Touching Base

I thought I may have lost touch with my original intentions for this blog.
I wrote:

This blog is an opportunity to find out what I might have to say, and an opportunity to place some images online for viewing and review.

I wrote in the blog description:

This blog is about finding an opportunity to be inspired.

I have become quite fascinated with the cell phone camera. Yet, I began to feel that I had become too indiscriminate with my “point and click.” Perhaps especially with “Blue” and “Pink.”

I could write that this blog may be a record of a creative process. I am learning that it is important to stay connected to one’s work. On the one hand this can be understood simply as the need to work everyday, or to look at your work everyday.

Secondly, there is the need to investigate one’s media. I am learning about the “potential” of the cell phone camera, and pushing the potential. I thought my few attempts with the pin hole “technique” was valuable.

I am working within limitations, my cell phone camera, typically with no digital manipulation. I am not limited by subject.

There are blurs. There are shadows and an image without a figure. There are the pin hole shots. There are silhouettes.There are flowers. And a portion of a drape and window.

At this initial stage in this blog. I am only placing images online to view and review. I am not posting all the images I have taken. I am hoping a concern might reveal itself.

Short Haircut

click image for full view
I shot this selfportrait with my cell phone camera after several attempts. Interesting how selfconscious I became. And now I have posted it here in the smallest format available. I took the shot after getting a hair cut. I got it cut short. (So this writing is indicitive of blogging at it's wortst. "I got a short haircut today!")

I have often experienced a sense of liberation after getting my hair cut short. Somehow I feel that I have become someone more authentic. It is a fresh start for me. Starting over.

Belief in the Process

I do believe that there is something valuable here. The process is valuable.

Inspiration

I think it is important for an artist to be inspired.

Stop

Stop.

Email to Homann (hidden text trial)

Hello Joachim,

I continue to work on my blog. I am finding that I am posting a number of photos taken with my cell phone camera. This is somewhat of a surprise. The presumed casual use of this camera removes some of the selfconsiciousness that previously held me back in attempting photography. This is a relief of sorts.
What do you think?
Also, any word on internet connection in the gallery?

To read the complete post, highlight the text area and white space above with a click and drag of your mouse.

Pinhole Cell Phone Camera

click image for full view

Note on Creative Process

click image for full view
The text on this note reads:

about creative process
(need to stay connected
__deconstruct what written)
limitations of camera
arrow pointing down to > makesomething

Blue

click image for full view

Pink

click image for full view

Portrait Drawing

click image for full view | artist: Arnulfo Solares
(Image displayed for editorial purposes only. This image may not be copied or reproduced in any form or media.)
I shot this image as a detail from a student drawing I came across hanging in a hallway.
The idea of the portrait is of interest relative to my "image not available" concerns. Is the portrait a "reminder" of the subject of the portrait? A memento? With this in mind I am thinking about the souvenir. Somehow the souvenir, an artifact of an experience, has meaning beyond the image/object itself. What is more important, the image/object or the experience?

Turning in Stair

click image for full view
I realized that when I send images via Verizon online gallery, a black border is set around the image. The work around is to first email the image to myself and then take it from there to post to the blog. The black border is distracting.

Longhauser Again

I am rereading the first quote from William Longhauser I posted October 17, 2005. I do believe that Longhauser's thought is far reaching. Familiarity does breed indifference. The quick glance far too often neglects the detail.

This thinking can be applied to teaching in any visual medium. It is so very difficult to get a student to see past the obvious or the casual design effort--to SEE relationships, difference and theme.

Again:

Before we learn our ABCs, letters are abstract shapes with no meaning. As the letters become recognizable, the individual forms and structures become invisible to the eye. Familiarity breeds indifference, and the unique forms that define each letter are replaced with a name for identification, eventually revealing words, phrases, and sentences. This ritual, our earliest contact with graphic design, is the path to literacy, but it fails to develop and cultivate our eyes. The question is how does one transcend immediate recognition and replace it with observation and perception?

2 Quotes

In his article, “Beyond Small, Medium, and Large” for AIGA, William Longhuaser writes of the value of design students creating letterforms by hand. I found the following quotes to be of interest.

Before we learn our ABCs, letters are abstract shapes with no meaning. As the letters become recognizable, the individual forms and structures become invisible to the eye. Familiarity breeds indifference, and the unique forms that define each letter are replaced with a name for identification, eventually revealing words, phrases, and sentences. This ritual, our earliest contact with graphic design, is the path to literacy, but it fails to develop and cultivate our eyes. The question is how does one transcend immediate recognition and replace it with observation and perception?

And later:

In a world where information about virtually everything is available instantly, it is rewarding to discover things that exist but remain hidden, invisible, unless perceived through observation.

