All work and no play

Getting a bit tired of having to work for a living. But seriously it can be a drag at times and it pulls me out of making art. I think the trick is to schedule art making - as spontaneous as that sounds. Part of the problem is that without some kind of regularly carved out time the spontaneity never happens, or is stolen or left unfinished. I think it might be worth risking the spontaneity for the potential of actually accomplishing something.

San Francisco's tawdry nostalgia

san francisco, originally uploaded by escott sukotto.

There is a certain tawdriness to San Francisco, especially when the sun is shining. But it's an honest tawdriness- a tawdriness of historical reference. It's a nostalgic tawdriness - so maybe not honest at all, or as honest as how Kodachrome convinces you of its veracity; preceding and replacing even your memories like some Bualdrillard thesis. It's strange because it doesn't have the brick and mortar of sturdy midwestern nostalgia - a nostalgia of the turn of the century, the depression and the new deal. It's a clap-board nostalgia of cheaply remodeled facades that have worn into a kind of patina of mid-century modern reminiscences. It's a weathered time capsule of an era that was never elegant, or sturdy. It's a nostalgia for a discarded era of plate glass and strip malls, plastics and frivolous pursuits. But it's also more than fast cars, surfing, bikini movies and mirrored wall tiles - it's also a nostalgia for a cast off disposable reality that promised a new future when the old one was tired and worn. It's interesting that what's left is a tired and worn reminder of what was never replaced.

berkeley, california

berkeley, california, originally uploaded by escott sukotto.

I saw these plants lying on their sides looking a bit like a crime scene. This is why I always have a camera with me - which of course also means that I take far too many pictures. I'm trying to get better at editing and deleting the ones that don't speak to my when I transfer them to my computer.

berkeley, california

berkeley, california, originally uploaded by escott sukotto.

I'm always fascinated with what happens when two lights collide - visually but also in their meanings. There's such a fantastic confluence of light between the slightly violet of a foggy dusk and the harsh green of cheap security lighting. It's a lot like Berkeley itself I suppose. It makes for dramatic pictures anyway.

rockridge, california

rockridge, california, originally uploaded by escott sukotto.

Sometimes fate aligns the colors in the world and presents you with an opportunity and a camera and a moment.

crested butte, colorado

crested butte, colorado, originally uploaded by escott sukotto.

unfortunate framing and exposure, but it makes me nostalgic for my childhood. I recently went back to Colorado and, though so much has changed in our post-walmart homogenization effort, there are still moments of what I remember as solid. A rough hewn timber romance of some ancient mountain town - it becomes a marker, a meter of what's substantial.

Via Flickr:
P8112463

sfmoma, san francisco

sfmoma, san francisco, originally uploaded by escott sukotto.

san francisco

san francisco, originally uploaded by escott sukotto.

Airports are such a fantastic source of primary colors and grays all with strong graphic structuring elements. I would love to go behind the scenes and take pictures of the operations of an airport. Maybe do a book.

san francisco

san francisco, originally uploaded by escott sukotto.

I like to wander the city at night looking for moments and light and being alone in my head.  It's rather meditative, but I'm always on some sort of a timeline that chafes up against the reverie.  As nature abhors a vacuum, time seems to frown upon solitude.

sfmoma, san francisco

sfmoma, san francisco, originally uploaded by escott sukotto.

It was interesting to see the Cindy Sherman exhibit at SFMoMA. San Francisco is a place where identity is what you make of it, and there's an understanding that everyone is in costume all of the time, even if that costume is simply what's most comfortable at the moment. My own costume is that of a slightly disheveled middle aged white guy with a camera and a few too many pounds around the middle. San Francisco: straight, gay, punk, dentist, artist, banker or internet billionaire - we're all in drag here.

berkeley california

berkeley california, originally uploaded by escott sukotto.

I love how shadow depth and sharpness inform us of the space they come from. Refocused light, sharp and soft shadows combine to give us a glimpse of what created them. A chance to deconstruct Plato's cave.

ferry terminal, san francisco

ferry terminal, san francisco, originally uploaded by escott sukotto.

Strangely enough I'd never been in the Ferry Terminal before. t's a fascinating building to photograph - lots of interesting lines and planes. The front stairs leading to the upper floors just inside the building are a reminder of how much more walking we used to do. Stairs like that used to not be an impediment to most - they certainly reminded me of how much exercise I'm nor getting on a daily basis.

Shopping with my older daughter

san francisco, originally uploaded by escott sukotto.

