Blossoms

The almond trees along Highway 5 north of Highway 99 are in full blossom. I took this on my way home from the Bay area. There's still some snow on the mountain tops. I'm trying to force myself to shoot from different camera angles. I might have to start wearing knee pads!

Speculations

Since I was shooting blind I decided to use a wide angle lens knowing that I had a better chance of capturing my subjects in the frame. This was shot using Ilford Delta 400.

I spent about an hour trying to come up with different stories and scenarios to go with this photograph. What is it that is being documented? Is it a photograph about a man on his way to MOCA or about the everyday life of a starving artist trying to make a few bucks by playing on the streets. sometimes all we can do is speculate.

Fleeting Moments

During our recent snow fall I was able to get out and shoot. I think using a leading line can make an image more interesting and a shallow depth of field can create a little mystery - what do you think?

Landscape or Documentary?

About an hour and a half outside of Paris is Giverney, home and gardens of Monet. When visiting these gardens it is easy to see where Monet got his inspiration. Is this landscape or documentary?

proud bird

A very proud bird with its head held high. Taken at Ventura Harbor.

This is an image I shot long ago on black and white film with a 24 mm lens. I've recently added color to it in photoshop to make the image even more surreal. The image is not a composite. I was documenting the building of this silo from scratch and captured this image as he was walking out to get another tool.

I shot this with a Nikon 85 mm 1.4 manual lens, using Kodak 3200 b&w film pushed to 6400. Hence, the grain. I like the dynamic feel to this graphic landscape. I've added a little color to the black & white image with LightRoom. I had so pre-visualized this shot with the bridge that I just couldn't leave. I waited for over an hour in drizzling rain for someone to cross the bridge. It was nearly midnight.

Exploration

Acton was founded in 1887 by gold miners who were working in the Red Rover Mine. It was named after Acton, Massachusetts by one of the miners. Two of the best-known gold mines located in Acton were the Red Rover Mine and the Governors mine. Mining of gold, copper, and titanium ore continued into the early 1900s.

Acton was once considered for the State capital of California. California Governor Henry T. Gage (1899–1903) owned the Governor Mine, hence the name, and sought to relocate the capital to Acton. This effort ultimately failed and the capital was not moved from Sacramento.

This was a ride to one of the closer mines around the Red Rover Mine area thou most of it was closed off was only aloud down about 50ft still just that bit was a erie experience.

Cave exploring

More photos to come added via mobile email

Documentation

Daguerreotype of the Moon
by John William Draper in 1845

You thought it may be difficult to define landscape? But is it harder to define documentary photography? I have been thinking about it all afternoon. What is the earliest documentary photograph? Wouldn't it be the first photograph? Possibly Niepce's "View from His Window at Le Gras?" or may be Daguerre's "Boulevard du Temple?" Not sure.

The simplest meaning  "to document" is evidence, proof, or to record. Isn't any photograph this? And if any photographic image is documentary by its very nature why do we need a special class at COC to learn Documentary and Landscape? I am still not sure.

When I think about documentary photography I spilt it into two groups. The straight and the manipulative. Straight...portrait, natural wonders, motion studies, cities being built, etc. But after the Social Reform movement of the early 20th century, a new form of documentary was born... Social Documentary. As Beaumont Newhall (George Eastman's Curator of Kodak) described Social Documentary as "fact imbued with feeling." Photographers with a dedication to social change.

EJ Bellocq -- A man, as small as a child, with little photographic skills who took a personal interest in documenting prostitutes in New Orleans and when he died his brother (who happened to be a Catholic priest) scratched out the subjects faces to protect the women's identity and hid the negatives in his attic. Eventually the images were saved from certain destruction and oblivion by 1960's Social Landscape photographer Lee Friedlander. Each subject poses aware of the camera, proud, humble, and confident. The relationship between the subject and the photographer familiar, comfortable, friendly, but not sexual.

Gordon Parks -- born with a natural talent for composition and photography with little to no education turned his lens to expose inequality in FDR's own Farm Security Administration - an agency created with tax payers' dollars to combat the Great Depression. Before the New Deal American's didn't pay personal income tax. Park's documented the struggle of a young black mother working for the American government on the cusp of the civil rights movement. Parks poses his subject, Ella Watson, holding a mop and broom, standing stoically in front of the American flag. The pose as well as the title of the image playing directly off of Grant Wood's masterpiece of farmer and wife "American Gothic."

Dorothea Lange - a portrait artist, a woman, a "cripple". Hired to document migrant farm workers lost and wandering west to stay alive in the greatest nation on earth. Lange documented a mother with three small children living on the side of the road with no amenities - no food, no water, or no shelter. Lange created several images of the children playing around camp that afternoon, but it is the shot of the youngest child at her mother's breast and two older children hiding their faces in shame on her shoulders that became the iconic image symbolizing the Great Depression.

