Time,Reputation,Family Portraits

This is my Dad, Grandmother and Uncle. The location, Tampa, Florida,1938, actually Ybor City. My grandmother had a hard but happy life. She never had much, having gone through some of the tougher economics times of this country but one thing she did have, invested in, and handed down were photographs...professional ones that she had taken with her children,family and later me whenever I visited her from New York. She had a favorite studio in Tampa, where an excellent photographer exercised the perfection in his craft,you see here. 

His canvas background and various chairs that appear in other photographs he took of us through the years were his only special effects, long before PhotoShop. His concentration on his view camera,lighting and his subjects all the while putting up with us and the demands of her added to the treasure chest of memories and recordings that made up her trove. Her documentation, ink, who knew?

Her importance to these sessions were equally met by her photographer and maybe that is what this post is about; the importance of time, the one we take, the one we share and the one we leave for those who couldn't be there. Some things are worth doing, unaccountable to dollars but to the love of what one does and this shows it. Looking at this family portrait,we see a classic Black and White of its time, perfect posing ( a little stiff by today's standard ) perfect lighting,exposure and expression, not something that he pumped out because the next 40 were in line. This was an important moment for all. You can see he took it seriously because it was important to her, his client and him, his reputation. He didn't measure her wallet,it wasn't that big. He weighed his reputation and it weighed much more than whatever she could given him. This was Angelo's Studio and the approach wasn't about immediate money buta personal worth over the course of time.    

A few short years later, my dad on the left went to the Army and my uncle, the chunky one, went to the Marines, both went to war and made this image and this photographer's skill and attention to the details much more precious to her and to those of us who will carry on.   

 

Power/Responsibility/Orphan Works

 In a great scene from Spiderman, Uncle Harry turns to his nephew Peter Parker, yet to be become the super hero, and says " With great power comes great responsibility." Later , Peter now Spiderman, learns the depth of that statement.

This is my mother, in her youth , right after World War ll in France. 

It is an honest portrait showing a strong beautiful girl not trying to project anything but her strong presence in the moment of who she is,  unknown to another viewer all the experiences of World War ll   that she endured during the German occupation. Technically, flawed by a cheap camera  it still holds her real self, even now as an elderly lady, as I know her. It speaks for her in that moment, sure of today with no expectations of tomorrow. It is a time piece.

A few years later, early 50s, arriving in New York City, a professional photographer took these next images. While they are technically perfect with all the high grade professionalism and beauty of classic photography, they are someone else that I never knew but only discovered in my teens lying in a draw.While I recognized her as my mother, this was a woman I never knew existed, or could. For all purposes, it was my mother being someone else. It doesn't have the honesty about her but obviously it was not meant to. It was a projection of someone else. 

60 years ago, neither photographer probably had any knowledge of where or who these distinctly different images of the same person would wind up nor whom would view them. Luckily both had some knowledge of how to preserve them and both these time pieces endured and hopefully will continue for the future generations of my family. 

As photographers we are not Spiderman, but like him we also share an awesome responsibility because like him, we wield an awesome power. The power of stopping time and holding it in one place. It is something that we don't think of each time we push the button.  but exists in the future of the viewer whose life is affected by it. Sometimes its history, sometimes its personal. Always it is a powerful thing that affects both the viewer in the present and more so the one in the future  

In a previous post I spoke of Orphan Works, a very hot item among us photographers. Luckily I knew the first photographer, my dad. The second one unfortunately is lost. I would have loved to have met him today if he is still with us just to talk about the entire series of images he made here. With his forgiveness I am showing his work here with admiration.

In our possible future, images will contain an image footprint much like a finger print where no two are exactly alike, due to the digital information contained in both its metadata and the very pixels in the scan or digital file itself that make the image.This footprint would be recorded and housed so that by sending this image to that house would show me who,what and where this image came from. Were that the case,I would have been able to look him up, contact him and chatted, or at the least with whomever owns this image today.

Our responsibility will lie with a serious approach of entering and registering as much info that is possible with whatever new digital programs are yet to be written. In our near future and their distant one, we and everything about what we have created will further that awesome power as long as we can further our responsibility.  

On the subject of Orphan Works,    John Harrington, voices his opinion on his blog, well worth reading. 

Pictures/Images..and Orphan Works

 I want to talk about old pictures and images for some. This is my aunt, Lilly,early 1930s, photographed in Lyons,France where I am from. In its original print before this scan, it was silver and black  that looked as though it was printed on metal paper. The lighting, the hair, the style truly captured its time and becomes a classic beauty, a real jewel of photography. It is for all purposes a great Stock shot with many potentials not to mention a period piece.

I said in the opening, old pictures, images for some and that some is today's photographers. In her era, prints were about the only medium shown, and reproduced from. Professionals had labels, signatures, embossed or inked stamps to say who they were and whom to contact. 

