Joni Sternbach: Abandoned

Joni Sternbach's Abandoned portfolio.

Josef and Katharina Hoflehner: Ross Island

Josef and Katharina Hoflehner's Ross Island portfolio.

Chip Forelli: Portfolio 2

Chip Forelli's Portfolio 2.

Tom Millea's Death Valley Portfolio

Tom Millea's Death Valley portfolio.

Mihai Mangiulea: Shadow Line

Mihai Mangiulea's moving Shadow Line portfolio.

Peter Merts: Solitude

Peter Merts' beautiful Solitude portfolio.

Gloria Baker Feinstein: Concentration Camp Series

Gloria Baker Feinstein's moving Concentration Camp Series portfolio.

Tamaki Obuchi: UTAKATA

Tamaki Obuchi's UTAKATA portfolio, a wonderful collection of floral images.

Think Less, Photograph More: Part II

What exactly is an artist? Elvis was an artist. He used his creativity, his imagination, his genius to produce something from nothing. Sure, he had influences, and maybe even borrowed a trick or two from those who came before him, but he missed it all together and conjured up something that was uniquely his. Countless Elvis impersonators may be able to “conjure up the spirit of the King,” but few would consider them artists.

The other thing about Elvis: he didn’t set out to be the King. He was the right man at the right time; his talents and perspectives found a niche and it all just sort of happened, the immensity of the wave catching everyone—including Elvis himself—by surprise. In other words, he didn’t think about it, he just did it. If he had put more though into what he was doing at the time, we probably wouldn’t be hearing his rendition of “Hound Dog” in endless rotation on oldies stations today. Not to mention the thousands of Elvis invokers in Vegas and elsewhere who would have missed their true calling.

“Think.” A child does something stupid, and an adult says, “What were you thinking?” or “You need to think before you do something like that!” Thinking is a good thing—or so we were taught. Should you go with the 30-year mortgage or the 15-year? Should you stay in your current job, or take the offer you just got from the other company? Should you do your grocery shopping today after work, or on the weekend? You carefully weight the pros and cons, and come to an informed decision. You think.

But is it a universal truth that thinking is better than non-thinking? We all know it is possible to “over-think” a problem, but where does it make sense to “not-think”?

In art.



(originally written August 4th, 2004, sitting on the shore of Rock Creek Lake in the Eastern Sierra)

[ photograph above: Kelso Dunes, 1998 ]

Think Less, Photograph More: Part I

"Consciousness sucks. I think, therefore I suffer."

-- from the movie "Being John Malkovich"

A friend of mine once told me the story of his community college photography professor pursuing his “life work.” Like many photographers, this unnamed professor idolized Ansel Adams, and one image in particular: Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico. It became his obsession to reproduce this masterpiece through his own lens. For a dozen or more years, he traveled to Hernandez; he found the exact spot where Adams has composed the original; he timed his trips so that the moon would be in the same phase and position; and then he waited, waited, waited for the exact same conditions. He eventually got what he wanted, coming very close to duplicating that legendary photograph.

What a profound waste of time and energy! I like that classic image, too, but I spent $50 and got a nice framed print to hang above my fireplace. While this professor was trying to duplicate the image himself, I had a dozen or so productive years as a photographer, visiting many fascinating locales and producing thousands of images (all of them unique). Few of those images—maybe none, actually!—could compare to Moonrise, but they were 100% mine, and producing them helped me grow as an artist.


(originally written August 4th, 2004, sitting on the shore of Rock Creek Lake in the Eastern Sierra)

[ photograph above: Keeler, 2003 ]

Is There Anything Left to Photograph?

"Everything that could possibly be invented, has already been invented."

-- Robert Thoms, U.S. Patent Office, 1892

Despite the prophetic wisdom of Mr. Thoms, a few more patents were issued in the 112 years since he said that. A few things happened in the automotive, aerospace, computer, and telecommunications industries, for example.

As a photographer, I've heard people say there is nothing left to photograph. Yet tens of millions of new, unique images are still produced worldwide on a daily basis.

