EVE ARNOLD – PHOTOGRAPHER
This blog post is dedicated to Eve Arnold, a wonderfully brilliant female photographer that influenced many by her story telling and natural yet impactful imagy in every environment. She would have been 100 years old this year, but for ever she will live in a realm that I hope guides us all in our photographic careers.
Some of her most memorable subjects included Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Crawford, Jacqueline Kennedy, Margaret Thatcher, Malcolm X, and Queen Elizabeth II
“Eve Arnold, one of the first woman photojournalists to join the prestigious Magnum Photography Agency in the 1950s…” “Starting in 1951, when career women were a rarity, Arnold navigated distant countries and cultures, photographing horse trainers in Mongolia, factory workers in China and harem women in Dubai.” “Her photo essays appeared in feature news magazines and in the many books she compiled.” By Mary Rourke, Special to the Los Angeles Times
Eve Arnold
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AKI – MUSICIAN OF THE SHAMISEN
I met Akihiro Sakai on my way through the underground train heading downtown where I dropped off my card with a note on the back asking if he wouldn’t mind having his photograph taken as part of a story/series I am doing on artists. Shortly after I got a call from Take who was calling to translate for him… Aki only spoke on a few words in english.
I have been fascinated recently by my own process of the type of art I create, the environment in which it happens and the community that surrounds it. Hence my gravitation and intrigue by those that choose a stage where anyone can see, schedules are not dictated and earnings are unknown. Cultivating art without perameters can be truly liberating as I have found from my sculpture classes. As I turn my camera to Aki, I find that while watching him play the Shamisen and as I compose my shots, we form a synergistic wave that meets, matches and raises our collective artistry. It was so exciting to exchange creativity with another artist working in a totally different form.
Aki came from Japan with a one way ticket to San Francisco and $200.00 in his pocket. His goal… to make it to New York in one month to catch his one-way flight back to Japan. His first night was spent in Golden Gate park where he awoke to soaking clothes from the sprinkler system. This is when he went seeking help and meet up with Take who would house him for the next few weeks until he started his adventure hitch hiking across the US.
Here are some photos from our adventures the day we met up. It was a day to cherish as two random artists got to explore, share, understand, encourage and move together in a similar direction. Thank you Aki!
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Five Fingers
Why do they call them 5 fingers…? After all they are on our feet.
I am just picking up running as an extra activity until my shoulder/finger injury from climbing/surfing heals…maybe I might stick with it as I’ve found “off roading” to be a bit of an adrenaline rush… think hills, single track and forest running. I have a few other weaknesses that have hindered me in the past from really loving running like ACL, MCL and meniscus tears and lower back compression all from 30yrs of competitive sports not to mention SUPER high arches. So combining the newness of running with said injuries I figured giving the 10 Toe Shoe Socks a try.
As I put on my new hideous shoes and began to walk out the door…I thought to myself “should I wear other shoes until I get to the trail head so no one see’s me in these?” But I braved out the front door destined to not worry about being judged or looked at with a circus amusement in the eyes of passerby’s as they gazed at my bizarrely shaped shoes. One stop before running…LATTE!! I go into Peets and try to hide myself in a corner now realizing I have entered into a more trafficked area than the front of my house or the trail head. The woman working behind the counter comes around and over to me and says “how do you like those? my boyfriend has a pair and he swears by them.” I respond with a smile and embarrassed response of “Im not sold as it’s my first time out” followed by a cringe as I scurry away with my latte.
So off I go to GG Park for a trot through the dirt for a short and easy run/walk to break in my feet, calf and body to the new sensation of being without inches of cushion below my feet. WELL…. let me say a few things before I begin to laugh aloud at the sheer image of me today trying to run! They are good for posture and form… of which I could use more help in that department. I had a bit of a tight calf from running two days prior of which began to scream with a burning sensation as I started running in my new torcher mock socks. You want to watch out for random things on the trail that are perched and waiting for your new vibrams to tromp on like diamond shaped rocks, heroin needles and pricker bushes all of which become yet another obstacle on the course in GG Park. Uphill running in these things are amazing! Downhills, not so much unless you want to gingerly prance like a ballerina and float to the bottom… did I mention I like adrenaline rushes which would entail letting my full weight and cadence to speed up at such a rate I could barley keep my feet under me as I hurdle downward as fast as I possibly can. When these little suckers get wet, your feet get really cold. The other thing is that Sh*t kept getting stuck in between my toes!
