Oh my, where to begin.
When we last left off, our hero was reading a 75 year old essay about how photography (and communism and socialism?) have shaped the world of art. Yup, and he’s still reading…
My class was assigned to read the preface and first three sections of The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, an essay from 1936 by German critic Walter Benjamin. Yes 1936:…
Think your camera sucks? Don’t believe your professors/mentors/friends when they say that “equipment doesn’t matter?
Haha…ha.. watch this. Seriously. Photoshoot with an iPhone, not even iPhone4.
Yeah, true but having expensive lights didn’t hurt with this crappy camera.
Ahhh, touche, my friend. However… he did go to Lowe’s and get those hot work lights to stick in the soft boxes (in which case, having expensive soft boxes and an octabank didn’t hurt. ;D ).
1.) Who else noticed he wasn’t wearing shoes? Was it just me? 2.) Since when can you get paid just to flippin RETOUCH?!?
fkgnek
I just made the weirdest noise jfaekljf;elwfj
i just snorted coke out my nose
Katie! Carissa! Tell me you see this.
I honestly didn’t think that anything could ever be as good as their Rube Goldberg video (This Too Shall Pass), but I was flat-out wrong.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/maticus/sets/72157624074362699/
I’m tired. I said, “I’m tired!” I am tired and beneath
millions and millions of miniscule grains and beneath
one majestic marble monument – a messenger of my maker.
I am tired and beneath your feet as they walk over my grave,
though they do not disturb my slumber: ‘cause I do not sleep:
sleep is for the dead.
No, I lie awake and surrounded by dirt and dark where
I slowly inch my mind up and out of the ground
like a freshly planted tree anxious to breathe the sun and
drink the rain. I sift the dark for afterthoughts – for something sacred;
for something subtle – pushing away one grain of dirt at a time.
I am busy in my black asylum.
When you come to see me you won’t wake me.
And when you’re walking over my grave I hope you do so
with bare feet. The best things in life – and death – are done
shoeless. I hope you stand there and feel me between your soles,
itching for our future. Focus on the future, the exotic unknown.
Mark that spot.
Look down where someone will write your name.
Your own name will plot that plot. Look down to where
Earth will exhume herself and make room for you.
You know where you are and where you end,
but what of the middle? Between X of Now
and X of Then –
what when Then ends? What will you do
when time flies out on you; when the now-n-then’s
stop; when the Nows are now thens; when the Thens are upside-
downs? You mustn’t stop too, but continue: stand with me,
darling, at the foot of our death bed, and carve our names
into the headboard.
One dotted line signs completed circles around incomplete
thoughts. Two X’s converge to mark our treasures buried.
What course will you chart at each line, cartographer?
And how will you chart it? Live like a mad man. Die like a happy
one. Now, now: don’t dawdle. Turn back to the maker and say it:
“I’m tired.
– Matt Fowler
Sam, Seuss, Perspective, and Light.
Instead of going to bed, I’m blogging. This is my first real blog-blog on this here tumblr site. So welcome. And enjoy. Please. Or else. And thank you.
I just got finished watching the movie I Am Sam for the first time ever, and it was absolutely wonderful. First (give me a chance, I’ll get to the point eventually) I’m gonna come right out and say it: yes, I cried like a baby. I don’t know if I’ve seen a more touching film. I held back as hard as I could and rivers were still falling from my eyes (traitors…).
But enough about my sissy nature, on to what’s important: the cinematography.
Holy. Cow. Briefly, let me mention that I love play with focus and bokeh (mmmmm…boookkeeeeeeh…) as well as intentionally awkward scene changes as well as silhouettes and other major photo things.
Moving on: let’s talk about my favorite trick that video has to offer which I have yet to perfect. For lack of a better term, I’m gonna call it “zoom disorientation.” Or “zoom-pan disorientation.” Or “blowing-my-mind-when-you-zoom-out-and-move-forward-at-the-same-time perspective disorientation.” Or “whatever-ya-call-it.” If you have a video camera, try this folks.
Zoom in as much as you can.
Stick a subject in front of the camera and let it fill the frame.
Hit record.
Start zooming out and walking forward at the same time, trying as hard as you can to keep that subject filling up the frame in the same spot the entire time until you’re all the way zoomed out.
Stop recording.
Play back.
Cue mind explosion.
For those of you not able to see it, what’s going on is a change in perspective that causes a radical change in atmosphere. The scene in I Am Sam that I’m thinking of involves the prosecuting lawyer as the subject, and there are people out of focus behind him in the frame. When at max zoom, all the people and the lawyer looking relatively close to each other size-wise in respect to two dimensionality. But as you get closer to him (and zoom out) their relations change. Lawyer Man is much closer to the camera compared to everyone else, and therefore more dominant in the image, and therefore more intimidating, and therefore successfully executed. But at any rate: my mind is blown every time I see this trick employed. And it couldn’t be a simpler one. (#majorphotomoments)
And now let’s also talk about lighting. And how wonderful it is. (Let the record show that lighting is, in fact, quite wonderful.) But what I love so much in this movie is the perfect use of “wrong” lighting, or purposefully mis-calibrating color temperature for distinct effects. The director Jessie Nelson (which I’m sorry to say that from what I can find has directed remarkably few things.) starts the movie off with a scene using this technique. Sam is wandering about the hospital and the light is making everything and everyone a sort of sickly greenish-blue color. Combined with off-kilter filming and lots of harsh cutting it really sets the mood for the entire first few minutes of the film. And she repeatedly employs this palette of color for the scenes that need to mimic this same sense of chaos. Contrastingly, a warmer palette of complimentary colors is often employed to portray the opposite. So wonderful!
To a similar end, one of my favorite visual techniques lately has been to combine warm and cool lights at the same time to provide a visual color contrast for absolute vibrance. Generally, that means using a warm main light with a cool fill light so that the lighting is mostly a soft yellow with quite a bit of cool-blue shadows. Ah! I go gaga for this. I actually tried it on a self portrait recently. I definitely want to play with it more.
The moral of the story is: anything that alludes to Dr. Seuss has a higher chance of being phenomenal.
Anywho, I’m going to bed.