If you go to a location where classic images have been produced in the past, it's important to approach it with the right attitude. Walk away from the classic vistas, the scenic viewpoints, the places you've seen done better by countless other photographers. Seek something different. Follow your own path. You'll find that in a place that's been "all photographed out", there are still billions of opportunities to produce new images uniquely your own.

[ photograph above: Iris Meadow, 2004 ]

Brian Wilson

"I sit and I write automatically. I don't really try to write. My subconscious mind takes over and writes the songs for me. Songs come very easily for me. When I'm inspired, it takes me 20 minutes to write a song."

-- Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, 2004

[ photograph above: Big Bear Lake, 2004 ]

The Thinking Trap

"Do less thinking. Do more photography."

(from my journal, August 4th, 2004, sitting on the shore of Rock Creek Lake in the Eastern Sierra)

Unfortunately, I didn't follow my own advice on that trip--and ended up writing a long artcle called "Think Less, Photograph More". I hope to start typing up this article soon and publish it in pieces in this blog over the next week or so.

[ photograph above: Cabazon, 2002 ]

Color vs. Black and White

"Photographing a subject in color is an attempt to capture reality; photographing that same subject in black and white is an attempt to capture essence. Since everyone sees in color, but everyone has his or her own interpretation of reality, using color photography in an attempt to capture reality can be a difficult, frustrating exercise. By instead using a black and white palette, the photographer can break free from reality and concentrate on the essence of the subject."

(from my journal, January 10th, 2002)

[photograph above: Still Life, 2003 ]

Essence and Fuzzy Logic

"One of the concepts of fuzzy logic is 'the whole in the part,' which in my interpretation means that the essence of a whole, complete object is contained within a piece of the object. For example, an apple is an apple; take a bite out of it, and it is incomplete, but it is still an apple. Is the bite you took out of it also an apple? Depends on your interpretation."

(from my journal, January 3rd, 2003)

A great introduction ot fuzzy logic is a book called "Fuzzy thinking" by Bart Kosko.

[ photograph above: Kelso Dunes, 2002 ]

Inspiration vs. Information

"Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask 'how,' while others of a more curious nature will ask 'why.' Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information."

--Man Ray

[ photograph above: San Simeon, 2002 ]

Visual Communication

"I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way--things I had no words for."

--Georgia O'Keeffe

[ photograph above: Garrapata, 2002 ]

Pictures of the Soul

"Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye; it also includes the inner pictures of the soul."

--Edvard Munch

[ photograph above: Point Lobos, 2002 ]

Cameras I've used over the Years

First off, it's important to understand I'm not an equipment junkie, but in fact the antithesis of an equipment junkie. I could spout off quite a bit about the equipment cult, but will save that for another blog... ;-)

That said, I often think about some of my old cameras, and am sad that I sold some of them over the years--either to raise a little cash, or clean out a drawer. Here's my list of cameras I've used over the years to do my photography.

Brownie. My first camera, a hand-me-down, somewhere around 1973. This took 120 (?) roll film. It lasted all of about 5 rolls, when I got my first....

Instamatic. I believe it was an Agfa, in 1974. Used 126 cartridges--remember those? Fun little camera. When I started taking photography class in middle school, my parents though I needed something a little more serious and bought me a...

Yashica Rangefinder. Awesome little camera, in great condition although it was thoroughly used. If you've never used a 35 mm rangefinder, you probably don't understand the cult following they have. There's just something magical about them; they are beautiful machines. But of course I didn't have enough appreciation for it at the time, all I wanted was an SLR. But not being able to afford an SLR, I scrounged and was eventually able to just barely afford a...

Cosmorex SLR. What an amazing piece of Soviet steel this thing was. Taking a photograph with a Cosmorex is almost like holding a Humvee up to your forehead an waiting for the click. The light meter wasn't TTL, it was a large solar panel (not unlike that seen on a the old Mir space station) on the front of the prism housing where you are used to seeing the words "Nikon" or "Pentax". But it worked, and it was very rugged and took my constant abuse. I never sold this camera (probably because nobody would have bought it), and supposedly it's in a box somewhere in a storage shed at my sister's house in Nevada. Maybe someday she'll find it and I'll get to mess around with this Russian diamond in the rough again. Since the Cosmorex used standard Pentax screw-mount lenses, I had to carefully choose my SLR "upgrade" so I would just be replacing the body, and ended up with a...

