John's Wonderful Blog About Photography and Stuff

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2009-09-24T20:46:00.001-07:00

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Exerpt from Philadelphia

2008-06-13T20:34:00.001-07:00

Real quick:

Here is the giant terracotta relief in the Philadelphia train station. It measures around twenty feet long, brilliant artisan. The relief was made in 1890 and depicts the spirit of Transportation (center) being pulled on a kind of parade float surrounded by all kinds of modes of movement.

However, at the far right are the children of transportation, one carries a steam ship, on carries a locomotive, and then the smallest child in the very front carries a kind of air ship...

Thoughts on the Bar Fight Shoot

2008-06-12T09:33:00.000-07:00

We did some experimentation this last weekend at the bar. I was interested in using the existing light that bars have to offer. We were working with a couple of ideas:
-Using existing bar light to give a painterly feel (without photoshop effects)
-Having fun with staging.
Colors: I will defently need to add light when we do the shoot but I was really impressed with the intensity of the exisiting colors. Even with high speed digital pushed the color really comes together, people have strong red or blue highlights, the back ground stands out, etc.
Staging: the more we drank the more willing people were to pose. However the more cheesy and less useful those poses became...

Delacroix Bar Fight

2008-06-10T20:30:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the prelim ideas for the Delacroix bar fight photo shoot. The basic idea at this point is to bring out the grandiose, over the top, heroic, and brutal aspects of a Delacroix painting only in modern context. The modern world lacks a few things that make creating this image difficult: idealism, heroism, and Napoleon to start--so we will need to replace some of the themes and settings to fit the our own plight.
I propose a bar fight, in a tightly packed bar, with lots of grabbing and yelling and maybe a chicken or someone in a bear suit (we can argue the details). I like this bar (the clinton st.) for its high ceelings, dark walls, pillars, and light.

My other thought, to mimic the loose way Delacroix painted, with broad visible brush strokes, is to shoot a very grainy image. Though shooting a noisy image is very controversial it offers a few advantages:
-we can use mostly existing light.
-we will need very little light, at ISO 3200 a candle is as bright as a flash
-existing light has lots of color, orange candle flame, vivid blue neon bar signs, etc
-noise in the shadow areas, though usually abhorant, solves one problem in photo printing. Shadow areas are always printed as a pure neutral black. Painters never use neutral black (I am quoting you on this sean), black is always tinted with some color, brown, red, blue whatever. With a noisy shadow area the black now has all kinds of colors (see details).

thoughts?

2008-06-09T12:24:00.000-07:00

Today a friend of mine wanted to see the pinhole photo I took of the Lipstick Building. This is an oddly shaped sky scraper in Midtown Manhattan, conical stacked sections give it the impression of a telescoping lipstick holder.

This part of midtown is crazy, crammed full of people and cars but, fortunately between about 10 subway stops. I caught the early afternoon light which leaves most of this part of the city in darkness due to the size of the buildings.

Take a look at the difference in light between the two buildings. I was in such a hurry just trying to catch the light before it disappeared that I could not even shoot a Polaroid (or fujiroid now).

john's new blog

2008-06-07T16:04:00.000-07:00

WELCOME to john's new +BLOLG