Final verdict… will be good for clear paths, moderate running or sprinting on the flats and help with form and being sensitive to injury and weaknesses.
Architecture
I never thought I would be an architectural photographer. You might have said something familiar if you too are a photographer…”I never thought I’d be shooting x.”
The wonderful thing about what “I never thought I would be shooting” is that it aligns 100% with how I work as a fine artist.
I am magnetically drawn in and fascinated by structure, precision and the technical engineering that goes into making a space work.
Like my fine art, photography for me starts with rules and a basis for form then infuses dynamic story telling to create a artistic image, not just a photograph, that invites you “into” the room.
Interior Photography : DMA Architecture by SHAE ROCCO
FARINA – San Francisco, CA
I used to visit Farina quit often for brunch starting a few years back. As the other well know breakfast places developed extreme lines and a scene like Tartine, Universal Cafe, Zazie, Foreign Cinema and Mission Beach Cafe, I in turn had the pleasure of walking right up to a table outside at Farina, having a fresh cappuccino made within minutes, receiving first class service all the way. Isn’t that what you really want for breakfast…sunny outside spot, yummy coffee, great service and good food.
A few years have passed and even this little hidden brunch spot has developed quit a following. A friend of mine who is a great designer among other things was working there at the time. We had crossed paths working together years ago and so the conversation began…”what are you up too?” this lead to my being asked to take photos for the restaurant. I love capturing environments, the skilled craft involved, the energy and the essence of a place of business or intention of a subject… these are a few of the shots
Figuring it out…
Seems like 2011 has left me feeling a bit confused as to which direction to go… perhaps that’s because I have more than a few interests… going back to school, starting a non-profit, teaching, becoming a fine artist. My path in life is more similar to a Portuguese Man-of-War than anything else…although seemingly like a single entity, it is actually a colonial organism made up of many minuet individuals…extending itself through long intricate tentacles…
There is this one tentacle, photography, that has been the most extensive of them all and one I fill most of my time with. I recently started looking at my portfolio (website) and have realized that it is not at all capitalizing on what it is that I do best. When I look at it, I even get confused. So I’ve been contemplating this dilemma to try and come up with a way to capture what it is that I do best. Even when asked what I shoot, I try to quantify the many areas that I am skilled at in taking photographs. I inevitability get to a point of trying to define an array of seemingly non-cohesive subjects to my peers… many cannot understand how one person can do Architecture, Corporate Portraits, Advertising, Weddings and even Arial photography. I usually get a “nod” and a “ohhh, ok.”
So I think I’ve come up with a possible solution to link them all together in a way that will lead my audience to understand that I can be one thing to them while doing many. I don’t have to say I’m only “a architectural photographer” or only “a portrait photographer” etc…I feel more like a storyteller. I know there are many artists that tell stories and usually they do it through a specific means or medium, using the same formula to get similar results only to change but a few objects or material… for me I change it all, I speak through many mouths of art and many volumes of colors… I don’t want to be defined as one type of artist.
So the story goes… The photo above was taken the night before a photo shoot to test the lighting. Also, a few days before this image was captured, I was feeling old at 39yrs and mostly because my career seemed stale and uneventful as opposed to the adventures that were keeping me sharp in both body and mind. So I shaved the side of my head as a rebellious act to the pressure of society to conform to what a 39yr old woman should be…proper. But all I have ever wanted to do since I was 17yrs old, against my fathers words “you will never make money doing art!” was to peruse things that communicate and express so eloquently what words cannot…. sculpture, painting, music, photography, dance, etc…
I am grateful for this image and what it represents, I see a younger me. I see the 17yr old in art class where the seed was set, the 32yr old who abandoned a computer career to follow a dream…and the 39yrs old, realizing that no matter at what age, I will always have the vibrancy and tenacity to change what is in front of me…
Tutoring
Just a quick update on what’s been going on in my world. Yesterday I had my first experience tutoring young girls in grades 6th-9th and I have to say “I loved it!” One of the best memories I will take from the experience is something a young girl said to me at the end of the day “wow, I usually never remember things like that!” Her project was to measure peoples heights using centimeters with a US units ruler. Let it be known, for me metrics and conversions are sometimes difficult and unpleasant…why the U.S. cant convert?
