Tag: speed

  • Irony

    Irony

    abstract expressionism, city street, urban, movement, motion, mauve, yellow, green, vibrant
    Unnamed Nine, 2017 — Side Slide :: (click to see more)

    Back years ago when I was shooting both panchromatic and infrared black and white film, it was a lengthy process to get from shooting to an image. I had the film processing down to a consistent procedure that I could largely do while sitting reading but printing was less consistent for me.

    I would go into my basement/bathroom darkroom and emerge hours later with perhaps a dozen finished prints and a lot of hope I had exposed, dodged, burned and printed what I was after. Often though the prints would dry down darker than expected and I would be disappointed.

    When I got my first computer, film scanner and photoshop in the mid 90’s I knew this was the way I had always wanted to go. While film affords tremendous latitude when exposing, processing and printing, what you loose there you make up for in speed, accuracy and flexibility while working in photoshop.

    Now I’m able to complete an image in minutes and know with certainty that it is exactly what I will get when I print. Oops – I did neglect to mention many years of anxiety in that description between the mid 90’s and early 00’s. It took a while before there were reasonable colour management solutions and accurate monitors that made it possible to print exactly what you see on screen. But now after having this working setup for several years, I easily forget there was a time when that too was painful.

  • Mind Game

    Mind Game

    Convergent series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, green, blue, brown, muted, wedge, shape
    Anticyclone, 2016 – Convergent :: (click to see more)

    We take this entirely for granted but if you think about it, the simple fact that we stand and move about erect perpendicular to the ground and gravity is mind boggling.

    Forget that you’re standing on the surface of the earth for a moment and imagine you’re instead standing on a soccer ball lets say. A soccer ball that is just hanging there in empty space. No big deal, no problem with balance or anything.

    Now imagine the soccer ball is inflating getting bigger, so big you can’t see past the edge of it – then even larger. Imagine this ball is spinning with you attached to it so you’re facing the direction of spin – faster and faster, buts that okay you’re not dizzy… yet, because there’s nothing to indicate you are moving. Remember, you’re in an empty space with nothing but the ball as a frame of reference.

    Now imagine in addition to the spin, the ball itself begins to move in a large orbit in the direction you’re facing. Faster and faster, compounding the spin. Don’t get sick.

    Now imagine the orbit is itself orbiting in the direction you’re facing – or if you’re brave imagine it’s orbiting off-axis perhaps sideways or in reverse in a much larger orbit.

    All of this orbiting and spinning is at extraordinary speed – and yet you feel nothing – you’re standing completely still because your only frame of reference is the ball you’re standing on and relative to the ball you aren’t moving – not one bit.

    This is in fact what you are doing right now on the surface of this Earth – assuming the spin and orbit directions are correct. It’s probably much worse, since there are other additional orbits, directions and movements to consider. Who knows exactly how fast we’re actually travelling at any moment and what crazy corkscrew path we’re on.

  • Arctic High

    Arctic High

    2014
    Archival Pigment Print


    40″ x 60″

    edition of 10

  • Freezing Drizzle

    Freezing Drizzle

    2014
    Archival Pigment Print


    40″ x 60″

    edition of 10

  • Tropical Depression

    Tropical Depression

    2014
    Archival Pigment Print


    40″ x 60″

    edition of 10

  • 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.

  • Living In The Present

    Living In The Present

    Light Signatures series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, green, muted, streaks, waves, patterns
    Rushing Torrent Of Light, 2013 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)

    I read a summary the other day that struck a chord about a book called Present Shock – When Everything Happens Now. I’ve already been thinking a great deal about the present versus the future. I spend a great deal of time with my head in the future – scheduling and planning out my life – partly because I have to in order to operate my business efficiently and painlessly, but I noticed that planning and thinking about the future was becoming something of an obsession. So much that I failed to notice the moment – I was constantly thinking what’s next – just trying to get through the drudgery of the present so I could get to the future – where I would be happy. Except I wasn’t happy when the future arrived and became the present.

    It was making the pace of my life insane and it meant I missed out or glossed over the small moments that are the fabric of life. It dawned on me a while ago that my obsessive planning and scheming about the future was interfering with my enjoyment of the process of living – the journey. It was making me feel empty. I realized happiness could only be found by living in the present.

    Its funny because all this time I thought I was alone in my obsession and emptiness. According to Douglas Rushkoff this is symptomatic of our current state of affairs ie real time technologies like texting, emailing and social networking – we’re always on. He says we can choose to play an eternal game of catch-up or we can live in the present favouring quality over speed.

    I’m trying to live in the moment and it feels better – but its tough to do. Where to draw the line – when it comes to planning or immediacy what things are “necessary” – what things are useful and what things are detrimental. Those are probably personal decisions – everyone’s life and tolerances are different.

    I’m amazed how quickly life flies past when I’m not watching closely yet somehow at the same time crawls past with respect to my dreams and goals – its strangely ironic. My son keeps growing and changing – saying more and more interesting, amusing things. It happens so quickly, if I’m not paying constant attention I miss out, but I still believe in the importance of dreaming about the future. Dreams drive us forward and keep us growing but they have their place. There has to be a balance between dreaming and living here, now. Its tricky to balance the vigilance of the moment with the desire to progress in life.

    Time marches on, even when we’re watching elsewhere.