Light and Gold

"Lux Aurumque" - Light and Gold

Light, Light
Light, Light
Light, Light
Warm
Warm
deep/dignified
deep/dignified
deep/dignified
Pure
Pure as if gold
They sing and sing and sing.



If there are such things as angels in heaven,
this is what they sing.






____________________

Mark Haskins.

My view on "Art"

This is definitely not the usual you're used to seeing here, but I'm really, really happy about this photo. It's just so fucked up and cool. I see something very emotional here, and that's what I see and love about it. It speaks to me.

Taken with a Holga with slide film that's been cross-processed.






------------

I know a lot of people have issues with Holgas... That they're mostly for people that can't afford "quality" cameras and want to achieve unconventional results that people with professional equipment and software could putz around with and produce in photoshop.

Here's my take. Art is not always pristine. Art is not always made with expensive tools. Art is whatever the artist connects with. Art is what comes from the heart, and what s/he gets meaningful aesthetic satisfaction from. Art can easily be made with a $.05 pencil, or a point and shoot. Art is not limited to or just made by or for the aristocrats.

Photography is not seeing the truth that is, photography is seeing the truth that the artist sees. A camera is just a tool. That's why I've never adopted the rigid, puristic view that photography has to be authentic. Meaning, I don't care if you limit yourself to having the photo be exactly the way you saw it in the viewfinder. Crop it and mess around with it in photoshop within an inch of its life, for all I care. I have no more or less respect for people who do it either way. I do think there is a discipline to finding the composition you want in the viewfinder, but I think that is akin to any practice. You become better and better at finding the art you want to produce and present.

So if you want to use a cheap $25 plastic camera, then go for it. If you want to use a $50,000 digital Hasselblad, then go for it. There is no definition for what art is, except that art is subjective for every living human being.

Don't get me wrong, I truly believe that there is a mathematical correlation (called the Golden Ratio) for what is beautiful, but I'm not talking about what is beautiful. I'm talking about art.

I know some artists, art critics, art enthusiasts, and art collectors will disagree with me, and that's fine. Like I said, art is subjective.


Your views/arguments are always welcome.


_________

Trevor Levin. Last summer in Portland, OR.

Windows of the Soul

Recent photo from the lovely Holga, when I was out in PA last week.

Featuring the lovely and talented, Candace Nirvana.





_______________

Camera: Holga 120 GN
Film: Tri-X 400
Developer: ID-11

Special Packages

I got a pick-up notice from the post office while I was gone.

My lovely pink Holga arrived!



So I waited in line for a half an hour (and after watching a few transactions/interactions, I can understand why Postal Workers go... Postal). And my goodness, its a lovely heap of cheap plastic.

I also cleaned up my Papa's Nikon F, so that's ready to go as well.




Tomorrow I'm going to a concert, and one of the band members asked me to take some photos of them, so I'm going equipped with:

Lubitel 166 loaded with Tmax 100 (120)
Holga loaded with Tmax 400 (120)
Nikon F loaded with Neopan 100 (35)

Films (35mm):
(All of it expired, some of it well stored.)

Superia 1600
Porta 400VC
Elite Crome 100

Tmax 3200
Neopan 100

I might buy a couple more rolls of Black and White 120, probably higher ISO films. I want to start pushing my film and see how that looks. Working in a dark, concert environment seems like a good place to test out high sensitivity film.

I might decide against bringing the Lubitel for various reasons, the most weighing reason being - its weight and lack of neck strap. I've already got to deal with that with the Nikon F, but it should be okay. It should be really interesting to start playing with Color film, but I have no idea what the results will be because of how expired they are. I have quite a few expired rolls (of 35mm) to get through before I can start playing with new color film.

_____________________

I also received a copy of the book I was published in, "Dimensions of Disclosure." It's nice to see something of my own in print. It's about the quality I expected - nothing fabulous but definitely not disappointing. I believe I'm the only nude in there. There are some very interesting and wonderful self-portraits in there. I'm glad I'm a part of it.

size DOES matter

Look at these HUGE prints!

Sylvie is hanging 4 new prints in the Fahey Klein Gallery in Los Angeles. Seems that two of them are from our two sessions together.

The prints are larger than I am! I'm larger than life!


;)

All images Archival Pigment Prints,

43x56 inches

Editions of 10

www.faheykleingallery.com

___


Seeing these made me really happy today.

That, and I used another reel of 120 (Ilford HP5 400) in the Brownie on my Papa and my two cousins (8 and 5) today.

The frame I'm most excited for was an accident.

We had the pull out bed for my gorgeous and sassy 5 yr old cousin and I had her lay on it. I stood over her in order to try a different perspective and just stood for a while waiting for her to relax. She's been trained by her mother to have the "picture smile" and I hate that!

It looks exactly how it is: FORCED.

So I just started talking to her, and then started combining words that I thought she (or kids in general) would start reacting favorably to... like 'fuzzy-booger-pizza,' for example. To my happiness, she started cracking up, and I flipped the shutter, as I was continuing to egg her on. And then she had a beautiful, spontaneous, head-thrash-laugh off to the left side, and I flipped the shutter again. Immediately afterwards, of course, I thought to myself: "Aw shit. I didn't advance the film. Well..... Hopefully that double exposure turns out well!!"




Oh, and I bought a pink Holga 120GN for reeeal cheap on ebay. I might have bought a Holga GTRL (also pink!) instead, but I had not known of them or seen them before I bought the GN. Plus they were more expensive. Does the GTRL have an advantage over the GN in any way?




Oh my. A pink camera.
A cheap, plastic, bulky, toy film camera. A real eyesore.
No one is ever going to take me seriously with this in front of my head.
Why in the world did I get this thing?




Because this is going to fucking rock my socks, thats why!



Can you tell I'm excited?!


It's going to be fun!!!


I've already been researching so many "hacks" for the Holgas. It's going to be fun!!!
Have I mentioned that already?


But soon I need to learn how to develop my own film. And I need to get some hardware and chemicals. And then next I need decent scanner - I'm looking at an Epson 4490. I'm sure it all would pay for itself after a few dozen rolls at NatCam's processing price ($9 developing fee, $5.25 for CD, and $1 per frame) at about $22 for an 8 exposure roll, which really isn't that unreasonable.

Then, the next big thing after that is making prints. How much are those?
Whoa boy. I tend to get too ahead of myself.
I'll cross that bridge when I get there.



But until then, I have my holga oasis:

http://www.squarefrog.co.uk/

...sometimes web surfing pays off.