photography | The Inner Path of Photography

April 20, 2010

FotoFest 2010 Notes – MFAH: Richard Misrach

I forgot!

As part of the MFAH show, there is an image from Richard Misrach’s series, “On the Beach” (Untitled #1170-04.)

It’s a very large image, a swimmer floating in the middle of a vast Pacific Ocean (shot from a high hotel room in Hawaii).

The image felt expansive, wonderful, uplifting to me…so therefore I was surprised to read the curator’s notes, which perceived the image as reflecting our feelings of insecurity and groundlessness after 9/11.

Hmm…not my feeling at all when looking at that image…Why don’t you go see it and tell me how it makes you feel?

After a little research, I did find some interesting background about the images and timing from the Smithsonian.com website…and also read more comments of Misrach about his project. Now I see, at least, where the Houston curator got their perspective.

However, I do want to note that Misrach himself, as well as saying that the work was about how people can endure many things, and still then go and find happiness and relaxation, said that the work, “…is much more about our relationship to the bigger sublime picture of things.”

Whew, that makes me happy. Each of the images seen here continue to make me long for the water, the beauty, the vastness of the ocean.

What about you?

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April 19, 2010

FotoFest 2010 Notes – MFAH: Seung Woo Back

Work by the Korean photographer Seung Woo Back also caught my eye and mind in the MFAH exhibition, “Ruptures and Continuities: Photography Made after 1960 from the MFAH Collection”

“Real World” is a series of photographs taken in a South Korean theme park that features miniatures of world famous tourist places. Fake architecture and the realistic Seoul landscape coexists there, and the rather calm images evoke an odd sensation and suggest the envy that South Koreans turn towards outside countries.” (from the website of the Foil Gallery, Tokyo, upon their 2007 exhibit of Seung Woo Back’s “Real World”)

Click here for a photo of the image….
Also see artist’s site…

I liked what Woo Back is doing as an art form, and also liked what he had to say about his work:

“As the border between ontological reality and imaginary reality becomes tightly entwined in my pictures, one might begin to wonder how the world is shaped in our own imaginations,” said the artist. (From curator’s notes, MFAH gallery wall.)

Yes, I agree….a concept worth a lifetime of reflection.

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April 19, 2010

FotoFest 2010 Notes – MFAH: Hatakeyama Naoya

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) has a huge exhibit this year for FotoFest, titled, “Ruptures and Continuities: Photography Made after 1960 from the MFAH Collection”

Nearly 200 images from over 80 artists are grouped in five themes…read the Museum’s description, it will give you an idea of what you’re in store for.

I found much of the work interesting, and nice to know to fill in more of my knowledge about photography over the years, and how it has been used, but two images in particular caught my eye, along with what the artist had to say about his work.

1) Hatakeyama Naoya, “Underground #6411”

I was drawn to this image for the simplicity, beautiful lighting, and mysterious beauty of it. It was interesting to feel such a spiritual feeling from the light in a sewer tunnel. The notes written by the MFAH curator beside the image gave words to the connection I felt with this artist and his work:

“The experience recalled the same feeling of helplessness he had felt 30 years earlier searching for a light in a cave near his home, or standing on a giant dune in the Sahara. In the darkness of the sewer system, he realized that he was the only one needing light, compelled to feel the existence of nature, the sublime.” (my bolding/italics).

My kind of guy.

Click here for the MFAH picture of the image. This excerpt from their catalog gives you a framework for Naoya’s work:

“Since the late 1980s, Hatakeyama Naoya has created interlocking series of photographs about Tokyo. He began photographing the limestone quarries from which the buildings of Tokyo are built. Then he photographed the rivers leading to and through the city, and finally, the tunnels beneath it. This picture is haunting beyond our knowledge of where it was taken. He has created a strange stage, awaiting both players and audiences.”

There is also an artist’s page on French Artnet, where there is this image, more of his work, , and a CV of the the artist reflecting the many projects he has worked on.

You’ll see on the French Artnet page that Naoya has also explored the art of seascapes. His approach and sensibility speaks to me; reflecting what I am drawn to capture in my own work….

How nice to unexpectedly find the inspiration of a kindred spirit…

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April 17, 2010

Notes from FotoFest 2010 Houston – Houston Center for Photography (HCP)

“Why images of American groups made before 1950? My rule…I like these photographs. Posses, clubs, teams, graduations, parades, rallies, klans, assemblies, ceremonies, choruses, and mobs are all here. I respond to images that have intense strangeness. This is not a definitive collection of photographs. I like these because they´re fun, and they resonate with me. For me that is the pleasure of collecting.” – W.M. Hunt, 2009

From the exhibit “RE: groups – American Photographs Before 1950” from W.M. Hunt´s Collection Blind Pirate

The Houston Center for Photography (HCP) has three exhibits for FotoFest 2010…The one that really charmed me was W.M. Hunt’s collection of group photos from before 1950. You can read the description of this exhibit on the HCP website, but you really can’t get the full impact of it until you’re actually there, standing in front of the photographs. Groups of students, employees, families, legislative groups…they’re all here, and shown together, they remind us of a use of the camera that we often take for granted and a life event that is truly part of the American consciousness.

There’s something about seeing all of these photographs in one place that made me want to go find all of my group photos, either taken by me or from my childhood school yearbooks, birthday parties, and travels. The exhibit made me nostalgic for the days of effortlessly belonging to a group, not trying, even resisting that group portrait because it seemed cheesy. There’s something elegant and respectful about these images…an acknowledgment of the power of groups.

Be sure to see the Ku Klux Klan group image. It’s simultaneously hilarious (they all have their hoods on, so you can’t see who’s in the picture! Why take a picture of people that you can’t see?) and frightening (not seeing who is underneath the hoods is the whole point of the Klan…anyone could be there, including your brother, next door neighbor, or 1st grade teacher).

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