The OTHER both in subject and photographer... that is what draws me to the movement of Social Documentary photography. The outsider...for the first time in photographic history it was not merely the privileged photographer making important images. Women and minorities' photographic work dominated the early Social Documentary movement highlighting what people couldn't see without their help... those that needed help.

s00

I feel like landscape to me is a general idea or a wide range you can work with. Something that gives the reader a lot to look at. Landscape could be a photograph of the curves and detail in the creases of a persons skin. Making something in perspective larger.

Big Cypress Swamp

Will's Landscapes

I like took the stop sign photo in LA on Hope St. I liked how the sun is showing through in the middle and how it didn't get over exposed.
The water fountain was taken at The Grove, they have a water show every night. Again I like the lights and how you can still see the people in the back. You're able to read the words on the bridge.

Blue Water

This photo was taken at the falls in Zion on a field studies class this past year. I love the blue of the water. I had to get into the water to take this image. As Clyde Butcher would say "if you're worried about your equipment, you shouldn't be a photographer." I didn't change the photo from its original colors because I find nature does a better job than I can. I love landscape, natural or urban. I'm looking forward to expanding my ideas of what landscape is, and I know this class will do it for me.

Skid Row

I selected these photos of homeless people in Skid Row. Skid Row has the largest concentration of homeless people in the United States. Over 75, 000 homeless people live in Los Angeles County. I felt the need to share this issue with my classmates because as photographers, we can make a difference in people’s lives with the images we take.

A Different View

I've always loved nature. It is what ultimately got me into photography. I started to draw what I saw, but I didn't always have enough time. Therefore I started bringing a camera around with me so I could share the sights I believed to be incredible with people who didn't take the time to stop and smell the roses. I guess that is why I generally used to consider landscape photography to be of the natural world. However, I now consider that to be a sub-category of the overall sense of the word. I believe landscape photography to be any photo taken to show an environment. Though I may not be drawn to urban landscape photographs quite as much as I am to natural landscape photographs, I have respect for them, the people who capture them, and their place in our world. Some are really quite beautiful.


The top image was taken on Carpentaria State Beach. I love to play with backlighting, and I'm sure you will see that in later posts. The second image was taken from the shore of the South Fork of the American River. I apologize if the quality isn't very good. I had trouble scanning it. It was taken on a disposable (probably water proof) camera so I only have the one print. I wish I could say that I had total control over the shot and planned it perfectly, but hey, some of the greatest inventions were accidents! This shot was actually taken for a completely different reason (of which I will not share because it kills the magic) and I didn't realize what I had shot until I got the prints back.

All in the timing

Waiting on the wind to blow the flag just enough be illuminated by the setting sun. Shot with the 5d at a f5.6 was a spur of the moment shot wasn't planning on shooting but couldn't pass it up

Sally Mann, Teachers and My Bohemian Life

These last two pictures were taken by me last summer while in Paris, my home away from home where I live my bohemian life.

As an added bonus, these two photographs are of teachers. The one on the right is Mr. Born, my very first photo teacher in 1972, and the one on the left I am including my high school photography teachers' picture, Mr. Born (from 1972). The picture on the left is COC's very own, Dr. Robert (Bob) Tolar, math professor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSWFdcmzTDM

I get very emotional when I look at these incredible images by Sally Mann, my all time favorite contemporary photographer. My first COC photography teacher, showed my 160 class a collection of Sally Mann's pictures and I have ever since been inspired and captivated by her work. Her subjects used to be her children, which back in the day, created an enormous amount of controversy. Critics considered her work as teetering child pornography, while others knew her work as genius photography.

Mann's uncanny style of combining portraiture, documentary and landscape photography allows us, the viewers, to participate as voyeurs without feeling sick or dirty about ourselves, only comfortable in enjoying her art, her family and her home life.

This photo is literally one of the first photos I've ever taken with my new found knowledge of photography from Photo 160, and unfortunately its the only one I've taken that resembles landscape. I'm excited to play with what defines landscape and push it to its absolute limit.
-tavia

Old LA Zoo

These 2 photos were taken at the Old LA Zoo. This zoo was created in 1912 with only 15 animals. They closed it 1966 when the new zoo was built to accommodate more animals. I was shooting there for a class project. I began shooting through the eyes of the animals that once lived there. The top photo I shot from inside the cage. This is a view that the animal would have seen looking out. The bottom photo is a picture of the entire cage. I like the way it is surrounded by the landscape.

Natural Landscape

I have always thought of landscape as exactly what it says...the scape or beauty of the land. And to me the natural environment is beautiful. The first 3 photos are traditional landscape photos.

I did not alter the color in the 4th photo. This is what came out of my camera the night I was shooting the sky.

I included the 5th photo because it incorporates a human element...something I never considered as part of a landscape...until now.

Any feedback is appreciated. I am looking for ways to improve.