Tag: perspective

  • Filter

    Filter

    abstract expressionism, city street, urban, movement, motion, mauve, blue, green, vibrant
    Unnamed Forty Four — Sidelong :: (click image to see more)

    When I photographed with film there was a disconnect between when I made the image and when I made the print. I work iteratively so I update and revise my idea trying new things on the fly as I shoot … and then I forget all about it. With film there was a long period of time between shooting, completing a roll, processing multiple rolls and then finally making prints. I would often be unable to remember what I had been up to.

    Photographing with digital dramatically shortens this process making it easier to reconnect my thoughts and remember my ideas. But – I guess there was a part of me that found the disconnect useful. Now I make photographs on an almost daily basis, then leave them on my computer for sometimes months, before I return to work on them.

    Go figure. I suppose I do this subconsciously, perhaps to allow fresh perspective, with distance acting as a filter so only the really good ideas survive.

  • Memory – Of The Moment

    Memory – Of The Moment

    abstract expressionism, city street, urban, movement, motion, green, blue, mauve, vibrant
    Unnamed Thirty Eight — Sidelong :: (click image to see more)

    I find it really difficult to keep my perspective – I’m perpetually in the moment, so it’s really difficult to see growth and change. It’s good to be in the moment for creativity but it leads me to despair when I can’t see improvement – which by definition being in the moment won’t allow.

    This issue is tightly bound with memory – which for me at least, photographs are a powerful key for. It’s chicken and egg – which comes first. Am I in the moment because I lack memory or is it being in the moment prevents me from properly creating memory. Whichever, I have real problems remembering specifics of the past except in a general kind of large scale sense.

    Am I using photography as a crutch for deficient memory?

  • Second Nature

    Second Nature

    abstract expressionism, city street, urban, movement, motion, grey, mauve, brown, vibrant
    Unnamed Twelve, 2017 — Side Slide :: (click to see more)

    So much of how I photograph has become second nature. Most of what I shoot is my family with my cell phone. They’ve become much more self conscious and aware that I’m making photographs so I’ve had to get stealthy. But even that is difficult because my so called stealth…. isn’t THAT stealthy. Seriously, there’s only so much you can do to disguise your actions when you have a cell phone in your hand.

    As with most of my work I’ve adopted and refined methods so I can get the shot or video clip I see. It’s the same with the projects I work on. It takes some iteration to refine the process until I’m consistently getting the images I’m looking for. And often along the way I’ll discover new perspectives and opportunities for exploration – which is totally cool.

  • Perspective & Reason

    Perspective & Reason

    Convergent series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, green, orange, red, vibrant, wedge, shape
    Ground Fog, 2016 — Convergent :: (click to see more)

    Been thinking about what to do next. After my summer hiatus, feels as though I’ve finished capturing new material for convergent. The raw material was becoming repetitive and I’d need to adjust my approach to continue along this path.

    I’ve got to contemplate my perspective and the underlying reasons I make images. Time and movement – and how they interact in this environment. At the moment nothing is sticking but we’ll see – I’ll figure something out.

    Still excited by the clear lozenge of wispy colours – Light Signatures images and am moving forward with the non-backlit version. I know I did say I’d make a clear one AFTER the backlit version but on further reflection a clear lozenge was my original vision.

  • Tone Palette

    Tone Palette

    Convergent series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, blue, green, yellow, vibrant, wedges, blocks, shape
    Bright Spring Haze, 2015 – Convergent :: (click to see more)

    Still working on the virtual layered render for Light Signatures so I can analyze and refine the layers for an optimum effect. Now have to figure out how to fly the camera around and render a sequence in Blender so I can see an all around perspective. I had hoped to be able to do that live inside Blender but it seems there’s no way to properly show the transparent parts of each layer in the preview window – drag – would have been done now if it did.

    In the meantime still shooting for Convergent and working on this AM look. It’s coming along well and now that we’ve hit early summer there’s a lot of bright green in the images from all the new growth. Interesting how the tone palette changes for each season. If I have the patience I’ll try to shoot source material in the AM style for one complete year so I get the full range of colours… guess we’ll see if I last that long.