This of course, makes me think of my cell phone photos. They are to some extent, casual and even accidental. The photographs are created easily, almost instantaneously. It is a simple task to post them to this blog. Still, I think my eye searches for something latent or hidden for the purpose of observation.

manipulated (Sink)

click image for full view
I imagine one could take a photo of what is absent in an image. There might be some clue in the image of what is not visible or not represented.

Untitled

click image for full view

Can't Fix It

This blog is like a sketchbook of sorts, with jots of related thoughts and images. Nevertheless, the word, "sketchbook," recalls for me a lack of focus with so many in the past left unfinished. Perhpas the novelty of this online variation will keep me engaged.
The use of the cell phone camera is rewarding for me. It is an awkward device. It is hard to "frame" the picture, square things up and keep my hand steady. There are artifacts of these difficulties in the images. When I view many of these on my computer screen, I want to fix them. Rotate the image to square it up to the frame, or crop out sections. This uneasyness/ obsessiveness leads to unnecessary scrutiny, and in the past, the loss of the image itself.

Observance

I am thinking, relative to my audience or viewer, that I am trying to provide an opportunity to be observant—to notice something. When there is theoretically less to see, the demand for observation is heightened.

Did you notice that?

Hillman Curtis http://www.hillmancurtis.com has created an online video series, “Visitor Portraits.” They are beautiful and quite remarkable. At first glance, the video appears to be a still image with the subject stationary, until the subject blinks.

The current video portrait on the home page includes graphics with a “donate” link to the Red Cross.

Also, his book "MTIV: Process, Inspiration and Practice for the New Media Designer," is interesting. The letters,"MTIV," stand for, "Making the Invisible Visible."

Sensitivity to Beauty

I think the photos are becoming a bit more “aesthetic” in some regard. Can I say that they are more considered? In any case, I think my personal way of looking at things is becoming more evident, specifically in the following images:

half drape
shadow book
chair

Half Drape

click image for full view

Untitled (Shadow)

click image for full view

Untitled

click image for full view
The image of the chair suggests something similar to "Image not Available" by virtue of the absence of the subject.
The image of the book and shadow is poetic,somewhat beatiful. I feel this image.

More transparent. More transitory.

I have looked at paintings in the past and experienced a sense of poignancy, a sensuousness combined with a feeling of awe.
This morning, I realized that the recent photos I have posted that were taken with my cell phone may not present an opportunity for a “felt” response. I am thinking that this may be a consequence of this web-based medium. It may be a matter of presentation. Too much “stuff” on the page, or it may be that I have to print the images and frame them for presentation.
The images may need to be objects in the word. This, however, contradicts my “image not available” concept. Images on-line are by there very nature more ethereal. More transparent. More transitory.

Blur

I find myself becoming interested in a blurred vision--photos without focus, motion blurs, gaussian blur effects. The result is a lack of detail and the required effort to figure it out and focus.

The observation of detail takes time. Yet we live in a world where detail is increasingly difficult to see. Can it be, therefore, that the blurred image depicts a more accurate reality? What do we see?

Manipulated

click image for full view
This is another minipulated version of Phone Image Original / Manipulated previously posted. The effect is a canned option within the online gallery for Verizon Wireless. It is the line drawing effect.

http://dabsim13.blogspot.com/

I have to say something about the URL for this blog.
http://dabsim13.blogspot.com/ was randomly generated when I first created the blog. I could have changed this, but felt that it was odd and interestingly anonymous.

Phone Image Original / Manipulated

click image for full view
The photo on the left was taken with my cell phone from a moving car. The second image is a modified version of the first.
I am sending my cell phone photos to my online gallery with Verizon Wireless prior to placing them into this blog. Last night I discovered that the online gallery has some limited tools for manipulating images live online. For example the second image was changed via the "sepia" tool. I will add some additional modifications later

This is a random activity

For me, this blog is about finding an opportunity to be inspired. It is really a blind search. What is it that interests me? What might I find visually appealing?

This is a random activity.

This activity can take place when browsing a magazine, looking at the ads or examining a layout. It also takes place when I find myself discovering some new computer application, or a new feature in an application I have already been using.

This activity takes place when I "mess around" with the camera in my cell phone--sometimes casual or accidental shots. Other times something that "catches" my eye.

This blog is about finding a way to immerse myself in a new creative process and a new medium. The medium is the blog. It is a journal.

The blog presents a rather structured format--the organization of experience via specific dates. It is chronological. The essential experience for the viewer/reader is sequential. Secondarily, there are also opportunities for hypertext "jumps" among the archives.

I have worried that some of the posting I consider pivotal will be lost in days gone by. For example the image of "Image Not Available" and even this very post. I will work to create a listing of pivotal postings to address this problem.

Today, I am excited by this activity. I feel inspired. (This may be rare for me.) Can I say that it is like learning to paint for the first time? What is the medium? What will this brush do? Loving the smell of linseed oil.

I think that accepting the exploratory nature of my engagement with this blog will reveal overtime the CONTENT behind the activity.