Hisaji Hara's Photographic Portrayal of the Paintings of Balthus

When you think Amsterdam and art, one name springs to mind. Vincent Van Gogh. But it was the heavy, government marketing that turned me off seeing the work of the great artist in person. Thinking back it was almost mad not to take up the opportunity, but it was just unappealing. The Van Gogh Museum held huge rectangular signs that dominated the side of the building. It was almost like the Netherlands government saying this is art! You must conform and see this work. I am usually not so sensitive to my perceptions of such factors, but after my 'right to censor' project on globlisation, consumerism and new world order, it was hard to ignore. So I decided to turn my attention to more current artistes. Thankfully Amsterdam is a cultured city. Only a few streets down I was stopped in my tracks by the work of Hisaji Hara's Photographic Portrayal of the Painting of Balthus.

Perhaps it was the serenity of seeing the work at night through the window of the Reflex Modern Art Gallery, which stopped me in my tracks. Art was not on my agenda that night. I was too engrossed in exploring Amsterdam's nightlife. But I found his images arresting. I instantly connected with what the artist was trying to achieve. I could see that this was work perfected. It hit many buttons under scrutiny and is something that I desire to achieve; An understanding and input into the art community. A relief. So much for the Harris museum at Preston. This single series awakened me to the fact that I am starving of artistic nourishment. Literally starving. I live in a place populated by handy men with dim views of art. How can I continue to excel in this environment? "If you can't bring the mountain to muhammad, then bring mohammed to the mountain"

I found Hisaji Hara's Photographic Portrayal a display of artistic freedom that encapsulates a world that is separate from mine. One which determines its own rules and boundaries. Perhaps a private view of a fantasy or vision that I was invited to join. His still life's are delicate and use of monochromatic tones evocative, presented before my eyes as tasteful center pieces to finish any blank space. I think I will have to get my hands on some of Hara's work.

I later found out the full title of the work and researched it further. I found that the artist in which Hisaji was emulating causes some controversy. Some of Balthus paintings have featured young girls in erotically suggestive poses or situations. In Hara's images he has toned down the perversity, by introducing more acceptably aged Japanese women, rather than adolescents. The sexual suggestion if any for me, becomes more of an expression of Japanese values or culture. Below are some examples of Hisaji Hara's Photographic Portrayal of the Paintings of Balthus. I have included one comparison so that you can see how closely he has followed Balthus paintings. But also what alterations and interpretations Hisaji has placed on his own photographic portrayal.

Wedding distraction

Nothing like a wedding to distract you from your work. I got married! I have spent the last few months putting all my energy into getting married. I like to thank my good photo buddy Alex for capturing the wedding pictures on my big day that I will be posting a.s.a.p. I haven't decided to pack in the photography just yet and now I am back on the grind. So my main focus over the next few weeks is to have a really strong online presence that sings and dances at every end (if that makes sense). I want people to be able to go online and explore the world of domgoodphoto. I wouldn't say that its something hard to do, but I'm gonna need to put the work in. I'm almost building it from scratch. I'm quite happy that when you type my name into google my work comes up, but now I wish to work on campaigns to achieve my photographic ambition. Who knows, I could have all this online work done by the end of the week.

The wedding distraction did not go in vain as I discovered a few new things. Firstly the power of tumbler. I think nothing has brought me more up to date than tumbler. It single handedly opened up a world of other prolific photographers working on current trends which I find highly appealing. As you may recall 'After The Smoke' appealed to me when I worked with 'Sjambok' on my latest music video project. I loved After The Smoke's website designed by 'Rob Coin'. I wanted to create something similar for my own music projects. On closer inspection I noticed that he had used tumbler to create the site. Although I have not quite figured out how I will best use tumbler. I have began to explore it with a small sample of pictures. You can see how it unfold at http://domgoodphoto.tumblr.com/

Twitter. I have to finally embrace it. I have solely used facebook as my means to stay connected. However I have come to find that almost everyone who is half decent at something, is available on twitter. I will post my twitter link on the blog shortly when I have sorted out my twitter game later this week. domgoodphoto will have its own facebook page which will also launch this week.

A rant

Today must be a bad day or something because no matter who or where I try, I can not take any pictures I want. I had the idea of shooting some interesting shops such as Cigar, gun and tattoo shop and they all declined me taking pics. I never get such bad luck with these things. Now I need to rethink what will I shoot. Miffed am I. I wanted to impress with these images as I was set the task of getting some good photos. It almost makes me wonder If I'm on the cutting edge of photography for Preston. Probably not but these days people wont open up. Hide on the defensive. Thinking that the world is out to get them. Scared. Come on Preston open up, why does everything need to be planed. Whats the point of asking your permission if you gonna turn round and say no. I'm trying to improve my craft at a time when its easy to give up. Well I say no. I have not come this far to just have people turn me down. A good shoot would make me feel better.

