Magnifique!

October 3rd, 2008

Back from a long, full trip to Europe. Highlights: Visa Pour l’Image photography festival in Perpignan; eating and photographing at restaurants in Provence and Paris; showing off my French language skills to my wife; photographing in Bulgaria for BA; grazing gastro and old school pubs with old friends in London.

All the jobs were shot on film and just dropped off at the lab. It will be great fun reviewing it all — more of a surprise package than normal as it has been almost a month since I took some of the photographs! 

grain vs noise

August 29th, 2008

Creamy vs sharp. Delayed vs instant. Primes vs zoom. What should I bring to France on vacation (with a few jobs to do along the way)? Initially I thought just bring the 5D and 24-70 zoom and be done with it. From food to landscapes I’d be covered in one kit. Also, the jobs are “all-in,” so nothing extra for film and processing.

BUT my computer is so slow for heavy processing and I really loath the amount of time it takes to get it to look like film (= reality.)  NOR is there compensation for tweaking in Lightroom. AND the kit is so heavy and the lens is an in-your-face barrier to my flanêur method.

YET 120 film processing is still so cheap in Bangkok, that I would not lose too much (while saving the hours at the computer.) Film days are coming to a low ebb, so MAYBE enjoy a few last dips in before it dries up completely. BUT I’ll have to lug around 50 rolls of film as it’s cheaper to buy here than Europe.

THE ANSWER, PLEASE:

(Just bought from Jurgen Kreckel who has the reputation as the best restorer of old folders.)

That’s a pre-war Voigtlander Bessa 6×9 folding range finder body with a post-war lens (from a Bessa II). All clean, adjusted and ready to go. This is going to be fun!

Make a living or a life?

August 19th, 2008

Debates on the demise of film, photojournalism and careers in (editorial or…) photography erupt fairly frequently in the photoblogoshpere. Just recently over at aphotoeditor: CAN EDITORIAL PHOTOGRAPHERS MAKE A LIVING ANYMORE?

I’ve read some great stuff on this question by John Loomis and Robert Wright.

Robert’s point of view; “don’t get on the plane. Don’t take any jobs with significant expenses,” was pretty shocking to me as that’s what I do 90% of the time for work. (My carbon footprint has started to bother me.) 

I started taking photographs to travel and when my supporting mercenary design opportunities collapsed I moved to Bangkok to travel and photograph. Partly because I had decided I wanted to live abroad, but equally, I did not want to struggle, be miserable, be beaten down in New York. Some of that pre-vision of life as a photographer in NYC was colored by having done it once as a graphic designer (which should be an infinitely easier way to “make it.”) I wanted to photograph more on my terms and in my time, to try and keep my motivation, if not my vision (yet to be defined) pure. Another bad memory from design years was taking any old job just to keep cash flowing and rent paid.

Bangkok gave the space for me to be more pure. I also realized that it was a life I liked. The strange, new, amazing places I could go on my own or assigned to — out of the blue — like spinning the globe and pointing to the next spot. I was able to combine work with personal photography projects/explorations that made me feel challenged and fulfilled in a way my making a living as a graphic designer never did. My position out here has its drawbacks to be sure. The photo desk wonders, “is he in Taiwan?” Or the New York/LA prestige lofts someone to shoot in my backyard, with arguably “just OK” results. At the same time for certain magazines I’ve become their Asian photographer and have collaborated with a writer friend on some wonderful stories that might not have happened if I lived elsewhere.

So I have made a life as an editorial photographer. It is a unit where work and life — travel, exploring, questioning, eating, conversing — merge in a way that feels right. I may not be saving enough for my house by the beach or an assistant to scan all my negs for stock, but for now that is OK.

An example: My wife and I decided to take a vacation in France this September for a belated honeymoon — Paris and Provence. I’ll check out Visa Pour L’Image for a few days then we drive into the countryside. I let a few magazines know of this currency imbalanced trip and 2 jobs surfaced. Shooting restaurants in Provence and Paris — how convenient! And for me it does not feel like work intruding. Eat at 8 tasty restaurants I never knew. Meet the chefs. Banter with the waiters. Take photographs.

Art ≥ Statements

August 8th, 2008

“A project about reality and its photographic representation. We are confronted with introductions and conclusions of stories from a world we once were privy to.  I am touched by their vulnerability, their transience and the enigmatic play between interiority and exteriority that they engage with the landscape in which they integrate. By juxtaposing these economically and religiously contrasting cultures, the arch-narrative of the project goes against a dichotomization of the world. Focused on an intimate view of these locations, using tight crops which also emphasize the absent, making these photos as much about what is not there as what is there.”•  

© Christopher Wise

There is some interesting work by the newly anointed Jen Benkman Hey Hot Shots. Browsing through last year I also saw some original stuff — despite some awful writing in the artists statements.

(My collage above is made from randomly pulled sentences — apologies to the artists.)