Photography Archives - Page 42 of 55

Published August 3, 2017 by avardw

8 Questions for UK artist Debbie Yare

Debbie Yare is a visual artist based in the northwest of England. She creates wonderful drawings, paintings, and photographs that illuminate her relationship with the landscape around her. Writer Bill Bryson wrote of that area, “Morecambe Bay may be the most beautiful bay in Britain.” For a more in-depth view of her work, check out her website, Flickr, and Instagram.

I asked her eight questions about her work and her current projects.

Tell me a little about yourself. Where are you from, and where do you live now?

I’m a full-time artist from a village on Morecambe Bay, Lancashire, on the northwest coast of England. This is also where I am living and working now. I’ve moved around a bit and lived in other places, but was drawn back here because it is a great place to be.

What projects are you working on these days?

I make drawings, paintings, and photographs about the landscape and places I visit near my home. This involves a fair bit of wandering around and making work outdoors, as well as developing ideas in the studio. Various themes keep cropping up, such as the history of the landscape, the memories that lie there, and the memories we carry with us; and also, the bonds we form with certain places and how they can draw us back time and time again. I spend most of my time flitting between Morecambe Bay, on my doorstep, and the limestone hills to the north. These are fantastical places to me with a seemingly endless capacity to inspire, lift the spirits, and allow the imagination to roam. I’m also self-employed, so I need to spend time looking for relevant opportunities to show the work and trying to promote myself. It is one really big project that isn’t just about making work, but also about building a better life for myself and doing things that are important to me.

You describe on your website how your work is closely tied to how much walking you do. I’m curious about that creative loop. Do you think you would walk just as much if you weren’t creating art based on what you observe? And would you be creating art like this if you weren’t also a walker?

I live in a particularly inviting area, the majority of which can only be fully explored on foot. There is a rich history of walking the landscape here, and webs of footpaths criss-cross the countryside. I’ve been wandering around the area for as long as I can remember, and the first thing I do if I visit other places is buy a map! There is still so much to explore and discover. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I can’t imagine a parallel universe in which I’d be making work about anything else. I hope that means I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing!

You’re such a talented landscape photographer, though you told me that’s not how you chiefly see yourself—it’s one aspect of your art, not the total. That makes me think of the gap that often exists between how others might see our oeuvre, or one part of it, and how we ourselves see the body of our work. Can you explain a bit about where your landscape photos fit into the whole of your work, and what those images mean to you?

Thanks very much; I appreciate that. I’ve been taking photos for a long time but have no real technical knowledge or training in that area. Photography, like walking and drawing, is a way I can respond to the landscape directly, connect with it, and record various aspects of my experience. It only takes a moment to take a picture, so if I’m out with my camera I can be quite spontaneous with it. I’ve never planned a photograph. I like those elusive moments when everything seems to collide when you press the shutter. I enjoy being playful with the camera. I’m interested in creating compositions, but I also wonder what can be expressed through photography that goes beyond describing the landscape as a collection of objects and surfaces next to the horizon.

If you’d asked me the same question about drawing I would have said something pretty similar. I guess photography is just another tool in the toolbox really, and I really enjoy making images with my camera. I’m still just exploring and trying things out. I’m not sure if all the work I make works together as a whole visually, but it has all been made in the same spirit.

We all explore different themes in our work, and these tend to evolve over time. What are some themes you are paying more attention to these days, or what are some you find yourself devoting less energy to?

I’ve spent a lot of time this year looking at various processes. I’m also looking at what I’ve done, what I am doing, and trying to be honest with myself about what I’d like to achieve. This slightly painful form of self-evaluation has naturally brought me back to the coast, and out onto the expansive mudflats to explore some of my feelings about this amazing space on my doorstep. I’m also facing some fears about my ability to express open space, atmosphere, and emotion in my studio work.

I like the Japanese concept of “forest bathing” (shinrin-yoku, or walking in the woods and enjoying their therapeutic benefits) and do this as often as I can near my home in eastern Canada. It is proven to be therapeutic in reducing stress and depression. Can you talk about the therapeutic benefits you’ve seen from walking outside, and the therapy of the creative process?