  • Different Perspective

    Different Perspective

    Light Signatures series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, red, purple, muted, pulsing, waves, pattern
    Indigo Squid Beneath Orange Waves, 2014 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)

    I had to step outside my warm padded cocoon of a studio to clear my head and think for a bit. It’s cold and rainy out there with the birds chirping and Queen street is packed with traffic. It’s good to get a different perspective from time to time.

    I’ve been acting like this line of inquiry I’m engaged in about the city is uniquely interesting but really it’s not. It’s just an idea – one among many. I’m certain I’m not the first to think these thoughts or even to articulate them in this way. But I do bring my own unique perspective and I suppose that makes a difference in the end – however slight that might be.

    Really all we can ever do is cast our ideas out into the world to see what others might think of them.

  • Fearless

    Fearless

    Light Signatures series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, blue, orange, muted, streaks, patterns
    Glossy Orange Green Blue Candy Layers, 2013 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)

    The other day I had a very vivid imagining. I’ve had glimpses of this in the past too. I get an over arching sense of my life – I can see the arc of my efforts and encapsulate them as if I’m observing them from a great distance. Its like observing an ant and the futility of its existence. It’s purpose and pursuits are monumental for it yet miniscule in context of the larger world. Its all about context.

    Finding purpose in my life is entirely contextual. I have purpose of the moment all the way up to lifelong purpose. But when I think that large and beyond I struggle with perspective and despair.

    Oddly, despite this struggle I still harbour fears when it comes to pursuing goals outside my comfort zone. Logically you would think with an outlook like this I would be fearless in the pursuit of new things – and yet I am not – at least not always.

    At times I can be fearless – not reckless per se – although some might consider me so. I’m trying to work out exactly how it is I can be fearless in one moment yet entirely fearful in another. Its nonsensical, but there has to be some reason behind it. If I could sort this out I should be able to eliminate my fearful reactions – which would be a huge benefit I think. It would be so invigorating to be free of fear.

    Just imagining it now is lifting a great weight off my shoulders.
    To be decisive and clear headed – that is my goal.

  • The Problem

    I don’t know if this happened to you when you were younger, but it happened a lot to me. I was given sage advice from people older than me about my career, my life, my goals – you name it. At the time I thought, what the hell is all this nonsense about. It’s no big deal. I’ll be fine. I can work it out myself – thank you very much.

    I did okay on my own following my own lead. But, I see now from the perspective of someone who is older and has been through a “few” things in life that I might have done better, easier or at least differently in my life to this point.

    The problem is perspective. When we start out fresh and new in life or at something we’ve never done before, we only have a forward perspective. This is good – its fresh and untainted by negative experience and full of potential. When we come to the end of something we have restrospective. We have experience – both positive and negative. With experience we could shortcut and bypass dead ends. All useful skills when you want to maximize your potential.

    Perversely, we each only have one life in which to reach and maximize our potential, yet if we were to have a second or third or even more chances to go through the processes we all endure, we would ideally get better at them. We each learn so much about so much during the course of our existence and are limited in our ability to convey these learnings to others around us. And then we die.

    When I think about the people close to me who have died, in each instance its like an entire library of knowledge and experience has burned to the ground – gone forever. All I truly have left of them is MY experience and memory of them.

    I know as we grow and gain experience in life, there is a feedback loop which certainly helps us when gaining new experience. But we are less and less open to the full potential of a new experience. One could argue that the past negative experiences also taint our approach – channel us in how we approach new things. So learning from past experience then is a double edged sword. While it gives us confidence and insight that enable us at the same time it changes our outlook and limits our options.

    How then are we to pass on knowledge and experience to our children if we aren’t even able to properly do it for ourselves? How are we to provide unbiased, useful information that will enable them but not limit them? I don’t know.

    There is a duality here – a yin and yang – which, to me, implies there is a balance to reach for. Logically, this balance should be sought both when using past experience to inform internally and also when distributing experience externally to our children as sage wisdom.

    The more I  learn, the more I realize, the more I NEED to learn.

