Friday, November 27, 2009

Union Station

I drove into LA Tuesday to photograph the big Thanksgiving dinner at one of the LA Food Bank distribution points only to learn that there had been a communication error and the dinner would not be served until Thanksgiving Day.   There were two other photographers (Romina Naiam and Carly Cram) with with me and after a short discussion we decided to spent the morning getting in a little street photography.  We walked a couple of blocks to Union Station and found a number of people willing to to model.

 I would love to use some of these images for my 365 Strangers project but only one meets the criteria
 I have set for this project:
      Introduce myself and learn the subject's name
      Talk with the person I want to photograph and learn a little bit
       about his/her life
      Remember the subject's name when it is time to upload the photograph

I only remember names of two people I photographed Tuesday :(
I should have written them down.


Tuesday, November 17, 2009

365 Challenge

In the 1860’s, all art roads led to the Salon in Paris, which was the most important judged competition of art in the western world. In a period of just over 10 years, the Impressionist masters like Renoir, Monet, Pisarro, and Caillebotte battled it out in a competitive and cooperative tour de force that created a panoply of creations that we cannot imagine the world without.The reason Paris became the center of the art world to enable an explosion of new art was a combination of new technology in travel and communications combined with Napoleon III’s focus on the infrastructure around the Salon.

Today the same thing is happening – only no one really seems to realize it in a grand historical sense. It’s called Flickr. Flickr has become a techno-Salon, allowing the world to use the Internet to easily enter the competition and force them to evolve and improve their art. The automated “Explore Algorithm” does a pretty good job of automatically choosing the best photos that are uploaded every day. Go ahead and look at the current some of the best in the last 7 days. Click RELOAD a few times and I promise you will see something that impresses. It is quite unbelievable the level of art and beauty that is created every single day. Now, all of this amazing art on Flickr can either inspire or intimidate you depending on your mindset for competition. I hope it inspires you to upload one photo a day and see if you can make it in the top 500 or the top 10 for the say — and don’t give up. Competition makes everyone better; this is an undeniable truth and you are not realizing your full potential if you keep yourself removed from the process.

(From Trey Ratcliff" Don't get stuck in Customs) 

I got a good start with my 365 challenge.  I continue to shoot every day but reviewing and making a decision about which image should be uploaded and digging down into that instruction manual, is tougher that I would every have imagined. Getting back on that horse tomorrow.....




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