Yeah, there is plenty of research that supports the health benefits of walking and creativity, and I’ve worked with older people in a creative and therapeutic environment, so have seen some of this first hand. Art connects us with ourselves in a way we wouldn’t usually connect in everyday life, and walking connects us with places. So perhaps making art whilst walking in the landscape could be pretty therapeutic. It wasn’t until I hit dire straits with my own health in 2012 that I came to understand much more about this. I was in a situation where recovery wasn’t going to happen very soon, and I was trying to figure out what to do, and about the possibility of reviving my creative career. Whilst I was chewing this over I was walking up and down the coast with my camera, enjoying being creative for the first time in a while, and bathed in some relief at being back in my childhood home. I’d also been given some information about mindfulness, by my doctor, which I was reading and realising that mindfulness sounded very much like my photo walks and sketch trips. In fact my artistic walks had the added bonus of boosting confidence in the sense that I was making images, and also posting them online and receiving feedback. This really did set me on the road to recovery as well as eventually becoming part of my working practice. It completely changed the course of my life. Combinations of these activities could definitely help someone reduce their levels of stress and improve their mood, but given the right circumstances could also help someone in their recovery from a more serious health condition.

It is hard to summarise this so if any of your readers are interested there is a whole site dedicated to therapeutic photography here: https://theoneproject.co/

I like the beautiful muted tones in your paintings. Can you talk about the colour palette that you use?

Thanks; there are lots of earth colours in there that I really love. I don’t live in a particularly colourful area, so I hope the colour suits the landscape really. I also think these gentle tones are quite emotive, in the same way a faded photograph might evoke certain memories or emotions.

One final question: Can you tell me briefly about a couple of artists I may not be familiar with yet but you would recommend checking out?

I’ve been looking at these artists over the last few days: Sarah Shaw, and Sandra Senn.

Many thanks to Debbie for doing this interview. I’m so appreciative of her thoughtful answers that provide insight into her work. Be sure to check out her website, Flickr and Instagram.

Interview Photography

8 questions Debbie Yare Great Britian interview painting photography UK

Published July 31, 2017 by avardw

3 insights gained in my early days of photography

3 insights, Avard Woolaver — Newport, Nova Scotia, 1977 © Avard Woolaver

Whenever you begin something new, you tend to learn a lot in a short time. Here are 3 insights I gained in my earliest years of photography:

I learned to expect the unexpected.

Things sometimes happen quickly when we are composing a photo. There can be a lot of activity in the frame (or almost no activity), yet something or somebody new can suddenly become part of it. The photo above is from my second-ever roll of slide film. On the right you can see a man on a bicycle entering the frame. I had no idea he was there when I took the photo, and was so surprised much later to find this ghost-like figure in the photo. Photographer Gary Winogrand once famously said, “I photograph to see what the world looks like in photographs.”

I learned to pay attention to the quality of light.

Often, the quality or beauty of a photo is dependent upon the light. Take the same photo on an overcast day, and it may look drab and uninteresting. This isn’t to say that overcast days are bad for taking photos–good photos can be taken in a wide variety of lighting situations. (Notable, though, is that Lee Friedlander didn’t even take photos on overcast days.) It’s useful to pay attention to the intrinsic qualities of the light in order to optimize it.

And it takes so much time to figure out how various factors affect the final photo: is the light muted, diffuse, intense? Coming from one direction? Fluorescent, LED, neon? Is the sky pink, greenish, bright blue? Is rain or a storm on the way, or is there any haze in the air? All these elements, and more, mean we have to figure out how to compare the final photo with what was going on around us at the time, and observe what effects the quality of light can have. And find some way to remember the lessons the light has taught us.

I learned the value of the documentary photograph.

Looking at a photo many years later, you may not know exactly why you took it but still be glad you did. Among other things, photography has been a visual diary for me. It helps me remember the places I’ve been and things I’ve seen. Photos can also become valuable documents of things and places that no longer exist.