Yashica SRL. Good camera, a lot lighter than the Cosmorex, had TTL metering. It lasted quite a few years, considering it was already well-used by the time I bought it. It did take some abuse, too. It followed me across four continents, and even survived being dropped on the marble floor of the airport in Guatemala City when my strap broke. The meter started going wacky, and I learned to work around it, eventually getting good at shooting without a light meter. Sold it at a garage sale for $30 in 1984, right after I found a department store having a 4-hour sale and got an insanely good deal on a brand new...

Nikon FG. This was a workhorse from 1984 until 1999. It had to be rebuilt once when the mirror finally gave out on a Central Coast trip around 1993. I will never sell this camera, but will also never use it again. It is now holy, and some day may reside on a small shrine in my living room, but for now collects dust in a drawer. In December 1999 it was replaced with an...

HP C200. My first digital camera, a Christmas present. What, HP--I thought they made computers? 1 megapixel. Cheap. light, easy to use, and all-around awesome. It really changed the way I photograph; it felt so free to run around clicking away, not having to change film (getting hundreds of images on a memory card), and not having to spend a cent on developing. I was making *and selling* some pretty amazing photographs, with a 1 megapixel point-and-shoot digital camera! But eventually I needed more, and in May 2003 decided on the...

Nikon Coolpix 5700. The main criticism of this camera (not by me, but by many others) is that it's a "digi-cam", not a true DSLR. That is, when you look through the viewfinder, instead of looking at an image projected on ground glass, you are looking at an image captured on the light-sensitive chip and displayed on a screen similar to when you use a video camera. In some respects, I like that better than ground glass. I can plug a monitor (TV) into my camera, and frame my image on the large screen--almost like using a view camera. It lets me shoot in B & W, and *see* through the viewfinder in B & W. Try that with a DSLR! At 5 megapixels it's certainly not state-of-the-art, but it's close and I don't see a pressing need for better quality. It lacks interchangeable lenses, but the zoom lens that comes with it (after all these years of photography, my first zoom lens) is an amazing piece of glass. I did have some trouble with this camera off and on for about a year, where it would suddenly start over-exposing images to the point where they were solid white. But I figured out this was clumsy fingers accidentally pushing the wrong buttons and re-setting the exposure on the camera. They now make an 8700 model--same camera, but 8 megapixels instead of 5. This camera will probably suit me for another 2 or 3 years, after which it will probably be time to move to a Nikon DSLR, although I would not rule out another digi-cam. It took me about a year to become comfortable and productive with this camera, and I hate to think of losing another year trying to adjust to another new camera.

Those were (are) my primary cameras. Other cameras I have used over the year include:

Nikon EM. A great back-up/second body during the Nikon FG years. Controversial because it was Nikon's first all-plastic body. Very lightweight. Surprisingly good camera.

Nikon Action Touch. Bought on a whim in the late 1980s in Hawaii, this became my wife's primary camera but was used by me in certain situations--not just for underwater photography, but also for mountaineering trips. This camera died a couple years ago, and it was a sad day. One of the best cameras Nikon ever made--and that's saying a lot.

Polaroid. Yes, I owned a Polaroid for a while. Experimented with it, but didn't think much of it.

These next three cameras are graphic arts cameras I used while employed in the camera department at a large communications company while working my way through college.

