location scout

i had to scout a location yesterday for work, and i really liked this one image i shot.

puzzling

sometimes i imagine that photographs are puzzles: the whole is greater than it's parts. each photograph is an accumulation of innumerable elements arranged in a rectangular frame. the act of photographing is in turn an attempt to piece together these disparate elements to achieve a whole.

for several years the puzzles i tried to solve in my photos were not compositional ones. the fun for me was in gesture and light and often focus. recently formality has really grabbed me in my picture making. now i find myself shooting 2 1/4 at f-22. my eyes are still adjusting to the unforgiving sharpness.

i guess all art is really about this kind of problem solving: take a given set of limitations, play within those confines until you create something that resolves said problems in a successful way. the obvious snag is that the definition of success is rather ambiguous.

my personal definition: magical

i say magical, because even though art can be the process of fitting puzzle pieces together, the great whole is nothing short of miraculous. it makes you tingle. forget to breath.

photo double

i was browsing google images today and saw the above image by imogen cunningham.

two thoughts occurred to me simultaneously:

1/ i had seen this picture before. i can't recall exactly how long ago it was that i first saw it. but i recognized it immediately and intensely. i know i spent a lot of time with imogen's images when i was in high school. and i remember using her work as the basis for a history assignment freshman year of college.

2/ not only did i recognize the image, but it reminded me of not just one, but several of my own photographs (example below). i can say with certainty that i was not looking at imogen's work when i took the below picture. i was studying in prague and looking at sudek and koudelka and reading kafka.

proof, yet again, that pictures will stew in my brain for untold periods of time before i draw upon them for one purpose or another.

a flying saucer landed in my kitchen last night

i finally bought a point and shoot. i got the panasonic lumix lmc dx3. i am in love.

looking at pictures

i can sense pictures in my brain. when i switched jobs this spring and was suddenly confronted with the necessity of looking at pictures everyday again, i went through a period of transition where i could literally feel my brain working on them. like anything, looking gets easier with practice. i probably see a hundred images a day right now, and, to my tremendous relief, my brain no longer feels the strain of it.

i now realize that my lack of posting last year was directly related to the low volume of photographs i encountered on a daily basis. having spent my days reading shipping manifests and invoices instead of pictures, i couldn't switch gears at night and browse through flickr. the contrast was just too great.

my wedding images certainly suffered from the lack of visual nourishment. i watched a drastic improvement in my compositions from the beginning of the summer to the end. it seems the more photos i digest, the quicker my eye is able to translate to the two-dimensional.

strangely, my personal work from that time holds a lot of power for me. i shot consistently through my posting drought on a project that is still in progress and a lot of the images from that period are quite strong. so somewhere in my brain i was making visual discoveries, but those revelations were definitely out of everyday reach. the only explanation i have for this contradiction, is that the act of photographing is therapeutic. i pull from a deeper well of imagery when i shoot for myself, from a place better protected from the contaminates of quotidian life.

this is the pattern i have detected: the more i look at pictures, the more pictures i take, the more i think about them, the more i need an outlet to articulate those thoughts, and thus the more i write to this blog.

unexposed thoughts (revisted)

about a year and a half ago i wrote a post concerning the idea of unfilled creative ideas. i referenced the following excerpt from the year of magical thinking by joan didion:

"why had he forgotten to bring his note cards to dinner that night? had he not warned me when i forgot my own notebook that the ability to take a note when something came to mind was the difference between being able to write and not being able to write?"

i recently read a passage in david lynch's book, catching the big fish, that rekindled my worries on this theme:

"...this idea comes to you, you can see it, but to accomplish it you need what i call a 'setup'...it's crucial to have a setup, so that, at any given moment, when you get an idea, you have the place and the tools to make it happen...if you don't have a setup there are times when you get the inspiration, the idea, but you have no tools, no place to put it together. and the idea just sits there and festers. over time, it will go away. you didn't fulfill it - and that's just a heartache."

for all intents and purposes, when i really boil it down, the only crucial element to my 'setup' is a camera. of course, i happen to shoot film, so i need that as well, and eventually i need to deal with processing that film, but really, as long as i have a camera of some kind, i have all the setup i need.

as it turns out, i own 6 cameras. 6 little magic traps.

and yet: i didn't shoot for most of the summer. i'm not really sure why. i can say for sure that the humid days and the trees full of leaves didn't fit well into the ominous spirit that i envision for this project. but as to why i didn't shoot an interim project, i simply cannot say. i just never brought my camera out with me. or rather i didn't bring any of my cameras out with me. i did, however, spend a considerable amount of time gathering my thoughts and just looking.

i think there is something to be said for that too, for just thinking and looking. recently i returned to most of the places i had cataloged and photographed them. these are places i had observed nearly every day while walking to work. i had imagined and re-imagined specific photographs over and over again each time i passed by. i knew what times of day i wanted to visit each scene, how the light would be compelled to fall at such times, how i would choreograph the frames. so the images were there, already well formed in my mind, all that was left was to expose them to film.

as of today i haven't seen any of the pictures, but i feel very much like i have been shooting with purpose these last few weeks, that this idea that has been growing in my mind all summer is suddenly palpable. all of this thinking and looking has not been wasted time. i haven't lost anything yet.

but the trouble is i have no way of knowing if the pictures i originally conjured in my mind are actually what i ended up photographing. i keep tripping over lynch's phrase "over time." because i have to admit, that given enough time, yes, those latent imaginings might have been lost. the idea's magic might have evaporated when i wasn't looking. the scenes could have rearranged themselves overnight.