We never know the full significance of the photos we take. They’re a picture of a moment, and that moment is gone as soon as you’ve taken the picture. That place–or that person, or cloud, or animal–is already changing before you’ve even walked away. We don’t know until much later whether those changes will accrue quickly or gradually. We don’t know if we’ll ever be there again, ever talk with that person again. The relentlessness of change is masked by its ordinariness.

This has been so evident to me in hearing people’s responses to my Toronto Flashback series. Taken in the 1980s, they show a city that many feel no longer exists.

Film Photography Photography

3 insights Avard Woolaver photography

Published July 28, 2017 by avardw

Friday roundup, July 28, 2017

July 28 2017, Al Green, Summer Beat 1984, Lamport Stadium, Avard Woolaver, — Al Green performing at Summer Beat, Toronto, 1984 © Avard Woolaver

Friday roundup, July 28, 2017. Here are some news stories that caught my eye, and ear, on social media this week: #fbf

Remembering Summer Beat 1984,

Martha and the Muffins – Echo Beach,

Lee Friedlander’s Photos of 1960s T.V. Sets,

Pumpkin the great white shark feasting in Nova Scotia’s Minas Basin,

$20M Annie Leibovitz collection rejected for 4th time by Canadian tribunal,

Arundhati Roy, Zadie Smith & George Saunders among 13 authors longlisted for the Man Booker Prize,

‘Keeping Grandpa alive’: the internet’s photographic treasure hunt,

Wonderful photos from Montreal’s Robert Saucier,

Harry Chapin “Taxi” – Midnight Special (1973)

“Al Green performing at Summer Beat, Toronto, 1984” is from the series: Toronto Days

Black and White Friday Roundup Photography

#FBF Al Green Avard Woolaver friday roundup July 28 2017 Summer Beat 1984 Toronto Toronto Days

Published July 24, 2017 by avardw

8 Questions for California photographer Alexis Gerard

Alexis Gerard has been taking photos in the San Francisco Bay area for over 30 years. He has an amazing ability to capture the interplay of light and shadow. His photos have a sense of complexity, yet are easily accessible. They are sometimes humorous, sometimes banal, but almost always reveal something interesting beyond their literal content. For a more in-depth view of his work, check out his Suburban Bliss website, and Flickr.

I asked him eight questions about his work and his current projects.

Can you tell us about the projects you are working on these days?

I usually have several irons in the fire, because I prefer to rotate rather than to focus on a single one for a long time. I continue to document the mid-Peninsula area where I’ve lived for over 30 years – that’s an area half way between San Francisco and San Jose that is fast changing due to the explosion of the tech sector, and the resulting pressures in the economy, the demography, the infrastructure and the culture, that project is on my “Suburban Bliss” website. I’m also a fascinated by islands, and have been traveling to and photographing a number of them – the Hebrides, Easter Island, Malta, Crete, Corsica. And I’m always captivated by the interplay of light and shadow, on which I have an ongoing series of abstract-leaning photos and short videos.

Your photographs are beautiful and complex. At the same time, in some way they strike me as being easy to look at—the play of colour and light seems to combine with the subject matter in ways that allow us access. That’s just my take on your work. Do you have that feeling about it?

I deeply appreciate your saying this, it’s very kind of you. Also, you’re describing something I deliberately strive for, and constantly work at improving. I value beauty and I’m not satisfied with an image unless it achieves it on some level. As for complexity and accessibility; to me a really good image is one you can look at over a period of time and keep finding more and more to appreciate. But a really great image should do more than that, it should also have immediate appeal. I want the viewer to get some pleasure from my images at first glance and then, if they’re willing to invest time and attention, to get a lot more.

How did you develop your unique sense of vision?

