on hipsta/gram

"A good image is created in a state of grace, the late photographer Sergio Larrain said. I remember looking at the image on Photoshop when I got home and realizing grace was underexposed and then adding a vignette and stripping out all the color and cranking up the contrast to make grace presentable. It was the perfect moment but not the perfect photograph. Grace needed fakery to become graceful...

you no longer need high-altitude software like Photoshop like I did, no longer need expensive hardware to crash photography’s beauty party. This is the final stage of a revolution, the democratization of what used to be professional photography, and its hippest, most boring propagandists use Hipstamatic and Instagram."

~matt pearce, "shoot hip or die" 

stumbled upon this intriguing essay a few days ago. having been absent from facebook, twitter and instagram in the past 40+ days, it made me question, "what the heck are we doing with these tools?" do they really make the images better? does this filter help to truly capture the essence of this moment?

even though i haven't looked at my account in a while, one thing i know: i can't say i'm really proud of any photos i've taken via instagram. in fact, i might say that i'm more ashamed of the uncensored banality of most of the photos i have posted. was it necessary to take a photo of my breakfast, stylize it with the valencia filter and share it with fifty of my friends? no, not at all.

i do think it's possible for cell phone photography can be art, but i'm starting to realize that maybe instagram and the like are not my ideal tools for visual storytelling.

this pretty much makes my week =)

made by richeye, from our LA visit in may

[cc x ee] arc & at-ats

[camilleeon chrons X eyawn eye] city nights

collabo post from londontown to oaktown

zoom out

in response to in response to sunday's best



a completely unplanned LIC collabo photo series!

mid-sections of 366

i was cracking up when i read owen's comment on 366! if i actually had a segment called "mid-sections of 366", this is what it would look like...






that was a lot of mid-sections! i take shots like these because 1) people can be timid about getting their picture taken and 2) i once read in a photo blog that a way to get a different perspective is to "shoot from the hip" without looking. this second reason is how i got the red stripe shot...a photo which has come to be one of my faves.

the decisive moment

there is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment

thanks for reminding me about this concept earlier this week kevin! it worked out well because i know that other photo-a-day companions are starting to realize that moments to get that perf shot are incredibly fleeting.

in photography class, we saw hundreds of slides from many of the masters. one of them was henri cartier-bresson, a pioneer of street photography and master of candid portraits. not only did he create an inspiring body of photographic work, but he also gracefully articulated this concept of the decisive moment in photography:

"There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative. Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever."

isn't that crazy to wrap your head around? one solitary instance when elements of the world come together in a stunning way that can be immortalized through photography or otherwise reduced to memory. i love the potential to seize the decisive moment, but in attempting to do so there are so many more chances i frustratedly miss out on. such is photography...and life. it is worth it to keep trying for those moments.

one more quote from hcb...

"To take a photograph is to align the head, the eye and the heart. It's a way of life."

randomly a few weeks back some guy sitting next to me on bart between west oakland and city center said something similar about the mind and the heart needing to be the best of friends. my mind has known where i want to be for a while. it's just my heart hasn't quite caught up to speed. or maybe it's the other way around?

unphotographable: all aboard!

i stand in the queue for the first door of the first car of the approaching train, as i do every morning.

the train slows to a stop. the driver's window opens and instead of the usual middle-aged grumpy bart employee, an excited 10-year old kid sticks out his head to look down the platform. as we file into the train, he yells out, "all aboard!"

the typical blank zombie stares of morning commuters change to smirks as our assistant conductor announces over the pa system in the most enthusiastic voice, "good morning! welcome aboard the richmond train!!"

i love take your kid to work day.

unphotographable

this is a picture i did not take of a german shepherd driving a forest green suv side-by-side with my friend's black prius down san pablo avenue on a warm winter's saturday night, for a moment we ignore the reality that the dog is sticking his head forward from his place in the back seat, and laugh at how convincing this cool canine looks cruising down the street.

(inspired by this site)

intima[see]

although i knew it was going to be personal, it's more so than i could have imagined. the subjects i choose, the photo i pick at the end of the day...it all reflects my thought process, my mood. and there it is for everyone to see!

thanks everyone for all the comments (whether on the site or in person) about 366!

project 365

i'm not usually big on the new year's resolution thing, but i thought this would be a cool way to sharpen the photography skills...
i'm starting a project 365, in which i will be taking atleast one picture everyday!

these will be posted here starting january 1, 2008

happy new year!

for your eyes only

i've seen so much on my travels this year...and have hundreds of photos to prove it?
nope

not that i don't have hundreds of photos.
it's just that no matter how skilled the photographer, no matter how fancy the camera, nothing can match the life and world you see from the complexity of your own eyes, your own mind.

sometimes you just gotta take your finger off the shutter, put down the sunglasses that shade the bright rays, or roll down the tinted window and allow your eyes to observe the grandeur, the life, the humanity around us.