“It's a Poor Sort of Memory That Only Works Backwards”

“It's a Poor Sort of Memory That Only Works Backwards”, originally uploaded by JWILLOME.

Oh, dang, I just saw that Jason's posted photos of the paintings from his show this weekend. This one's my favorite, and of course it was the first to sell. Damn richies. Regardless, see them all here. Congrats, J!

New lens

danka 1, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

To commemorate passing the 60,000 frame mark on my 20d, I present to you shot #60,001. No joke, I've clicked the shutter on my camera 60,000 times in less than three years. Hard to believe.

I also bought myself a new lens (not as a tribute, just by coincidence). It's a 35mm, f/2. Much sturdier than the other low-light lens I'd been using, much better glass, too. Too bad the auto-focus gears whir louder than any lens I've ever had.

Anyways, the point of getting this lens is to mimic Henri Cartier-Bresson. Yes, I'm fully aware that I introduced a post claiming to imitate effing Cartier-Bresson with a picture of my girlfriend's cat. The point is, HCB used a 50mm, f/1.0 super-luminous Leica lens for nearly all of his portraits, and quite possibly, for most of his amazing body of work. It seems to be an ideal lens for creating a noticeable depth of field (hard to do with wide-angle lenses) while still be versatile enough to capture a larger scene with many complementary compositional elements. It's a great lens for just shooting, in the amatuer sense, free from the professional constraints of "getting the shot." There's a certain immediacy to a 50 that's hard to come by anywhere else.

I learned to shoot in high school on an old 50mm, f/1.4, where I found all this out for myself. So one of my first purchases for the 20d was a super-cheap 50mm. But thanks to the "digital zoom" effect, my 50mm performs like a 70-75mm. That's too much zoom.

I made do for a while, but finally had to get the 35. It behaves like a 50, and at f/2, it's not too bad in low light or portraits, like this one that Danka so graciously sat for right after I pulled the lens out of the box. Next stop: international acclaim.

Entry #444 in an ongoing series

splat, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

Campaigning against any restrictions on non-flash photography in museums. There were some cool sculptures in another part of the Blanton, but whoops, private collection — no pics allowed.

The art is to be seen, not remembered!

moma from above, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

Pictures from my day at the San Francisco MOMA are now up. These scrooges don't allow photography anywhere except in the atrium, even going so far as to make me check my 20d. They also station staff in literally every room to make sure you're not taking pictures or using your cell phone. Actually, I'm okay with the cell phone policy. But still, you'll notice that I saw a massive exhibit on Anselm Kiefer and have nothing to show for it, save a few fading memories. What a load of bull.

Anyways, at least the Optio came through in the clutch when I could get some shots off.

Tiii-iiime is on my side

apprehension, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

Amanda volunteered recently to help out with a thing called Deaf Act. It's a theater program for deaf kids around middle school age, maybe a bit younger. Tonight they debuted "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" at the Texas Union theater. The folks in charge of the production had asked for as many volunteer photogs as they could get. They got at least four of us tonight. I think that's almost as many as were at Barack Obama last weekend.

Earlier in the day, when Amanda asked me to shoot, I immediately went through the excuse rolodex, with an early season Spurs-Cavs immediately jumping to mind. But I went of course and, wouldn't you know it, ended up getting some great stuff. The picture above, though, gets at something I wish I could consistently capture: a sense of timelessness. Reid was the first to apply that term to one of my photos, and I think it pins down the special capacity of photography to record something that is simultaneously universal and not generic. Like a good essay, now that I think about it.

Rebel with a lens

forbidden photo, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

They didn't allow photography in this exhibit at the Hirshhorn, so this photo is a bit taboo. Since the guy specialized in some large-format, super-detailed images, I guess I can understand that you might want to protect the images from forgeries ... but it still really hacks me off.

Museums and galleries are rich, rich environments for artists to work from, to draw from, to imitate, and to recreate. There's something inherently interesting in the juxtaposition of art and viewer, or the appreciation of art from the many ways it can be displayed. I stumbled onto this in photographing sculpture, but that is most likely just because of my interest in representing 3-D forms in photos. Given that photography has long incorporated existing art — especially the art of the masses, advertising — in unintended and unexpected ways into new works, the caution seems especially dubious. Restricting photographs from a photography exhibit is like restricting charcoal and notepads from a Picasso exhibit, and if I'm ever lucky enough to have my own gallery show, photography will be encouraged.

There are probably considerations I'm not aware of, especially on the legal or business sides of art, but it seems to me that photography restrictions are a silly precaution that negatively affects orders of magnitude more viewers and supporters of art than those who want to abuse the privelege.

(Also, Kriston, do you happen to remember the name of this photography exhibit? It was the one by the Japanese photog who also took long exposures of drive-in movie theaters. I've lost the show brochure I picked up.)

UPDATE: This guy has some blurry photos from the exhibit that I'm not sure how he snuck — there were security guards all over the place when I was there — that give you an idea of a few of the interesting photographic possibilities at this exhibit alone.

UPDATE II: The photographer is Hiroshi Sugimoto. Thanks, Joel.