(after all, magic is fickle that way.)

it seems, for now at least, that i have rescued a few of my unexposed thoughts from the brink of oblivion, but who really knows. this creative concern of mine has proven to be a constant companion. increasingly though, i'm realizing i'm far from alone. here is one last passage, by anais nin from henry and june:

"...last night, after reading henry's novel, i couldn't sleep. it was midnight. hugo was sleeping. i wanted to get up and go to my writing room and write henry about his first novel. but i would have awakened hugo...i lay very still and forced myself to sleep, with phrases rushing through my head like a cyclone. i thought that i would remember them in the morning. but i couldn't remember, not even half."

i need a digital camera

i snuck this picture with my phone at a show at mccarren park pool this summer (i'm not sure if this kid realized it or not). in case you're wondering: i do not have a fancy camera on my phone. this file is not even a megabyte. what you see above is essentially the largest this picture will ever be. i do however really like the color i get on that phone. i don't really know why, except to say that there is a definite allure in viewing a color photograph lit from behind (jeff wall was obviously on to something).

my point: i really need to get a digital camera that i can keep in my bag. the phone is just not cutting it. i've narrowed it down to either panasonic's lumix dmc-lx3 or the canon g10. i really like the lumix, but my other camera is a canon so i feel like i should keep it in the family.

chicken hut

while running an errand for work this afternoon, i passed by these doorbells on the corner of the street. the low afternoon light was hitting them so perfectly. since i've been shooting graffiti pictures recently, i naturally reached for my camera, but of course the only camera in my bag was my cell phone. i kind of love it anyway. especially considering i've been shooting black and white and the color in this photo is so unbelievable.

out with the old

i started writing this post well over two weeks ago, but got sidetracked (as often happens). i think that posting it on new years eve is quite fitting though:

i processed film for the first time since graduating (june 06) thursday night. it sparked an avalanche. yesterday i processed 6 times in a row, officially working through half my pile of neglected film. my aim is to get through the remainder by this friday.

i intentionally threw all the film into one bowl refusing to differientiate the newer work from the older because i knew if i knew which ones were which i might never have touched the older ones. of course this made the experience of looking through the images much more difficult. very scary. i didn't even want to look at the older ones because i feel such a strong urge to move on, but then when i finally saw that some of those images were rather stunning compared to the newer ones in which none of my ideas are fully developed yet, i was rather demoralized. but over all i think the new work is headed in an exciting direction. and i still have 12 plus rolls to process so the adventure continues.

special thanks to lisa elmaleh for constantly nagging me to process my film at her house and for subsequently driving my chemicals back to my apartment (and for getting that stupid filter off my faucet). the diptych below is hers.

ta da!

after much anticipation (and a considerable amount of designing and redesigning), alissa and i are ever so happy to announce that bluebird-photography, the official website, is now up and running!

i would like to extend a most gracious thank you to the amazing charlie cottone for designing the site for us. if you are in the market for a web designer, i highly recommend him.

so, without further ado: bluebird-photography

this looks nothing like me

well, it looks like me, as it's a picture of me, but it looks nothing like a photo i would take. yet i took it. so go figure. there are three more on the flickr page if you are so inclined.

new wedding images...finally...

i shot a wedding back in june with my friend miya that was so so much fun. i think the photographs really reflect that. i finally added some to the flickr page. enjoy at your leisure.

new stuff

since i keep finding ways to avoid processing my growing pile of film, i decided i should maybe try shooting with my digital. these images are very new and i don't really know where i'm going with them, but non the less you are welcome to take a gander over on the old flickr page.

lost at e minor

look at the cool write up my exhibition for the bruise received on lost at e minor (yay!).

close to home

it's finally done! i've been teasing you all for weeks with mentions of the issue i was curating for the bruise magazine, and at long last "we at the bruise" have something to show you. we asked five other photographers to submit images based on the theme family ties and the home, and i must say, everything came together quite swimmingly. so without further adieu...

close to home, an exhibition curated by carey macarthur (that's me) with images by:

carey macarthur/ alison whittington/ alissa hafele/ catharine maloney/ jaime alvarez/ alexandra batsford

"as photographers we inherently explore the world around us yielding a small glass lens like a weapon. we look. we see. and we try to make some sense and order of our own small worlds. sometimes we only succeed by compelling the fragile relics of our families, all of our hidden secrets, into a composition and onto an equally fragile sheet of plastic. those photographs in turn become new relics carrying with them their own quiet meanings and secrets that haunt and confound us. our families are our past, present, and future, so are our photographs, the two, our closest relations." -- me

special thanks to the multi-talented mark shepherd for inviting me to participate in this project. if you are interested in submitting work to the bruise (anything at all; it doesn't need to be photography), send images to: submit(at)thebruise.com. they would be more than delighted to see what you're working on.

oh, and by the way, the images above and below are mine.

capezio

as per request by jinius and after closely inspecting the shoe boxes in the below image, i have been able to jog my memory to report to you that the shoes samantha pleet uses come from a dance company called capezio. if you live in new york and feel like shopping in person, you can pick up a pair on 51st and broadway, although there isn't a store front as the salesfloor is on the second floor and you have to walk past a security desk to get to the elevator which feels a little like you're doing something you shouldn't be. i hope that was satisfactory (and i hope samantha doesn't mind me sharing that information).

backstage at samantha pleet

i finally have managed to get some images that alissa and i shot of samantha pleet's fashion show (the cause of my trek to the great city to the north and my subsequent break from this here blog) onto our flickr page. i hope you enjoy them. points to anyone who can identify which images are mine and which alissa's.

i finally did it!

i brought my new scanner home over a month ago. december 19th to be exact. i just opened it tonight. this is my sketch for that screen print i need to complete.

grandma

i feel like after posting so many of the photos that inpsire me, it's really only fair to show my own work too (like the above image of my grandma), so i uploaded a bunch of my personal images to my flickr page.