You know the old saying “throw enough mud against the wall and some of it is bound to stick”? Well, 2017 is the 40th year since I bought my first camera (an Olympus OM-2) and started photographing. That said, I think what shaped my “eye” most was my decision to have a camera with me at all times possible. A high-school friend of mine told me an anecdote about Cartier-Bresson: My friend’s parents were artistic, and knew Henri Cartier-Brersson socially. Once, when my friend was still a kid, the great photographer came to their place for afternoon tea. As my friend told it, he never stopped holding his Leica with both hands, poised like a tiger to grab an image if one came about. Without going to such extremes, having a camera with you constantly is what I’d recommend to anyone who wants to develop their eye and style. You take a lot more pictures that way, therefore you learn faster because you’re making so many mistakes you can learn from! And because you’re always alert for images, rather than thinking about what interests you, you actually find out by doing. This is why I’m excited about cameras in phones; I’m hoping they’ll help many people become great photographers.

What subject matter attracts you, and why?

A scene or an object attracts my attention when it intimates something to me that goes beyond its outward appearance. I know this may sound pretentious, but it’s a sense that what I’m looking at reveals something about the functioning of the universe that goes beyond our everyday understanding. It can’t be expressed in words, but a successful image has a chance to convey it. So, my images can appear to be all over the map if someone goes by their literal subject matter (what they’re “of”), but when one focuses on what they’re trying to convey (what they’re “about”) they have a unity. At least I hope so! That’s kind of serious, so I should add I also photograph things because I find them funny or humorous.

What’s your state of mind when you’re taking good photos? Do you think there’s any connection between your mood or mindset and the results you get?

Yes, there’s definitely a connection. The kinds of images I hope for require being in an open and receptive state. You can’t have preconceptions about what you will photograph and be looking for specific things – if you do you’ll miss everything else. So, you go somewhere that’s related to a project you’re working on (or not). You allow your awareness to be diffuse, rather than focused on anything in particular, and you find out there and then what to photograph. Another way to put it is that you don’t go out to photograph, you go out to enjoy being in a place and time and, if you’re alert, the images come to you. Then, since you have a camera with you, you record them.

Do you like the region or city you live in? Do you like your home? Do these affect your photography?

I’m originally from Switzerland, but I’ve been living in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 30 years. It’s a great area for any photographer because of the region’s unending variety of scenery, and the magnificent light of Northern California. There’s also a wide range of environments from dense urban to suburban to small town. So yes, as a photographer I feel very privileged to live here.

Has your approach to your work changed in recent months or years? If so, how and why?

Pretty early on I decided the SLR thing of carrying around a lot of lenses wasn’t for me, because I don’t like to carry stuff, and more importantly, it gets in the way of spontaneity. I want to always have with me the best camera available that’s small enough to fit in a pocket or a belt holster, so I can take photos quickly and without drawing attention to myself. There were some wonderful film cameras along those lines, like the Contax T, whose image quality was just as good as the SLRs. However, in the digital world the smaller cameras have smaller sensors than those in bulkier cameras, and that impacts their performance. So, in the early years I had to adjust my choices of subject matter to accommodate cameras that had lower definition and narrower dynamic range (I believe you can make a good photo with absolutely any camera, but only if you work within, and make use of, its limitations). Fortunately, since Panasonic came out with the LX line, there have been better and better “pocket” digital alternatives like Sony’s RX 100 series and the Ricoh GR. That’s enabled me to do things that earlier models couldn’t support, like landscapes or interiors where detail is important, and low light.

One final question: Can you tell me briefly about a couple of photographers I may not be familiar with yet but you would recommend checking out?

Some of the lesser-known photographers whose work has had a strong impact on me are Clarence John Laughlin, Max Yavno, Paul Outerbridge, Jean-Christophe Pigozzi, and Charles Gatewood. I’d also like to mention two painters: Robert Bechtle, and John Register.

Many thanks to Alexis for doing this interview. I’m so appreciative of his thoughtful answers that provide insight into his work. Be sure to check out more of his work on Suburban Bliss, and Flickr.

Interview Photography

8 questions Alexis Gerard interview photographer

Published July 21, 2017 by avardw