Waiting on the world...

Find myself with 'time in hand' and thought it a good time to write some things.

Currently reading a Edward Weston Biography ('His Life') which has it's moments in between some over referencing of his sex life, journals and letters. I find the man fascinating but frustrating at the same time... hedonistic yet 'philosophically' pure (his words) in other ways.

As you'd expect, the technical aspects of his work are of particular interest and have only been briefly touched.

I particularly like the idea that he was stopping down to f256 or even f500+ to make a lot of his images. Exposures in some cases were counted in hours rather than minutes. I like the idea that he used non-static light sources (ie. natural light from a window) so over such a period of time the light would glance and illuminate in a sculptural fashion. The peppers and shells were also often placed in a 'funnel' to sculpt the light even more.

Most profound of all were his notes on the shooting of Excusado including variations in lens choice, angles, etc. Most definitely not a 'incidental' shot but a concentrated effort to create something profound.

Also saw this from Alec Soth that discusses the idea of space between subject and photographer quite nicely.



As previously mentioned, Paola Pellegrin was one of the stars of FotoFreo 2008. This is some of his images set to quite appropriate music.



Second to last of all an interesting blog entry on dariushimes.com that includes an interview with demi-god Stephen Shore. I'm not sure if I like the idea of him using a Powershot and iPhoto. I saw some work in the last issue of eyemazing (or Aperture... not sure any more) which was unexpected and left me with mixed feelings. I do however like that he is evolving. Too often people stagnate on the same and it's refreshing when new work is not old work with a different polish.

Last... is the work of someone who is slowly swallowing (and disturbing) my world - Walker Evans. Whilst I know his work quite well, I never realised the thematic overlaps were so evident until David cited particular images. I recently bought Let us now praise famous men and a biography. The later includes a detailed chronology of his work and subject matter... all a bit disturbing really.