art no craft: May 2010

Sunday, May 30, 2010

081 - Yellow Car

081 - Yellow Car
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

This one is a step back into my past, when I was a car mechanic and later a development engineer, when I used to build motorcycle and car specials. I never had much interested in whatever was the most recent car out of the showroom - I did not need to be as I could do my own design work.

I took this car, sitting in the same traffic as I was because I liked the lines of it sitting there, even though I have no idea what it is. It looks bigger and more powerful than my car, but we were still stuck in the same place.

I learnt something interesting while playing around with this shot, and that is if you hike the contrast then surfaces with images in them can become shinier. this car was clean, but it did not have the reflectiveness that my image suggests.

However, at the end what I had achieved was a pretty shot, and it was as I leaned back in my chair that I said to myself "OK, it's a beautiful image of a car, but what meaning does it have for me?" I gave it some apparent speed, and I inserted the text, and then it was no longer a simple image but now expressed that feeling I have, that contrast of love of power and knowledge of the innate destructive impact on the environment..

It's funny, I never think that I am going to make car pictures, but they keep on coming. My real fascination is with tarmac - have you ever noticed the way it gleams with reflected light when the sun is close to the horizon?

080 - City Sky Summer

080 - City Sky Summer
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

I really wanted to experiment with translucent overlays that look like the coloured film they used to use on spot lamps for stage lighting, but the right image has not come along. Instead, I combined my plan to use more block colour with the one to make use of the great overhead trolleybus wires I see at almost every major junction on my drive to and from work.

Now it is getting towards summer I roast gently in my car in the traffic, I love living in a city despite being born in the country. I wanted to show that burning heat along with the balmy early night that sums up some of what I enjoy the most - and get both in the same image. There are other ideas in the image, but what I would really like to say is that this image gets better the bigger it is - those colours just seem to spread and take on a much different look, more representative of the size of a city.

079 - Street Corners

079 - Street Corners
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

Winter is a great time to go out with a camera, especially early in the morning - the combination of clean light, no leaves, and, in this case, people trying to stay warm, makes for some interesting ideas.

I like the way that the brick paving has so much tone, and then when you look higher in the picture the background turns to a diffuse lighted space, forcing the eye to take in the harder outlines of the people.

People often complain about the softness of people and the hardness of technology, although perhaps not in those words, but I see the technology as being soft and the people being hard, and not just those creating the technology but those buying or at least accepting it.

I have had this image around for months, trying to solve the problem of the background, and although it is not what I intended, I now see a connection with some ideas I have about society. With that I feel satisfied with the image.

078 - Blue Man - in defence of humanity

078 - Blue Man - in defence of humanity
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

This one was hard, I felt really engaged in the problem of society either trying to conceal things it finds uncomfortable or ripping away the veil without considering the effects it has on the individual.

What decisions, I wonder, would law makers make if they had to wear my face?

Anyway, I struggled with this one because the original did not have the lighting to make it on its own. When I stopped finally, I realized that I was trying to compensate with the results of the simple equipment I used rather than actually working on the meaning I intended - the detail was blocking my thinking, diverting it perhaps.

Once I accepted this, the pale blue veil and the geometric cuts just kind of happened, like a dam bursting.

We only have a limited capacity to process information, and we have to reach a compromise all the time between focusing on the detail or on the meaning; if we expend more effort on one, the other suffers. Since my working day is filled with detail, here I would like to tip the balance the other way and prioritize meaning instead. This is, after all, why I use a simple camera.

077 - Ania in Yellow

077 - Ania in Yellow
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

I am fascinated by simple blocks, either of colour or actual symmetric elements, they insist that what you are looking at is not a simple, well-taken photograph but something that someone has worked on beyond getting the settings right in the camera. To me the actual taking of the photo is like prepping a canvas - important, but not the essential expression of the final piece.

Ania dressed up for her hairdresser because she wanted him to be sure that he was not dealing with yet another middle-aged woman wanting one of the traditional stock haircuts. We were sitting in a slightly tacky cafe, but I think the resulting image, after my work, has managed to transcend that and, dare I say it, achieved the effect the cafe owners probably intended.

Monday, May 10, 2010

076 - Judgement Day

076 - Judgement Day
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

I have had the original photo lying around for several months; it was taken at night and shows a church in the centre of Lublin with snow on its roof. However, I played around with the colours and used several tools to produce this, which in the Gimp file is formed from about 7 layers. I like the way the colour streams off the top of the tower like ragged flags, and wish I could apply paint that way - although not that I am concerned about my lack of ability to apply paint any more than would be by an artist who creates some installation involving sound/music written or played by someone else. I also wish I could fly, but I do not think it is essential that I am able to fly in order to satisfactorily move myself from one place to another.

Earlier in the week I had been thinking about how the image of the crucifixion is so limited - an unhappy man hanging from the cross in some state of agony. It must look completely ridiculous to people from other religions, or indeed anyone without religion. The point of Jesus being on the cross was to save mankind, not to make everyone feel guilty that he suffered. However, in terms of art or reproduction, the sufferers have it, and there is little in the imagery to indicate saving. I can see why Protestants removed Jesus and just celebrate the cross (figuratively, of course) - although I am not sure that this was the primary intention, the issue of veneration of idols probably was involved too.

So, my mind was ready, and lo! Here was an image of a church!

The intention was mere exploration of the various Gimp tools on an image taken with a camera with a very small lens that could not hope to gather enough light to form a good image. As the playing continued, I began to have ideas about the image, it appeared to show God's breath howling around the tower and frontal edge of this rather fortress-like representation of a house of God.

Red - burning away the encrustation
Green - renewal
White - reflection of His light

In the end I named the image 'Judgement Day', and I hope that it is unlike the normal tortured vision we let Christianity as a set of religious hierarchies get away with.

075 - The Gallery

075 - The Gallery
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

The gallery organizing my exhibition is a rabbit warren of rooms and steep, narrow stairs. Mainly students from a nearby art school and members of photographic clubs displays their work here.

People such a temporary part of an exhibition, ephemeral. Even the exhibitions come and go, only the rooms existing with any sense of permanence.

On the right is my wife, who gets caught between the shallow 'look-at-me' image of the society in which she works, and the rather edgier caring society which is me. Socialist society was not that much different to societies anywhere, despite the whining which goes on, these are mostly ripples in the shallow expectations of what we should be. Ania has spent her life with her confidence in what she can achieve being eroded by the push for show and technique. Which is a pity, because if you can pull her away from that she has a much edgier vision of life.

074 - End of the Line

074 - End of the Line
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

I have been asked to put together an exhibition of photos of the Zuk van, built here in Lublin between 1958 and 1998, or thereabouts. I love this little van, and whenever I return from abroad the sight of one reminds me of home. They are a product of the Socialist era, as are the blocks in the background, and both objects have little regard in this era, hence the negative image look to this image.

This particular example is not that far from where I live, and is used as a market stall on the edge of a recreational area behind a supermarket, this fragment of a Socialist world is ending its days still supporting the local people but under a different economic system.

073 Roadworks Ahead

073 Roadworks Ahead
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

I found this wrench embedded in the tarmac of a road near where I live - I suppose you could term it an on-going road repair. Over the years I have found quite a lot of money and tools dropped on the road, and marbles too, and somewhere I have a worn Victorian half penny I once found down the side of a sofa.

After I had played around with the image it stopped looking like tarmac and instead had taken on a strangely cosmic form. A discussion with a friend led to the concept that what I might of caught is the true cause of creation when