly, she more or less exposes herself as a hack who preys upon an obscure (to the general public, at least) theory and exploits it in order to further her own career without having to put the intellectual muscle behind it.

Self Portrait Update

August 6, 2013 / Rick / 0 Comments

Sometimes it takes a little addition to get a little further in. After almost 3 years, what is now guiding me on this journey?

I don’t know what to make of this reveal.

I can’t bring myself to delete it.