Today, images are in many forms, digital being dominant and for professionals we have metadata that not only say the same things but add much more info, including copyright the new challenge being threatened. The threat....Orphan Works    

In brief, it says that if every attempt to locate or find out who the photographer was fails, then it is open market to a third party user. This picture has no marks nor signatures. It is almost 80 years old, now an orphan except than in actuality, I do know who the photographer is, my grandfather, who is no longer behind his camera. 

The case rests on a premise ( a revamp to copyright law) ...would images like these and those with historical value be lost, unusable, no longer seen unless you are viewing the original in a museum or collection, if its creator could not be found, under current copyright law?  

What if in todays images the metadata were stripped away or unreadable by tomorrow's tools, would they in the creator's lifetime be open game to a myriad of users? with the Orphan Works, by the current wording, yes..as well. Theoretically you could post an image or through a third party ( a client using a website, it gets downloaded by another and reposted) your metadata stripped, and now it is an orphan, open game.      

ASMP is trying to fight and re-word Orphan Works but that alone will not protect our images from becoming lost/orphaned. Technology must come to the rescue by creating a permanent non-strippable way to keep all info within the image itself and not a side issue. 

With today's technology we share knowledge openly. Like launching a message in a bottle in hopes to reach the right receivers but little control on where it lands. With our hope, comes its threat. For our future, must come a new defense. We can not lose what is in the past nor give up what is in the present. Join and support whatever photo group fits you best and help to bring some solution.

 

        

            

New Brush 2

..OK...so the first rule of thumb with a G9 camera from Canon is..CHECK THE BATTERY STATUS first...it loves the juice.....

After a false start, due to to the above fact learned the hard way!!! I came home and decided to use it where I would normally use my BIG GUN camera. This is fine for me here since my final intention was to produce the result on the web rather than on a page..(yet to be tested).

So for my other blogsite...http://www.matthewapcefood.blogspot.com
where the recipe and layout is

I shot this image,"Cilantro Shrimp in Plantain Cup" hand held, under a low lighting condition. The anti shake feature came on automatic and the result in Raw seems fine. I also shot a small jpeg with to see how the camera program would interpret it, which it also did very close to my taste. My next trial will be on an assignment....

Eager to try the new Canon G9, I went to Miami Beach in the morning. This top left image was originally shot Raw...100ISO..the next converted to BW in CS3, and the third with filters applied, cross strokes and water colors..all images here are at 72ppi jpeg for the web..

IMHO..the original file is very sweet at 12mp...tight and smooth. The ease of the camera was easy once I sat and read the extensive manual( good thing I already have some Canon savy) I chose to program one of the custom settings C1 to my preferences in color,format etc.

Now the part about the new brush...If I had been carrying my Gear, I might not have stopped to set up. Here during a quick walk by I spotted this image. Taking a glance down at the back,camera in hand, I made the shot. Because of this shot, I will return to continue along this point of view and see where it takes me. 

 

Inspiration

Just when my eyes were getting too bleary and my brain too swollen from looking at all the new images being put out as " wonderful , ponderous , insightful, "..but somehow not inspiring, I was sent this link from a friend and over coffee the next morning, I sat breathing deeply.

 http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=28163893

Don't get scared by the time, invest a little..

A New Brush

Lately there has been discussion on one of my favorite sites...http://www.luminous-landscapes

about does the camera matter. It summarizes that different cameras as in 4x5 or holga will lead that photographer to a different point of view and that difference will help to create different work.

That being said, I have picked up a new brush, because I believe that this theory is somewhat correct. Of course Ansel Adams would still have seen Half Dome whether he was using an 8x10 or a 35mm, but maybe he wouldn't have stayed so long to study it if he used the latter. 

After a few years of digital, I returned to my 4x5 field with Polaroid's 55N film for a personal project I am shooting. Processing in the field, another subject, I find my view of each image a timely and studied approach, not the snapping away from varied angles and lenses choice. I took my time to see it,feel it and watch it at first. I framed it through my 4x5 matt to find the view and after tweeked the camera to bring into focus what I want looking at the ground glass and seeing it on paper, the pre-visualization often talked about. Reviewing it later on after the rapture passed, I see that I made the right choice for that subject or at least, once divorced from the subject, I discovered an image that might not have been the same had I used another camera. To my mind, I had the right brush and it did lead me to that canvas.    

I have searched for another brush to see if I can produce a different view for my commercial side or simple how I see it and now I just picked up Canon's new G9, a great little (sort of point and shoot) digital camera...info= 

With it freedom from my  camera bag...from suspicious looks..a new sense of play and hopefully a newer look...

I will provide a page with results soon ..and welcome comments.