What's up, Karl?

Moon - Van dyke process - Cotton Rag

"What's up, Karl?"

"What's up Karl?"

The importance of a comma.

You wouldn't know this by tracking this blog, but I really enjoy writing for it.  Sadly, I've been busy with other life things and let this exercise and discipline slide by the side.  While not producing anything here in a while, I've worked a great bit on my art and life.

The life bit - it continues to move on.  Work is busy.  I went the UK and Basel, Switzerland for two weeks.  I traveled to my second home in Las Vegas a number of times.  I contacted and am planning collaborative efforts with a few photographer friends.

The art bit - big changes.  I completed an alternative processes class where we made photograms, cyanotypes, Polaroid, Van dykes, gel transfers, assemblage, collage (digital and analog), toy cameras (Holgas and Dianas), tin types, and many other cool techniques.  Some of them worked for me, others didn't.  The big discovery though was my need to get away from just taking a picture, editing and enhancing it and calling it done when I printed it and put it in a frame.  There are so many great ways to present my art.  I am really getting into creating digital collages based on themes.  Why can't I put words directly on the art?  Now if I want to, I do.

Another big learning lesson was that it is so easy to create reproducible art in photography - just make another print.  Somehow I found comfort in knowing I could always make another print.  For many of these alternative processes, I only get one piece and no more like it.  This gave me an appreciation for marble sculptors, painters, and other single-item creators in the art world.  By knowing there is only one piece like this in the world, it feels more powerful and special.

For my final project, I chose a theme and created 5 pieces using different alternative techniques.  The theme was on objectification of women and caused a good bit of debate during the class critique.  I loved that.  You will see more on that in a special post.  

I also worked with four nude models in the past few months.  Each was completely different and brought her own unique gifts as muse and model to the shoot.  You will see some of those pieces in upcoming posts as I write about each shoot.

Now it is time to focus again on getting my business going.  All this creation is fun, but I need to get going on planning and implementing the next stage in my life.  I am slowly setting up work in the SF Bay Area.  I am also trying to set up work in my second home, Las Vegas.  I will write more about LV in the future.

One thing I will write about Las Vegas now is that I've had the pleasure of catching up with Terrel from Photo Anthems.  Last Sunday, we went out for a drive in the country scouting locations.  I enjoy talking with him about art, photography, life, women, Las Vegas, family, and all other things in between. 

I am also in contact with a good friend and artistic creative both behind and in front of the camera.  She and I went to high school together.  Once her life settles down from moving back to the US with her family, we are planning to do some big collaborations.

Its been a great Spring.  My artistic energy is pushing me and I am pushing myself to create stuff I never imagined before.  I look forward to sharing in the future.

Up top is a scan of my Van dyke print of Moon.  Below is my cyanotype.  Both are created using a light sensitive emulsion spread onto paper.  After laying a large negative on top of it (created in phototshop, but any film negative would work) similar to a contact print, I left them out in the sun for 5-10 minutes.  After processing them, voila.  I love analog art.  I prefer the Van dyke of Moon much more, but I loved learning both methods.

Moon  - Cyanotype - Cotton Rag

I love this song and nobody sang it like Janis.

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Kick in the ass

Yes. I used PS Dark Arts on Myself - 012812

"It's great to have a passion, but you must also have a work ethic around it." Unknown*

For the past month or so I received multiple subtle and explicit messages to get my shit together.  Most of these messages concern my art.  All of them are basically saying, "Karl, You take pretty good photos.  You have an eye for capturing people in your photos.  Good boy.  Now you really need to move on to the next level.  You need to do it better and you need to get it done.  Not only done, but done right."

I  hired a graphic/web designer/artist to help me build a commercial website.  She designed  a new logo for me late last year.  I was impressed by it and looked at her portfolio of commercial websites she designed and was very impressed.  I showed her my half-ass, stagnant website and she gently tore it apart in a critique.  I knew then I had hired the right partner to help build the new one.  A month later, and many hours of writing text, selecting key photos, and many other tasks concerning SEO, keywords, aspect ratios, and categorizations, it is almost ready to go public.  I will co-premier it here and Facebook when it is ready to go.  I will also share her name and website in that post.