So the conversions began! After she came back with the measurements in Inches, she then multiplied inches x 2.54cm to get the total height of a person in cm’s. So I let her do the long math a few times which proved to be time consuming and not to much fun for her.
2.56 x 62
= 157.5
After her third one, I showed her how she could make a short cut in doing the math using the US units ruler. If 1” = 2.56, then 12″ = 30.5. If someone is 5’2″ (as shown above) then you could just multiply 5′ x 30.5 + 2″ x 2.54 = height in cm. Now the math was simpler:
5 x 30.5 = 152.5
2 x 2.56 = 5
152.5 + 5 = 157.5
Now she saw the way to doing shorter math but I also had her guess average figures for someone’s height using the simple math. We went from long math, to short math to working with out pen and paper. She began to see how quickly she could figure out cm from inches by using averages.
At the end of the day and after working on other subjects the evening was coming to a close. We were laughing and talking about other topics during the final moments of clean-up. I paused for a second and asked her…”do you remember how many centimeters are in an inch?” She looked at me with a surprise and said 2 something… 2. 34…. 2.45… and finally she paused for a second and said 2.54. With a smile bigger than I could have hoped for, she said “I cant believe I remembered that, wow, I usually never remember things like that.”
I wanted to have fun on my first day and also take the mundane and sometimes boring tasks of school (measuring heights) and turn it into something that can be digestible and applied immediately. It goes without saying, I am looking forward to next week!!!!
SMART program
This organization is pretty amazing. Smart provides highly motivated, financially-disadvantaged students with access to educational opportunities, personal experiences and social support services in order to foster academic excellence and community engagement. They are focused on education as mentoring is an extension of additional support for the kids.
Yesterday I had a really great meeting at SMART about mentor possibilities. I found that from the research I’ve done about other mentor specific organizations, I could recommend broad ideas about additional support for both the mentors and men-tee’s in their program. What also stemmed from the conversation is that I might be able to help as a mentor and a tutor! Additionally, I would be really excited to participate in some way with the development of the mentoring aspect of there program. It’s all bringing me closer to my dreams. Finger prints here I come!
http://www.thesmartprogram.org/index.htm
Personal Work
What is personal work? How do you define what is personal? And what is work? They seem to have a conflicting reference to each other. If it’s personal than it’s not work. And if it’s work than it’s not personal. Or perhaps you work on your person and your person is the work. So for me this statement represents something of all combination’s.
My personal work is not what I go out to do to find pure enjoyment, because for me I am not working on my person. I am purely enjoying.
Lots of people ask “why don’t you photograph your outdoor adventures?” The truth is, I would never want to put my camera in between that which I am so purely enjoying and make it “work.” This is the best way for me to describe what it means for me to be personal (invested, interested, curious, discovery driven, enlightened by…etc.) and what it means to work (deliberate, dedicated, driven, focused, doubting, fearful…etc).
So here I show you a collage of images from a photo shoot that was suppose to encompassing change and be naturally lit, lifestyle driven, with open space and wider views. But what transpired and brought me to a completely different look was a last minute change and scramble for a new location 18hrs before call time. We were slated for a space that was big, open, warm, that had “natural light” capabilities and access to the brand we were interested in. What transpired was a small 4×4 room that had florescent lights, bad shelving units, beige carpet that ran up the walls and tinted green mirrors… but the shoot went on anyway.
I do believe that in the space of change there can come great opportunity, lessons to be learned and growth to be had. Three of us crammed into a dressing room that hadn’t been updated in 15yrs. Needless to say, we got to know each other pretty well and I was extremely happy about that. These are but a few of the images captured that day.
There are more images and they will be posted shortly. For now, these are the ones that I have worked on putting together so far. It still challenges me to look at these images and not want to discard them because I didn’t get to shoot it the way I wanted. There is also success in these images, something from nothing, constraints that did not shut down the shoot and connections and bonds that have a richness to them because of the circumstances. This is the definition of personal work for me.
Stlyist: Heather Sansky
Model: Sukhdeep Mann
Photographer: your’s truly
