Wallace Koopmans Artlog

I went to see this documentary at the Vancity Theatre Vancouver this past weekend and wanted to share my thoughts.

Unlike when Toto pulls back the curtain revealing the truth behind the Wizard of Oz, seeing the inner workings of the creation of Gregory Crewdsons images does not dispel the magic. On the contrary seeing the level of effort and detail that goes into making them affords another plane to appreciate them on. Even if you were unaware of what went into constructing an image they have a disturbing quality of seeming plausibly real while setting off the inner warning signals that tell us when something isn’t quite right. As if something is too real to be true.

The documentary film by Ben Shapiro primarily covers the creation of the images of “Beneath the Roses” a body of work created between 2002-2008. It chronicles the making of  a few images in great detail, from location scouting to covering vehicle tracks with snow and the placing and direction of the actors within the scene. It is also revealing about the artist himself through his interaction with the public and the crew. While the vision is clearly his he listens to others and incorporates that, making the final result a collaboration. He does not compromise though as at one point a crew member seems to try to convince him that the presence of a white car is okay, Crewdson simply states “never a white car” and does not waver.

Though shot on large-format film we are allowed a glimpse into the manipulation of the images once scanned into digital form. We see the removal of an unwanted light or the composition of multiple exposures. Crewdson does all of this in the pursuit of creating the perfect moment that never existed.

The 77 minute runtime seemed to fly by, yet enough ground from his career is covered that you feel you could understand how he arrived where he is.

Seeing the images in a moving form allows Shapiro to take us in and out of photographs to levels of detail that literally made the audience gasp. Everyone had the need to share with those around them that they too had just seen the magic. the clarity of the images stands starkly against the documentary footage, much of it shot in lower quality formats, fortunately Crewdson and the documentary are compelling enough that this in no way detracts, it is just a fact of how and when it was recorded.

For more information about the film and where it is playing see Zeitgeist films website

Most images you ever see of Bill Reids Raven and the First Men is from the front so I thought I would show that it is really a 360 degree sculpture where every angle is as good as the last.

These are images I took while visiting MOA. I have to say it was an incredible experience and I only left when they were closing for the day. There are an impressive number of artifacts from the many first nations of the West coast. Something that I found unique in my experience was the ability to open the hundreds of drawers beneath each display case that contained even more items. This small group of photo’s can not convey the grandeur of the large totems in the “Great Hall” or the beauty or the thousands of items. There are also many other cultural artifacts but the primary focus is on the first nations people of the coast.

Here is a link to the PDF book describing the making of Raven and the First Men

Do most pictures matter beyond the life of the photographer? Seeing this pile of slides which were likely someones photographic life work caused me to reflect on what my photography means to me and what it might mean after I’m gone. I can’t categorize my photography into one single purpose. I use photography for several different reasons; I record my family life and my children growing up, I make images that I hope have some meaning beyond a simple glance and stand on their own as art, I create reference material for other art and I create images just for the fun of it. Of primary importance to me are those family images. I have a large collection of images that my father took of us growing up and I value them dearly, and now the images of my own family are just as important. By creating thousands of images am I creating a curatorial nightmare for anyone looking at my images later on? How are they to know my intent when I switch between purposes continually. Maybe it’s time that in addition to my regular back ups I do some selective backing up of the images that are most important to me, so later on if their fate is to wind up in a box at an antique shop maybe they will be organized.

I always find it strange and somewhat sad to find lost family photo’s, that at some point no one was left that cared enough to keep them and the peoples lives that they represent going. In the past, say 100 years ago, it wasn’t really that hard as there were few pictures of any one person taken in there life time. Now that there are thousands of images of many of us what is the future of these pictures? Who will determine what is important enough to keep and what will be lost. And will someone three generations from now really need or care what I looked like or thought was interesting enough to photograph. So I think the best I can do, if my intention is to have a photographic legacy, is to select some gems and make it easy to preserve them.

I feel fortunate that my father took a lot of pictures during my childhood.  They form a certain kind of memory cue card that allows me to recall the events surrounding the images, even the feelings associated with them.  I think that that may be a part of what makes them special, that attachment to specific events and times.  In contrast today we seem to be taking so many pictures of so many events that maybe each individual image looses some of it’s ability to be a mnemonic and becomes just visual noise.  How long will an image be relevant if it is superficial to us now?  My dad shot Kodachrome slides, at the rate of about 3 to 4 36 exposure rolls per year.  This is a number and an amount of visual information that is easily retained. How can we deal though with thousands and even tens of thousand of images each year?  Does it really provide us with more information or is it diminishing returns?  There was a certain different social aspect to watching slides then as well.  While we share many images online with our friends, families and strangers it tends to be a solitary experience lacking the immediacy of a group of people all in the same place at the same time pointing at the same thing.  This was the way that those images my father took were re-enforced within my memory.

There is a degree of satisfaction though, derived from having others acknowledge your work online.  I don’t believe I could have finished this piece without the online community of  Mytubo photographers and their positive support.   I’ve posted most of these there, all having been taken and processed on my Android phone.  In case you find yourself there I’m @WallaceRoss, but the Internet generates fleeting things so who knows for how long.

