Down the Rabbit Hole - Week 14

Sources and Resources: Updated throughout the week

image: Bud Parr

More Tim Carpenter

You'll find plenty mentions of Carpenter here on the site, for good reason: his work and ideas have really pushed harder to think about my own. This video is not new, but somehow I just found it and it's a great introduction to his history and thinking:

Aside from his book find his writing at TIS Books.

Janelle Lynch on Making a Good Photograph

When she published this article last year, I immediately identified with her sensibility, and now I'm taking a course with her that's been delightful and impactful on my work. While it's written in a simple list form, there's lots there to think about. Here's a selection:

Remember Robert Capa’s dictum, “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” But don’t always follow it. Step back and see what distance enables—literally and figuratively. Then, consider the metaphor—whether intended or not—in Capa’s words and ask, “Do you care about what you’re photographing—are you arrested by it, seized—regardless of what it is?”

And “How Janelle Lynch Sees Beyond the Image”

A great photograph does not always start with an idea. Sometimes the physical 'yes' forms within the body when the light hits the subject just right. ☀️

We talk with photographer Janelle Lynch about her creative process in landscape photography, her more recent portraits, and her cyanotypes, made with a nineteenth-century cameraless technique. Janelle shares how she developed her love for the camera from her early experiences of being seen by others, why she avoids the word 'capture,' and how her images often emerge through a conversation with her subjects. We also get into her craft and the work that she does with her 8x10 view camera. 📸

Janelle draws inspiration from various sources and incorporates practices into her routine, such as yoga, proprioception, and perceptual drawing and painting with others. One of the visuals Janelle shares with us is an eight-minute exposure taken in near darkness, which leads to a discussion of what exists even when we cannot see it.

Revisiting the Zone System

One reason I like large format photography is that it causes you to think about all the fundamentals of photography, even to the point of exposing and developing on an image-by-image basis. I'm my Large Format Photography class we're discussing the importance of exposure and discussing the Ansel Adams' Zone System. Once again, I return to Bruce Barnbaum's discussion of exposure in his book The Art of Photography, where he devotes several chapters on thinking and visualizing your image, then exposing, developing, and printing. He also has a chapter on what he loosely refers to as “The Digital Zone System” (hint: it refers to judiciously using the histogram). One of the most used books I own!