  • Insignificant Originality

    Insignificant Originality

    Light Signatures series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, red, green ,vibrant, figures, streaks, patterns, shapes
    Red Figures Layered In Green, 2012 – Light Signatures :: (Click to see more)

    I’ve been thinking about this for a long time now but it wasn’t until I recently watched a Ted talk about SETI with Seth Shostak that I started to frame it in a quantifiable way – so to speak. Seth noted that given recent findings about the number of solar systems in our galaxy with planets – 1 trillion – and the soon to be verified estimated number of those planets that are hospitable to life – between 1 in 100 and 1 in 1000 – that conservatively there are 1 billion planets in our galaxy alone that might have life on them. Multiply that by the 100 billion galaxies we know about and you begin to get a sense of the potential size of things.

    I’ve struggled with the notion of originality in my photographic efforts. Its hard enough trying to be original when you consider the billions of other people living on Earth – some subset of which are photographer artists like me, also trying to be original – not to mention all the progenitors in my field who created something original in the past. Now multiply that by this other possibility of 1 billion planets times 100 billion galaxies and you begin to feel like originality is impossible.

    In the face of these numbers that truly indicate just how tiny and potentially insignificant I am, how am I to do anything of consequence?

    I’ve always felt overwhelmed by the sheer immensity of IT all and really this just puts a number on it. In some respects its very exciting to think I/we are part of something this large and grand but on the other hand, its like being lost in an unimaginably large crowd – kind of suffocating, I’m not sure how I feel about this.

    I think my stock answer to the miniscule nature of my position in life has been to focus on my immediate sphere of influence. In truth, I can only ever hope to affect a positive change within that sphere and perhaps even the occasional distant connection beyond that. So I structure my life, my thinking and my efforts accordingly – to operate within those bounds.

    To attempt to cope beyond that structure is maddening – but it sure does put your efforts into perspective. That’s not to say that as time passes and technology evolves I won’t be able to expand my sphere – this is and has already happened. But it’s unlikely I’ll have to grapple with a sphere of influence that is even as large as say… the population of Earth. So why worry about something that is so much larger than that?

    I’m not sure how to answer these questions- but they are lingering in the back of mind – driving me to consider my function, my purpose and my creative output in life.

    Postscript: I just had another thought. Surprisingly, like everyone else, I am unique. Which is to say, my perspective is unique. And probably, my unique perspective – at least subtly – informs my creative efforts. So maybe being original isn’t a problem. Perhaps the bigger concern is relevance.

  • Insignificantly Beautiful

    Insignificantly Beautiful

    Light Signatures series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, yellow, vibrant, streaks, patterns
    Bright Yellow Streaks, 2011 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)

    I’m sitting here listening to I Live In A Suitcase by Thomas Dolby and reading Programming the Universe by Seth Lloyd where he is describing the early stages of our universe and contrasting it with now –

    “Planets and suns cluster together to form solar systems. Our solar system clusters together with billions of others to form a galaxy, the Milky Way. The Milky Way, in turn is only one of tens of galaxies in a cluster of galaxies – and our cluster of galaxies is only one cluster in a supercluster.”                                                          Programming the Universe, Seth Lloyd

    You get the idea. We and our actions are so infinitesimally insignificant in the larger picture that I often wonder what exactly I’m doing and why I bother. Conversely, I think, since it IS my job to learn and make things then I might as well do it with style and without fear, since what the hell I’m so cosmically insignificant anyway.

    I think if my life – my very existence – is that insignificant, then I should act accordingly and not bother getting all bent out of shape about things I’m afraid of and things that hurt. Okay, I suppose those things are useful in that they shape my perspective which in turn informs the things I make…  hmmm.

    Perhaps it would be better to adopt a slightly split attitude. One where I do care and so am still shaped by the elements of my life, but also one where I am ever so slightly disengaged – enough that I am not fearful.

    For me, Fear is my greatest foe. It prevents me from acting freely and intuitively, slows me down and wears me out. I have wanted to live without fear for a long time now, but – and here’s the irony… I am afraid to let go. HA! Talk about an infinite loop, I’m trapped. One of these days, I’ll find a way to break free. Either that or I’ll wear a hole in the process and gradually ooze out.

    Despite all this, I have resolved to make beautiful – yet insignificant … things. Hopefully in some way I am enriching the larger universe. If nothing else at least I’m doing my part to slow entropy.