That experience taught me a valuable lesson.  If I am going to spend a good chunk of money and get a strong commercial site going, I had better go all in or pack up.  You can't go into business half way.  All in or fold.   Balls deep.  Shit or get off the pot.  Ok.  Enough metaphors for that.

While on Christmas break I saw a great a video clip of a George Carlin tribute with Louie C.K.  Louie C.K. is a comic genius and speaks so many truths for me.  In this tribute he shares the influence of Carlin on his career.  The key lesson is to keep reinventing his work and push his comedy further and further and get to what is raw, core, and never stop exploring.  Go deeper.   The gold starts at 4:55.



It is too easy to keep producing the same images the same way and getting the same responses.  I keep creating the same stuff, just with different flavors.  I keep getting the same results, and not going too far both in my art and in the success of my art.

The golden nugget from this video made me realize that I get the best feedback from my stuff that pushes me in new directions, new materials, new concepts, new people, new methods, and new feelings.  It is time to let some things go that are finished and run their course with me.  It feels like being given a new wild world to go out and explore!!!

So, if the first lesson was to go all in or go home and the second lesson was to keep reinventing and pushing myself harder, deeper, and into new areas, the third one was a hard criticism on what I have done.  It made me first question what type of photographer/artist I am in the sense of the quality of my work and then kicked me in the ass to do something about it.

I sent out a few proof portrait images.  The subject liked a few and then did something shocking, but also taught me a lesson.  The subject edited  one of my photos and sent it back with the list of edits.  Holy fuck.  Nobody has edited my photos before, especially without telling me first.

At first I was pissed.  How dare somebody touch my work like that!  I went for a walk around the neighborhood and came back and decided to look at the edits and compare them to the original I had sent out.  In came the head kick of humility and the lesson - Karl, your digital photo editing skills are kind of rudimentary and basic.  Karl, you do some digital photo editing really well, but if you are going to do this seriously, you really have to get better at it.

I use Adobe Lightroom for my photo workflow, everything from downloading and storage, through editing and refining, to creating a print or digital output.  It has many great tools that are similar to what can be found in the traditional darkroom.  It greatly complimented my darkroom knowledge and helped me make the transition from film to digital.   All along I denied the value of Photoshop.  I felt it was too complicated to learn.  It made my art a technical exercise, not a passion of the soul.  I would get lost in all the layers and gadgets and my art would lose its soul.  All of these were excuses, not reasons.

I am in the middle of an intensive Photoshop course now and am finally beginning to understand that its a wondrous tool box that can liberate so many of the limitations that straight photography places on me.  I am quickly realizing that I am not making the best art I can and honoring my subjects by my reticence to learning this important (and let's face it, industry) tool.   It is sort of like learning magic.

I've learned many new things that remind me of the Harry Potter universe.  Magic has both its good and bad arts.  In the books, all Hogwarts students had to learn the Magic of the Dark Arts.  For some it became their primary tool for power, for others it became a last-use weapon or a knowledge on how to defend ones self from it.

I think this is true of Photoshop as well.  There are so many ways to manipulate photos within that program.  There is the subtle stuff like correcting for perspective, saturating or de-saturating colors, reducing wrinkles, getting rid of pimples, etc.  There is the heavy stuff like distorting the body to look thinner, taller, whiter, darker, and closer to an ideal of what someone should like vs. what they truly look like.  All of these tools are available for the photographer to change the photograph from simple edits to a work of fiction.  These are some potentially dark arts that I need to learn and master.  How I use my knowledge and mastery of the dark arts will determine whether my intent was good or not.

Below is a video about the dangers of Photoshop.



I haven't written a blog post in the past few weeks due to all the work I am pushing into my art while still working my paying job and trying to maintain a life.  I am not getting any younger.  I know I have many more years behind me than ahead of me.  I need to get my art done before I die and I need to get off my lazy ass and do it.  I also have to do it better or why do it all?