Went shopping with my older daughter in a mall in the city. I was struck by how shiny everything seemed.  Everything seemed to be covered in sparkly shiny beads - even the cosmetic stalls had face cream made with gold. It's strange watching people search for an attainable opulence and I wonder if they are settling for the next best thing or if the garishness just isn't apparent anymore.  I was struck by how many women were wearing so much makeup that their skin was no longer translucent like "nude" kabuki.

castro theater, san francisco

castro theater, san francisco, originally uploaded by escott sukotto.

Seemed consistent with the Silent Film Festival theme. Something Mernau might do. I really have an appreciation for the medium and do truly think that "it's the pictures that got small!".

san francisco california

san francisco california, originally uploaded by escott sukotto.

The Bean and the Sears 35rf

sears_rfScan-081102-0017, originally uploaded by escott sukotto shiinga.

I know it's probably pretty cliche anymore to take pictures of the Cloudgate "Bean", but I just don't care. I love taking pictures here whenever I visit Chicago. There's something about a highly reflective surface that attracts so many dazzled viewers that demands to be over photographed. It seems like people get lost as they get near and want to reach out and touch it. They tend to drop their pretenses and look on in wonder. This is a great time to take pictures. Someone recently viewed this on my Flickr stream, and it reminded me of how much I enjoy shooting with my little Sears 35rf rangefinder (a rebadged Ricoh 500g). It has a great lens and does some interesting things with color.

Pictures of Circles

rstk_0006-1_cln, originally uploaded by escott sukotto shiinga.

I suppose most people like pictures of things - people mostly, maybe flowers or dogs; something they can identify or identify with. People like bold images too; pictures that leap out at them and arrest their eyes. I guess there's a logocentrism in us that wants a clarity of idea and of purpose; facts that somehow maintain a neat lock-step with their representations. From "what a horrible war" and "look at the heights to which mankind can achieve" to "what a lovely flower" and "what a cute kitten", there is a narrative and the picture is firstly an illustration of that - or at least is expected to be. Expected to be an illustration in lock-step with its pictorial depiction, there isn't even an allowance for a paper thin gap between what's contained in the image and what the image contains.

I remember being in school and having a guest artist/lecturer who was doing a print series called "The container, contained, remains", and while I can't remember his name or if the print series was ultimately successful to him, the title has stuck with me.

I guess I like pictures of stillness and ambiguity sometimes - pictures of circles and pictures where the sense of wonder is conveyed on the face of the viewer rather than in a face depicted in the image.

Photos of photo ops

R0020329, originally uploaded by escott sukotto shiinga.

I think it's fascinating to take pictures of people getting their picture taken, and especially the environment around it. Often it's a festive occasion with people dressed up or trying to capture a big moment. Here I was taking some pictures on a cruise I went on for a family reunion. I especially liked all of the studio lighting that was set up to take the portraits for which people were posing.

A boy and his camera

Sometimes there just seems to be a connection between a photographer and a particular camera; I'm currently in a love affair with my old 1930's Rodenstock 6x4.5 folder. It sports a 75mm f2.9 triar lens, some weird focus distances and even weirder fstops and shutter speeds. Are any of them accurate? who knows? and really - who cares? It continues to give me pictures that I am fascinated by.

I'm not sure if it's the size of the negatives, the lens, the film, ... I do know that it has nothing to do with focusing, autoexposure or even accurate framing - It has none of that. I do a lot of guess work, and move the release lever with an awkward motion of my finger while trying not to get my hand in the way of the lens.

Like a lot of half-frame cameras, this one defaults to a portrait aspect ratio. I like that because it gets me out of the cinematic image space or the landscape default of most cameras. I wish digital cameras, like my Ricoh gx200, would offer a half-frame alternative in addition to square. I suppose it's just as easy to zoom in a bit and turn the camera sideways, but there's just something different about these.

Color

This doesn't exactly have a picture to go with it. It's more of a rambling. I have noticed that there have been very few color photographs that use color in the same way that black and white photographs have. This is true in film and video as well as photography.

I think this started as a topic of mine when I saw the movie "Under the Volcano" by John Huston. I was impressed by that film, not only for Albert Finney's fantastic portrayal of the alcoholic expat, but also how color was used to tell the story rather than to just show it. I think that in large part, that is the distinction. The difference between telling a story and showing a story. The abstraction of black and white automatically casts the scene as being in a reductivist locale of narrative. It requires an immediate, and obvious mediation step to decode the form into meaning. Color seems to require less mediation and therefor appears more as an innocent signifier, closer to the signified.

Anyway - maybe there's something unique to our relationship with black and white images, but I'm very interested in exploring color images to see if there's some aspect of them that can function to the same ends as black and white. What is the problem set?