Deadliner. The Deadliner had to be one of the funkiest "cameras" ever made. It was in essence a very large photocopy machine, which photocopied paste-up art onto plastic "blankets" which were then heat-transferredto large metal plates that could be used directly on the printing presses. There was no intermediate step of a film negative which had to be exposed onto a light-sensitive plate. It was designed for very high throughput operations, which we were, and the quality wasn't that great (which was OK for our application--printing large quantities of free publications on newsprint). In off times, I did experiment a little by taking some of my high-contrast work and burning it onto the back (silver) side of some plates. The effect might have been pretty cool had it not been for the fact that the image itself was done in a special photocopy-like toner that at best came out as a dark gray but never got to a nice black. Like all technologies I used in the pre-press darkroom 20 years ago, this has gone the way of the Dodo Bird. If I ever die of cancer, it will be because of all of the strange chemicals I was exposed to using this camera.

Stat Camera. This camera was your standard camera used to make copies of line art as well as turn continuous-tone prints into halftones, all for use in paste-up. It was about 4 feet tall. The most fun I ever had with this camera was when I stuck my head onto the copy board and hit the exposure button. Of course I had to close my eyes because the camera had it's own lighting system and would have blinded me. The resulting photograph was then copied 4-up, hand colored in a simple geometric pattern with highlighter pens, and turned in as a "self-portrait" for my art class. Got an "A" on that assignment.

????. I don't even know what to call this camera, but it was pretty cool. The entire thing was about 15 feet long, 7 feet high, 5 feet wide. It had a large bed where you placed paste-up artwork; you pressed a button and the bed then titled at a 90 degree angle. The image was then exposed (through a lens as big as your head) on a large sheet of film and automatically sent through a large film processor. So basically you stuck the artwork in the front, pressed a button, and a few minutes later the developed, dried negative plopped out the back. A little more complicated than that, but that's a good overview. The film came on large rolls about 24 inches wide. When this camera ran out of film, you had to open a full-sized door, step into a chamber about the size of a phone booth, memorize the position of everything, then turn off the light and load the new roll of film (which weighed about 30 pounds) entirely by feel. On more than one occasion, I would run out of film, go to change it, only to be denied because the door was locked from the inside. Seems some employees had found the film changing room to be the perfect place to hide and snort cocaine during work hours. It *was* the 80s, after all. Instead of snorting cocaine, I used my free time to shoot large negatives of my high-contrast photographs with this camera. The negatives were poster-sized and I could then contact print them onto large pieces of photo paper. I still have a few of these prints around the house; they've held up surprisingly well considering that was almost 20 years ago, and the processes we were using were far from archival (in that environment, a negative or a print only had to last until the press run was done, which was usually a few hours to a few days).

[ photograph above: Mt. Whitney, 1995 -- taken with the Nikon Action Touch! ]

The Myth of TIFF

OK, that's a pretty provocative statement--it's no myth, TIFF/RAW offers superior image quality blah blah blah... What is a myth is that you *must use* TIFF/RAW if you are a *serious* digital photographer.

When I first started using digital 5 years ago, I used JPEG because--well, there was no other option on my camera at the time! My style of photography was particularly well suited for JPEG, and in fact my style even became enhanced because of this so-called limitation. (Note: that's what art is all about, overcoming limitations and adversity; take away all the limitations, and you've taken away all incentive for creativity.)

When I "graduated" to a better digital camera that supported TIFF/RAW, did I switch? Briefly. A few images exposed in super-deluxe mode didn't look noticeably better, and took up half my hard drive (slight exaggeration) to boot (minor attempt at geek humor).

The real quality test is enlargements. All of my current work looks great at 8" by 10" and 11" by 14", and most of it does just fine at 16" by 20" as well.

Beyond this, a good photograph is not always a sharp photograph. There are plenty of razor-sharp images out there not worth printing, and conversely there are plenty of fuzzy/out of focus images out there which are classic. Probably the biggest concern people have out there is that the JPEG compression algorithm introduces "artifacts" and unwanted textures/patterns.

Yeah, in the old "film" days, we had a term for this: it was called "grain". There are people who spend their lives trying to get an image not just razor sharp, but so that grain in not visible. There are others who

think the grain adds a nice texture to an image, and embrace grain as a positive element of working with film. I'm firmly in this later group. Grain is good.

JPEG is, to me, the digital equivalent of film grain. I love it. It adds a certain gritty texture to many of my images, and this has become an important element of my personal style. Plus it lets me fit a hell of a lot more images on my memory cards!