Monika's family pics

Last week I was asked if I could do a shoot for my friend Monika. She wanted to send an acrylic print to her mother from her new family, while her sister and brother-in-law were still about from their visit to the new baby. The shoot was very much off the cuff as it was done in short notice. I wanted the shoot to be very casual as well because it was dealing with baby photography. Again studio cost would had proved too costly and almost unnecessary. As Monika wanted the windmill at Lytham to also feature in one of the pics. The shoot was done away from the comfort and warmth of her home. If only I had remember that its still the worse time of year to be shooting outside. It was freezing and blustery outside right on the coastline. Just made concentrating on the job in hand harder. Before the shoot it came to my mind that Monika's sister and brother-in-law did not speck english. It made it almost impossible to help them relax into the shoot. However by the end of the shoot I began to really enjoy the time I was spending with everyone, as I knew I could relax as the job in hand had been done. Bellow are my favs from the shoot. 

Yashicmat prints back from printers

My yashicamat prints have arrived back from the printers. Fabulous results? Nope. But hey at least the camera works. The shoot also doubled as a bit of a test shoot with the camera. Not to say I haven't used 120 before. The best way to test out the camera was to be on a shoot. With this camera it appears that I may have to think differently when using it. Apparently im a digital natural, but this has not been the case when I use this classic camera. Nothing to beat my self up about though. So what went wrong? Firstly it appears that the yashicamat underexposes by about 1.5 stops when I have used my 60d exposure meter. Meaning it has resulted in the images being too dark. Secondly the square format is not as forgiving compositionally. Bearing that in mind I can not wait to raise to this challenge again regardless of the cost. All together the one roll to buy, get developed and printed, plus postage cost is about £19. Thats £19 for just 12 shots! No wonder I also shot with my 60d as insurance, just incase of the worse. I used Fujifilm Digital Imaging Service to get my film developed and printed. They even gave me a digital copy of the images on cd. Looking at the prints I felt that perhaps their printers favored darker finishes when compared to the scanned reults. Or maybe scanner software (mine included) corrects images to achieve the best possible results. At least now I know what I have to do to achieve what I want. Again I feel a shoot coming on! Bellow are the actual scans from the pints that I took using the yashicamat. 

1st shoot of the year

So I had my 1st shoot this year with katie Dobson. Always a pleasure never a chore to work with her. The shoot came about after another photographer kept letting her down for one reason or another. So I decided to offer to do it for her instead. I just couldn't handle someone struggling to get photos done in front of me and not get involve. With this shoot it was a chance for me to see how the yashicamat would fair up for me to use for future vintage shoots. I didn't just want for it to gather dust as I would know in my hart that I was not pushing my craft forward to where I want. The quality of my product is where I'm heading and 120 still holds it own when it come to high quality imagery.

Planing for the shoot did have its set backs as choosing location proved tricker than intended, due to the cold weather and lack of funds to produce the shoot. All good stuff though as its a great refresher and reminder of the importance to keep shooting. It brings back the addiction to keep shooting. When in uni it was almost a forced given to shoot, shoot, shoot. But outside its my desire to produce at a higher level that makes me hold off from just shooting for the sake of it. Professionally the work comes and goes, which I am happy with. Creatively??? Am not worried? I have felt a new project coming on for ages now and it will be done when its ready.

What surprised me about the shoot was that I worked myself up. I wouldn't say it was nerves or apprehension, but it was along those line. I just didn't get it. I was in the car traveling to the shoot feeling sick, contemplating finding something to use as a sick bag. I just was not feeling myself. Really bizarre. All because I had worked myself up, over thinking the shoot I reckon. I just got to get out and shoot more. But I love the feeling regardless anyways because its all to do with photography.

The location we used for the shoot was Salisbury hall. A really fantastic location that I wouldn't hesitate to use again. We had 1 hour to work with but for me I can create a whole shoot with in that time, no problem. I was using both the 60d and yashicamat as I wanted to have at least some digital pics as insurance and for instancy. I was using the 60D as an exposure meter as I wasn't going to rely on the exposure meter for the 1950's yashicamat. It likely needed calibrating and I just don't have the time for that just yet.

 It was so delightful working with the yashicmat. Its square frame just give a different perspective to an image and thing looked great through its focusing plate. I conducted the shoot be hand holding the camera at about 1/40 sec. Had I have not been so distracted by getting myself worked up I would have the good sense to just have used the tripod regardless. I only thought this after the shoot when reflecting on my performance. I still feel that I should be ok regardless but will rectify this when using the yashicamat again.

I am currently waiting on the results from the yashicamat images as the have been sent off for processing. In the mean time bellow are the digital images that I took on the shoot.

 

Ambition

With a new year comes new ambition. My latest is the most ambitious yet. While talking over what myself and a friend wanted to achieve in life. I brought up a life time ambition of leaving my mark on the world. Creating something to be remembered by. Something that others can look back on, something that could be studied from a hardback book for years to come. I want to be one of those greats who create something memorable. Photography is going to be my key to achieving this. I wished to create an image that can be seen from outer-space! Wow, exciting or what! Why the hell not think big? If you don't then you never achieve big.

So the question is what type of image do I produce to be seen from outer-space? I came up with a message of world peace as this would be most worth while doing. I want to create a large image of a hand peace sign gesture as I felt it also was a reflection of my own personality, as its something in which I do from time to time. Thinking about the whole idea made me so happy, even chuckling to myself about it. I absolutely would love to create this image and I will.

Although I would not like to give too much away just yet on how I am going to achieve this. I did have a look at existing images that can be viewed from space. There was a number of results that came up which can be seen from the link below.