William Oldacre Photography

Tag: random

  • Random Images

    Random Images

    Light Signatures series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, red, blue, pink, muted, streaks, layers, pattern
    Half Lidded Dream, 2014 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)

    Years ago when I had just completed the Coloured City series, I had a gallery curator ask if I was making images at random. The same could be asked of all three of the city bodies of work and even more so of the most recent body, Light Signatures.

    I could photograph randomly, but it wouldn’t be as satisfying as what I actually do. There is definite purpose behind each image I make, but because of the nature of my method, there are only a small number of successful source images and an even smaller number of those that I complete into a final image. And when I edit the completed images down to a final body of work there are even fewer – so far 12 out of 4600 for Light Signatures.

    For Light Signatures, as with Coloured City, there were objects visually dancing around me, that had an interesting anticipated future path – I was constantly looking to see what would happen next.

    Much of the object’s visual movement was forced and exaggerated, resulting from close proximity and the speed of my movement. For Light Signatures I was riding my bike, for Coloured City and Metro Motion I was driving. I know this makes me sound like a madman – but I’m not (well maybe) – it’s far more controlled than it seems.

    There’s a specific method coupled with iteration to make the source images. Even though it seems they could be random, it wouldn’t be possible to get consistently good results if they were.

  • The City

    The City

    Light Signatures series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, red, pink, vibrant, sine waves, waves, pattern
    Red Sine Wave Over Mauve, 2013 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)

    I’ve been writing the foreword to a book about my three bodies of photographs about the city and last week’s post really helped to clarify what I’m about. Up to now I’ve said slightly vacuous things like I’m interested in the emotion of living in the city. Which while true isn’t specific enough.

    Looking at the city as an interaction between the inhabitants and the objects it comprises, makes much more sense. The emotional impact of that interaction – at least on a personal level, is just something that coincidentally results.

    Writing the foreword I’ve decided on an overview of my evolution – an explanation of how I arrived at photographing the city the way I do. It seems I’m always explaining myself and in a way it feels like a justification for where I’m at. I’m beginning to feel like that’s enough deep inner gazing for now. It feels like I’ve more or less figured out what I’m about – which I’ve got to say is a relief. It’s been uncomfortable always feeling like I couldn’t explain the why of what I do.

    It’s not like it’s necessary to explain the why – intuitive thinking is good and interesting, but I do tend to hop about rapidly from one thing to another and to others that kind of looks frenetic and random. It’s not random. And up until now I couldn’t really explain my decisions and actions well.

    Last week’s explanation still isn’t perfect but it feels much better.

  • Open To Chaos

    Open To Chaos

    Light Signatures series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion,yellow, green, muted, etching, waves, patterns
    Burnished Metal Stained Gold Green Brown, 2012 – Light Signatures :: (Click to see more)

    A couple days ago a pal I haven’t seen or heard from since high school friended me on facebook. High school was a looong time ago for me but never mind that part. I found that he’s now a singer songwriter with an album on itunes. I listened to the first track and man I started to chuckle because it completely reminded me of this really strong memory I have of my pal just rocking out and going crazy to Back In Black by AC/DC – its because of this memory that I still like that track. The interesting thing for me is this – when I mentioned this, his response was he dug how I was so open to craziness.

    That means I’ve been like this all along – that is, open to the chaotic, random, craziness of life. Here I was, thinking this was some new realization for me. Wow. This notion that order arises from chaos that I’ve written about before is apparently more fundamental to who I am than I thought.

    My interest in the fun that can come from flirting with chaotic randomness is clearly part of my core makeup. I should clarify something. I imagine if one were to act purely chaotic with completely random behavior then the likelihood of fun vs un-fun things happening would probably be half the time on average. But I feel, when I follow the chaotic nature of my life, fun things happen MORE than half the time . Is this because I’m consciously directing something here or there that increases my odds of fun? I think so. I guess then truly speaking that isn’t completely chaotic behavior on my part is it? Perhaps a better description would be consciously chaotic behavior. Still its sufficiently random that I’m comfortable calling it chaotic – at least for my purposes.

    When you open yourself to the inherent chaos around you, at least on some level, then you exponentially broaden your horizon of possible outcomes. For me, opening up to chaos dramatically increases my chances of finding something interesting. On a visual level, it’s like a massive buffet of incredible sights have suddenly opened before me. I think that’s so fun – I’m smiling right now as I type this just thinking about it.

    Such a simple idea that opens the floodgates of possibility. Try it, you might like it.