[ photograph above: Rock Creek, 2004 ]

Eastern Sierra Adventures

I just finished posting close to 60 photographs (in the new work section of my web site) taken in the Eastern Sierra over the course of about a week this past August. To go along with the images, I thought I'd share some random thoughs on the trip.

I spent most of the week camping alone. That was both a good thing and a bad thing. It was nice to get away, and it was really nice to talk to other people again when it was over.

I got the last campsite at Rock Creek Lake. Lucky? Maybe. But it had no shade, which turned out to be a problem: dawn and dusk were spent doing photography, and the daylight hours were supposed to be spent "lounging" around the campsite. The days instead became a never-ending search for shade.

On the first morning, I woke up well before sunrise in order to eat and get organized before heading off to Little Lakes Valley, one of the most amazingly beautiful spots in California if not the world. It was COLD...my water bottle was about half frozen. I turned on my stove, got some water boiling for oatmeal, huddled close to the burner for warmth--and then my stove exploded! Luckily I escaped injury, but there's nothing like a propane explosion in the dark to wake you up. And luckily I was able to rig up my small propane heater for use as a makeshift stove, so I had fairly warm food for breakfast and dinner the remainder of the trip.

This is the first photography trip where I took my laptop. Dumping my memory cards after each session not only gave me room to shoot many more photographs, but I had time to organize all the files and even pre-process many images, saving lots of hours in front of the computer when I got home. However, one of the two batteries failed almost immediately (maybe due to the cold?), so the laptop wasn't utilized as much as I had wished.

I did a lot of thinking during the days, and a lot of writing in my journal--most of it about photography. Originally I had planned to "clean up" the essays on photography and try to get them published in a good photography magazine like Lenswork or (...???), but instead they will eventually end up being posted here in this blog.

One of my memory cards failed on the trip, while shooting in the aspen forest around Iris Meadow at dawn. About 30 photographs were lost to the ether. This is only the second time in almost 5 years of digital photography where I've had a memory card fail on me--and coincidentally, both times were at dawn at a temperature between 30 and 35 degrees. This time, I was able to reformat the card when I got home (it wouldn't reformat on my laptop--different operating system maybe?) and the card is now fuly functional again.

As if the stove situation wasn't bad enough, on the final day of the trip, my car exploded. Well, it didn't actually "explode"; maybe "melted down" is a better description. The car was on it's last leg anyway, and had a number of issues that needed to be addressed when I got home. But about 12 miles north of Mammoth, all hell started to break loose. I managed to limp into Bishop with a broken axle and blown power stearing pump without assistance from a tow truck. A new car was in the cards anyway, this just forced my hand by a few weeks/months.

This trip was a combination of visiting new areas (the old buildings at Red Mountain and the charcoal kilns at Owens Lake, for example) as well as areas I had been to before (such as Little Lakes Valley), but hopefully with a new prespective on the old. At the conclusion of the trip, I had deemed it a failure photographically. After thinking about it for a couple of weeks, I realized my initial conclusion was probably poisoned by the bad memories of the propane stove exploding in my face and my car's axle giving out underneath me. In the final analysis, the trip produced a bounty of fantastic images--some of which you can see on my web site.

[ photograph above: Iris Meadow, 2004 ]

Details on the Visions and Perspectives Show in December

The "Visions and Perspectives" at Gallery SOHO in Pomoma, California features the work of five photographers:

Matt Artz ( www.mattartz.com )

Dorothy Brunell ( www.DotPhotographs.com )

Porfirio (Porf) Aguilar

Sindi Diane Wasserman ( www.butterfly-creations.com )

William David Coxon


Location:

300-A South Thomas St.
Pomona, CA 91766

Here's a map.