*I hate it when I hear a great quote and can't find who said it.  Google can only do so much I guess.  I know it was an author. 

Karl's three laws of life and art

Rain - 100911

Here are my three laws of life.  I've found all three to be true every time.

1. Everyone has psychological baggage.  If they say they don't -  denial, sublimation, repression, and telling lies are manifestations of their psychological baggage.  You can't go through life without carrying some of it.  It is how you handle the baggage that says a lot about you.

2. Everyone you know will fail you at some point.  Many will fail you repeatedly.  Inversely, you will fail them all as well.  These failures could be as small as forgetting to pick up the bread he/she promised to bring to as painful as breaking your heart.  They will do it to you and vice versa.  My only advice when someone fails you, forgive when you can (somethings shouldn't be forgiven) and move on.  If it helps, remember you have failed or will fail them as well. 

3.  The tide flows and the tide ebbs, as does all aspects of living.  Life, love, hate, faith, passion, lust, and knowledge all go through these cycles.  Our tide of life flows in as we grow and develop into adults and reaches its greatest point before slowly moving out to sea again.  This same pattern is true for almost everything from our love of a certain food to the value of a kiss.

Since I try to keep this as much an art blog as possible, these laws apply to art and creative pursuits as well.

1.  People will interpret and respond to art based on their own person baggage.  If you aren't carrying around the right baggage, some art may not elicit any response.  That is fine.  There is plenty more art to get connected with.  Someone else will connect with the piece you feel nothing for.

 2.  The more personal and subjective something is, the more likely someone will fail you in regards to it.  I can't think of anything more subjective as art.  The challenge with subjective things is that words are often not enough to express expectations of others.  If I am working with a model and ask him to look despondent, what he gives me may be completely wrong for my needs.  This may be due to the different subjective definitions of "despondent".

I have also found the more subjective the purpose, the more likely someone will blow it off and/or stand you up.  Subjective things take lower priority than objective things.  People are more likely skip an appointment to create art than sell you something, provide a medical service, or pick up the bread.

Leila and Hana - 100911

3.  The tidal flow and ebbing of art.  Jackson Pollock was a big sensation.  His tide came in and he was on top of the world.  Roy Lichtenstein, and other pop artists, came in on a different tide and Pollock's tide ebbed out.  This flowing and ebbing also occurs at the personal level of the artist.  I will come up with a new concept, build it, grow it, develop it, create it and become obsessed with it.  At some point though my passion for the concept will ebb and I will want to get it finished.  By the end of it, I am tired of the work, looking at it, and and greatly lust to go onto the next alluring project.

Due to personal experiences, a tidal wave of issues may inspire frantic creation, and inversely, a deep personal wound can make an artist give up on or abruptly end a whole modality in art and self-expression.  There are certain things I will never photograph again because of this.


Video

Walk a mile without shoes... or anything else

karl-14 - Kristen Lucus

Kim Weston told me that it was crucial for the photographer to model nude to truly understand what the model experiences.   A few years ago I did a few self portraits sans clothing, but didn't feel that was the same thing as posing for another photographer.  Back in May I did the full Monty.  I posed nude for another photographer.

karl-20 - Kristen Lucus

Kristen Lucas is a great photographer that I took a class with last semester.  She was creating a series capturing the temporary marks we have on our skin from the restrictive clothing and accessories we wear all day.  These included the patterns left by underwear elastic bands, socks, rings, watches, belts, bras, and other tight items.  They are all black and whites and are close ups that approach abstraction.

I wore my belt an extra notch tighter that day so both it and my undies were rubbing deep into my skin.  My ring was etching into my finger.  I wore tight socks and tied my shoes tight to get maximum effect.  I wanted to be marked up for her.  This is the exact opposite of how must nude models dress for a shoot.  They usually wear loose clothing to avoid these marks.  This part of the reason I loved this theme.  It showed the real human state we live in... we have temporary marks from our daily costumes of life.

