Looking at Pictures – Sea of Japan, Oki (307), 1987 Hiroshi Sugamoto

Sea of Japan, Oki (307), 1987 Hiroshi Sugamoto

I am fascinated by the ocean, it’s ever changing moods and the possibilities that it offers. Perhaps that’s why I enjoy Hiroshi Sugamoto’s Seascape images so much.

I’ve been thinking about composition and how to use the psychology of how we see to make stronger images. This is something that I first came across in Vincent Versace’s Books (also see here).

Vincent teaches us that:

‘The unconscious eye “sees” in a predictable manner. It first recognizes light areas and then moves to dark ones, sees high before low contrast, records high before low sharpness, notices focus before blur, and focuses on high color saturation before low.’

I feel like the seascape images ignore the ‘rules’ of composition but still manages to hold a space for us to look deeply and remain engaged with the image. In the Sea of Japan image above I find that my eye is drawn immediately to the horizon line and then explores that dark shapes in the ocean surface before being drawn back to the horizon line. Then the whole process repeats.

I do wonder whether these images work better as stand alone images or as part of a series where you get to experience the ever changing moods of the sea.

How about you? How do you see this image? Do you prefer a stand-alone or the series?

Doing it on Purpose

My days are packed, I’m sure yours are too, which means that I often find myself wondering is this the most important thing that I can be doing right now. Prioritization is both a chore and something that I find painfully difficult because I don’t like saying no.

I was recently reintroduced to Ikigai a Japanese term meaning ‘having a direction or purpose in life, providing a sense of fulfillment and towards which they the person may take actions, giving them satisfaction and a sense of meaning.’ Take a look at the graphic below for a sense of what were talking about but also realize that this isn’t quite ‘it’. See here for an explanation.

If you’re interested in digging into your own purpose check out this work sheet from Dandy People here.

Being clear about my sense of purpose has really helped remove some of the big items from my plate leaving me clear to focus on a smaller set of things where I can really make a difference. How about you? How do you make sense of the myriad of things that you could do?

Managing Expectations

I continue to think about and torture my friends by asking them about making Art and making photographs specifically. What is it for? Who is it for?

There are so many ways that we can use our time why make art if it’s not putting food on the table? Why make art if there’s no waiting audience for it?

The answer that I keep coming back to is that for me, and I suspect many others, creating things is an internal drive. I just have to do it. The world gets out of balance without the ability to create things. Nice if there’s and audience for what we’re making but it’s not the reason for making it.

Where things get a bit wobbly is when you have expectations for what you are creating. Whether it’s the standard that you set for yourself for quality? Whether it’s the ‘likes’ on Instagram or the number of pieces sold. Focusing on these things as measures of how good the work is will inhibit your progress as an artist.

Instead it’s much better to focus on the process of creating. Thinking about how many days did I get out to photograph this week, this month, this year or how many photographs did I ‘finish’ – take through the edit process and print? Seems to me a much better way to measure our creative output.

Feeling Bloated

For a variety of reasons my diet went south at the end of 2020. I indulged in making all the things I enjoy but I’m not supposed to eat – ice cream, pizza (I could live on these alone!), bread, cookies and cakes. A few months of that has left me feeling bloated. Happy but very bloated. Fortunately my choice of clothes can tolerate a 10lb swing in weight. I’m now following my version of the Fast800 diet and back into a zone my doctor would rather I be in.

Thinking about this and the bit of spring cleaning that I have been doing in my office has made me recognize that I need to trim back on some of the stuff.

I love books, so it’s always hard to consider getting rid of them. Low hanging fruit are the manuals for long gone versions of photoshop and light room. I like Scott Kelby’s 7 point processing system which is described for Photoshop CS3 (Wow – that was 2007) while a little dated the thinking is still sound. I’ll hang on to that one until the new edition comes out later in the summer but the others – Lightroom 4, Lightroom 5, Photoshop CS5 and more – will all have to go.

I have boxes and boxes of prints that I made when I was first starting out. While it kills me to do it, these also really need to go. I’m never going to use them for anything – the prints are my first attempts to make art prints, long before I met Bob Korn and had some foundational lessons in how to see color in a print.

I also have boxes of gear that need to be purged. I found recently that the speed lights I have didn’t work because the batteries in them had corroded. Oops! An expensive mistake. How much other stuff that I have that is in danger of going the same way?

How about you? How often do you have a good clear out? Where are you in the scale of minimalist to horder? How do you decide what to keep and what to toss?

Spring Cleaning

Wow – how did we get into April so quickly. It feels like winter zipped on by and now we are on the doorstep of the summer boating season. The arrival of spring is usually marked, domestically, by a period of spring cleaning. I rarely feel moved or motivated to pick up the duster but this year is different. After a year at home with no travel my office has gather some barnacles that need to be scraped off in readiness for the next part of the adventure.

I have indulged, splurged would be a better word, on a number of photobooks and art books in general that have yet to find their place on my books shelves. This is also an opportunity to rethink how the shelves are arranged and organized. I also want to get the paper I have for printing organized so that I know what I have and can find it!

Perhaps for once I will get everything off the floor and be able to run the vacuum around. Ha! Wonders will never cease.

The Gap – Be Kind to Yourself, Don’t Compare

I often fall into the trap, as I suppose many people do, of being generally dissatisfied with the work that I’m producing. I make images that I like just often enough to keep me engaged but it can be tough to keep going especially when we’re surrounded by an onslaught of great work on social media.

The guitar teacher Tomo Fujita tells his students ‘Be Kind to Yourself, Don’t Compare, Don’t Expect Too Fast, and Don’t Worry.’ Good advice for anyone whether they are trying to learn a new skill or to be creative.

The other advice that I turn to when I’m struggling is what Ira Glass said about ‘The Gap’ (see video 3 below). He’s describing the difference between what you know is good and want to be able to do and what you’re currently able to achieve.

Check out the illustrated video below.

The solution of course is to do a lot of work. Bang it out even if you don’t feel like it. Just keep going. You will get better, you will evolve and you will close the gap.

Checkout the full interview ‘Ira Glass on Storytelling’ in the following videos. This should be required viewing for anyone in the creative arts.

The End of Summer

For me just as the beginning of summer is when we get the boat in the water, the end of summer is when we pull the boat out of the water. This weekend marked the beginning of that process as we made the trek from our mooring to the marina in Norwalk where will be hauled.

This year we were accompanied by Jay our buddy from TowBoatUS who gave us a tow to the dock. If you have a boat a BoatUS membership with on water towing is an amazing insurance policy. I highly recommend it!

A Walk in The Woods

I spent an afternoon over the weekend wandering around the local woods. Not hard to do in this part of Connecticut – everything seems to be in the Woods! It’s nice but I find it a little claustrophobic. Fortunately there are lots of ponds and lakes too which breaks up the walk nicely.

The ponds are now starting to catch the falling leaves. It will be snowing soon enough.

Donuts!

We’re still hanging onto the last vestiges of summer here. My kids leave their pool things on the deck under our glass table. After the storm that came through I saw this and thought ‘donuts!’

At The Pool

  

Growing up I spent an awful lot of time at the pool and it looks as though I’m going to be doing so again, although not in the water this time.

While sat watching my kids do laps I wondered whether I could use the time to develop a project, one that goes beyond the snapshots of the kids at the pool.  It’s fun to start these projects, I find finishing them much harder.