Schedule:

Saturday, Dec. 4th, 2004, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. -- open
Sunday, Dec. 5th, 2004, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. -- open

Thursday, Dec. 9th, 2004, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. -- open
Friday, Dec. 10th, 2004, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. -- open
Saturday, Dec. 11th, 2004, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. -- open
Sunday, Dec. 12th, 2004, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. -- open

Thursday, Dec. 16th, 2004, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. -- open
Friday, Dec. 17th, 2004, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. -- open
Saturday, Dec. 18th, 2004, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. -- open
Sunday, Dec. 19th, 2004, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. -- open

Thursday, Dec. 23th, 2004, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. -- open
Friday, Dec. 24th, 2004, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. -- open
Saturday, Dec. 25th, 2004, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. -- closed (Christmas Day)
Sunday, Dec. 26th, 2004, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. -- open


[ photograph aboce: Madison, Wisconsin, 2004 ]

More New Work

I posted some more new work tonight, mostly images I made while visiting Kelso Dunes in the East Mojave earlier this year. Go to new work and scroll down to about the bottom third of the page, there are about 20 new images.

[ photograph above: LVM, Madison, Wisconsin, 2004 ]

Updates to www.mattartz.com

Many updates have been posted to www.mattartz.com.

New work section has been added, with a number of photographs from Big Bear Lake, Wisconsin, and La Jolla

A link to this blog has been added

New catalog section has been added

New books section has been added

....and more are on the way, so check back soon!

[ photograph above: Big Bear Lake, 2004 ]

Death Valley: Eighteen Photographs Now Available!

My electronic book, "Death Valley: Eighteen Photographs", is now available for free download. This is a PDF document, and it's over 6 MB, so don't try it on dialup.

[ photograph above: Mosaic Canyon, Death Valley National Park, 2003 ]

Missions of the Southwest

Since completing my first electronic book of photographs, Death Valley: Eighteen Photographs, I've now started production of a second electronic book: Missions of the Southwest. It will be a compilation of about 35 of my favorite images from the various missions I've photographed through California and Arizona. Look for it on my web site some time in late 2004 or early 2005.

[ photograph above: Mission San Gabriel, 2001 ]

Christmas Artisan's Festival

I just set up my booth for the Christmas Artisan's Festival at Gallery SOHO in Pomona, which runs all this month. It's just a 10 by 10 (or more like 8 by 10) space, with 9 framed photographs on the wall, a table with two trays of about 500 mounted images, and another table with about 25 more framed images. All small stuff too--4 by 5 to 5 by 7 photographs on 8 by 10 to 10 by 13 mounts. I'm saving all my "larger" stuff for the "Visions and Perspectives" show next month.

[ photograph above: Artisan's Christmas Festival, Booth #16, Gallery SOHO, November 2004 ]

Death Valley: Eighteen Photographs

In February 2003 I spent about a week in in the desert, mostly in Death Valley, with photographer and friend Steve Fibonacci. It was an amazing week, and resulted in many wonderful photographs (some of which can be seen here: Death Valley Portfolio).

A couple months afterwards, I assembled a collection of 18 photographs from that trip and prototyped a small book called "Death Valley: 18 Photographs". Originally, it was going to be limited to 15 hand made copies--each of the 18 images would be an actual photograph mounted on the book page, signed and numbered in pencil. After printing most of the photographs, and many of the pages on card stock, the project just sort of died. But the design was done, the Introduction was written, and Steve even wrote a great Forward for the piece.

Just recently I found the files on my computer, and decided to instead publish this book as a PDF file and make it freely available on my web site. With any luck, the book will be completed and available on the web some time this weekend! I've also started work on a second electronic book...more on that later.

[ photograph above: Mesquite Flat Dunes, Death Valley National Park, 2003 ]

Imagination

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

--Albert Einstein

[ photograph above: Mission Carmel, 2002 ]

Wendy Toy

Wendy Toy was originally going to participate in the "Visions and Perspectives" photography show Gallery SOHO next month, but has dropped off the list of participants. But I thought I'd still share a link to some of her work:

http://www.pvaa.net/toy.html

Speaking of the the "Visions and Perspectives" show, in a few days I'll hopefully have all of the information (exact dates & times, updated list of participants) and will publish that here.

[ photograph above: Kelso Dunes, 2002 ]