These 3000+ cell phone images captured over the last 8 months do not replace my memory of that period of time and while I can recall where most if not all of them were taken for how long will that be true.  It makes me wonder if perhaps I shouldn’t select 100 to 150 images a year that have meaning to me and have them printed out, after all that is an amount I can handle.

This Print is 60″ x 40″ but a lower resolution version can be zoomed into online here  Cell Zoom

P.S. where is the spell check on this thing?

I picked up a pair of relief prints reciently from an antique shop and was hoping that I could identify the artist who created them but at this point I haven’t even figured out the letters that make up the signature.  I guess I need to give up my dream of being a hand writing expert, if that were my dream, which it isn’t.

If you think you might know who’s signature it is I would love to hear from you , just send me a comment.

Two things are happening here I am posting some images of green things and I’m using you as a guinea pig to test out a flash gallery.  Thank you for your unwitting cooperation.  The thing is I have thousands of images on my blog and mostly they get mentioned and then fade away as I post even more.  So after the suggestion of Nikhil Ramkarran to have my prints grouped together I’ve decided to create some galleries starting with my acll phone pictures.  The first effort in that pursuit is to present the images of  this blog post using a gallery that I created in Lightroom.

If you click on the image bellow you will be presented with a flash gallery of green’ness.  The point of this is that it will allow me to easily control and update my galleries through Lightroom without needing to do anything with my blog.

I realize that by doing this I am currently excluding iPhone users but that is an Apple issue not mine, I can’t tailor my site just to suit one handset, sorry maybe in the iPhone 6.

UPDATE  before I even posted this I have created the gallery for my cell phone images which can be found under links on the right.  Cell Phone Image Gallery

Tackeling the entire spectrum of cell phone cameras and social picture sharing is a bit too much in one blog post.  However the effect in how they relate to photography is of particular interest to me. 

As difficult as it may be to admit, much of photography can be described as an attempt by the photographer to reproduce an image they have previously seen and liked,  even if that image is one of their own.  You might find this a harsh statement but it is something that even occurs subconsciously.  The photographer may not be directly attempting to reproduce something but everything we have seen and remember affects our visual judgment.  Paintings, television, magazines and definitely advertising of all types play a roll in determining what we consider to be “stylish”.

Do not post pictures of weird faux animal heads it creaps people out!

Several new genres of photography have emerged through cell phone imaging.  There is the “these are my feet shots”, the “#me” pictures of people not yet afflicted with age.  And the supremely popular “CAT” hash tag.  The tendency to follow and create based on what is popular is brought to a new level through instant feedback within image sharing apps.  Why wouldn’t I want people to like my images?  If you really want to give up and go strictly for what people like have a look at what images have the highest popularity.  Soon you will be taking pictures of your cat lying in flowers at your feet. 

Note cat not cute enough, find cuter cat!

There are exceptions to this rule as I have discovered, dandelions gone to seed can be very well received.  🙂

It’s not all bad though, as a photographer it is an opportunity to have people see your images and also a chance to develop better composition skills.  Look closely at an image you intend to like and think about what makes it appealing.  Is it the content (#cat) or a matter of colour or maybe how something familiar looks different when photographed a certain way.  You can definitely use photo sharing apps to improve your image making.  The strength of these services is that you get immediate feed back (yes I am aware that was one of my negatives too, subtle difference)  They also reward good simple design.  A tiny cluttered thumbnail will be ignored more than a simple graphic element. 

 In the end though don’t take it too seriously, and enjoy photography, even if no one else likes a picture if you do that should be enough.  In a future post I intend to talk about composition within a square frame, which is the format many of the social photo sharing sites use.

Apparently I can't judge my own images I don't really like this one but it was one of the more popular ones this week, go figure.

Images that include the sun are also very popular, sun set, sun rise, sunflower, just plain old sun, but not aSUNder.

UPDATE  at the time I wrote this I was unaware that Duncan Turner had posted about Mytubo as well here is a link to his thoughts about the subject

DLTphoto . Also I unintentionally proved my point about recreating images that we have previously seen as I produced one that was very similar to one of Duncans. 

I wanted to show how little is required to do relief printing.  In this photo is everything that is required; A block of material to carve, paper to print on, ink to print with, a hard surface (glass in this case) to roll out your ink on, a rubber roller and something to force contact between block and paper.  I am using a bamboo barren but a wooden spoon can be used as well.  And of course something to carve with. It is a very accessible art form,  maybe you did it as a child cutting shapes into potatoes and using them as stamps.  Art or craft it’s irrelevant if you enjoy creating something. 

Here I’ve done a proof to see if there is anything that needs refining.  I changed my mind mid way through creating this block, dropping the idea of a colour gradient back ground and just leaving the individual cuts visible.  This clearly isn’t a lesson in how to print but I hope that seeing the simplicity of  relief  printing is encouragement if it’s something you’ve thought of doing.

I recently took some photographs for two artists who produce some incredable pieces.  The chess boards were made by Marcel Daigneault while the Haida mythological themed chess pieces were cast from carvings by Derek C. Heaton.

Marcel tells me the boards are made from Arbutus and Aspen and polished with beeswax.  I am in awe of not only the skill he applies to his craft but the artistry too.  I also took pictures of a cedar chest that Marcel made and you can see from the design of the top how organic and lyrical much of his work is. 

Both artists work is curently available at the Tribal Spirit Gallery in Langley B.C.