We photographed during class lab time in the same studio I photographed Candace in during our February session.  We started off with my hands.  I removed my ring and there was a big dent.  With only a single light source, the shadows from the textures and grooves were very pronounced.

karl-4 - Kristen Lucus

After a few minutes we switched to my feet and my feet with my hands.  The socks created a harsh pattern on the tops of my feet.  I twisted and contorted to her directions and tried lining up everything for her.  It made me appreciate the moves and poses models must hold.  I enjoyed it.

Next came the waist band marks.  I pulled it down to see if there were marks and there were.  I dropped my pants and undies, pulled off my shirt and stood there as she photographed those marks by having me slowly rotate to get them full circle.

I felt comfortable even though I have never posed nude before.  I wondered why as I drove home.  First, I trust Kristen.  I support and believe in her project.  I've seen her work.  She made me comfortable.  Second, I've grown to accept my body as what it is.  It isn't beautiful, but I try not to be ashamed of it.  Third, it was very educational to learn how being on the other side of the lens felt.

karl-43 - Kristen Lucus

As you can see... or can't, my face is absent from all shots.  This is true of her whole series.  I don't know how I would feel having nude photos taken of me with my face visible.  I would like to think I would be as comfortable as I was with these photos, but I can't say for sure.

Kristen shared her photos with me and I was very impressed.  I know I have to lose weight, but her photos did not make me feel ugly and fat.  I appreciate her treatment of the model, photos, and the subject.

What pearls of wisdom can I share with other photographers from having been on both sides of the camera?  Only one, earn trust (both ways), keep it, and honor it after the shoot.  Kristen did all of these.  She gave me a print and a cd with proofs of the session.  I greatly appreciate that.

karl-29 - Kristen Lucus

I photographed Kristen a few weeks later.  She wasn't nude, but the theme and situation was much more personal.  That story and those photos will have to wait for another day.

Put a nude on it.

Porcelain Figurine - 050111

I recently saw an episode of the IFC sketch show Portlandia.  One sketch is based on those cheesy decoration/arts and crafts shows (think of low budget Martha Stewart) where the two main characters paint birds on everything to spruce them up (at bottom).  I laughed at it so hard and started thinking of photography.  After perusing a few websites, I found I could switch out the "bird" for nude.  Put a nude on it.

I've read articles about the nude photo cliches (gas masks, railroad tracks, hand bras, angel wings, etc.) and thought more about where the nude model was photographed than what she was wearing or doing.  Put a nude on it.

There is a rock - put a nude on it.  Hey, is that a railroad track - put a nude on it.  OOOOO, a crashing wave, put a nude on it.  You get my point.

I am not disparaging all scenic nude art, just much of the copycat/uninspired versions of it.  Why did you put a nude there?  (Even that questions is a clue to the answer.)  It all depends on the intent of the artist.  Is the nude an integral element of the photo, or did you just put a nude on it?

My photographer friend Griffin both models and photographs nudes in urban/suburban settings outside of churches, police stations, etc.  He creates his "guerrilla" nudes to make a statement about sexuality and transgressing the social norms of public/religious institutions of the politically conservative California town he lives in.  His nudes are an integral part of the photo.  Both the nude and the other elements need each other to complete the image and the series.  He isn't simply putting a nude on it.

Going to the other extreme of put a nude on it is the cultural icon of the little silver lady on the mud flap.  I am sure you have passed an 18 wheeler with these little ladies on them.  There really is no significance or purpose for putting the anatomically impossible lady on the mud flap.   She is little more than decoration.  It is this intent of using a nude as decoration then that separates an artistic nude from put a nude on it.

I was going to use a few of my own photos to illustrate my point.  I am guilty of having put a nude on it, but I am not going to show those for two reasons.  First, I respect the models too much to put one of those up.  Second, those images were all parts of sessions that yielded good stuff and I redacted them from the final group for that reason, they were weak photos.  As a photographer, I need to continually strive to show my best work, not just the kind-of good stuff.