It's hard to believe, but in just over two weeks from this moment I will be back in my house in L.I.. Being so close to the end of this "journey" is making me realize all the things I wish I had done, especially with my photography. I feel like it took me so long to settle in that I sorda forgot to set any real goals for myself in terms of specific projects and places and things that I want to photograph. In light of that, I have set for myself a couple of specific projects I wish to complete before I leave.
1) Photograph Portobello road at least a little each day (I realized how much of a jerk I am for NOT doing this all along, as I do work there 3 days a week).. I want to shoot at LEAST one roll of film and 100 digital photos. Actually I came up with a really cool idea of photographing every store front (in order) and then printing them out individually and hanging them as a border around my room next year.
2) Tree portraits.. let me explain: As some of you know, I sorda have a thing for trees. And since I've been here my love has extended WAY beyond old oak trees because the trees in the UK are ridiculously cool. On my free days I go to different parks (Hyde is by far my fav), tripod and all and scope out cool trees. Probably sounds kind of lame in this explanation but hopefully the pics will prove otherwise (I've been doing this in film so I dont have the pics quite yet)

"Viagra?" March 23, 2008 - Prague

"Never too old to look Fabulous" March 23,2008 - Prague

March 23, 2008 - Prague

Not too sure about the cropping this last one

All of these were shot in Prague on March 23rd, 2008

Well I was hoping to do a bunch of photoshopping tonight ( I really want to start tackling my Prague pics before I get my 3 rolls of film back), but for some reason my Adobe bridge wont open.. so I'm going to do a bit of writing instead. I was lucky enough today to meet with the editor of a photo magazine which is completely for/about freelance photographers. To be honest I was very nervous about the situaion because it was really the first time showing my portfolio to anyone who would give me any real feedback. Also, I know I'm not usually very good about talking about my own work and was very worried about having to explain it to someone who knew nothing about me or what I've been doing. In the end I think I did a rather good job (or at least they seemed to at least not be disgusted by my work or what I said), and I really learned a lot. We actually had a very relevent conversation about doing what you WANT and not just whats convenient. This is an issue I've been thinking about quite a bit lately as college is quickly coming to an end. Unfortunately at some point I'm going to have to decide whether I am actually going to try and pursue some sort of career in the arts rather than simply following my original career path of highschool math teacher. This decision is something that I think about on a daily basis, and quite frankly it scares me to death. I've always sorda thought that attempting to pursue a career in photography would be as pointless as trying to become a supermodel, because it would never happen. However, I was given a thread of hope today with a bit of interesting advice that if you have an ounce of talent (which apparently I do?) and work as hard as you possibly can (day and night, NO excuses), then you make it.. because theres no other option. I dont know if thats true or not, but I sorda like it so I'm going to believe it.
Not sure where I'm going with this exactly, and I dont want to ramble too much...
All in all I think today was a really good experience in contact making, talking about my work, and taking critisism on it.. and yea, I still have NO idea what I'm going to do when I get out of college but I DO know that I have to do whats going to make me happy. Hopefully I can figure out what that is.

Yesterday I finally went to the Vanity Fair exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery, which showed photos featued in the magazine dating from 1913 to the present. It was really interesting to see how photography has advanced and how the quality of the photos has changed so much. I was mainly excited for the show because I knew it would contain a couple of my favorite artists: annie Leibovitz, Irving Penn. Annie Leibovitz's work was absolutely incredible, as always. I love how she can capture A star's personality in just one photo, and the incredible statements she makes with single shots (i.e. the iconic nude, pregnant photo of Demi Moore).. she never ceases to amaze me.
What I'm most excited about though is the new artists which I had never heard of prior to the exhibit. One photographer in particular Herb Ritts, really caught my eye at the show, and when I looked him up after I was even more pleased. You can see a bunch of his photos HERE. What I really like about him is his use of male nudes, which can be surprisingly hard to come by. I love how he intertwines two people (or more) together to create a beautiful sort of statue that simply becomes about the beauty of skin and bodies, and the lighting in all of his shots is phenomenal. There is also one photo in particular that has made it onto my list of favorite images, Neith with Tumbleweed, Paradise Cove, 1986 (it can be seen on the link I posted above). I haven't had time to do nearly as much research on him as I would like.. but I definitely look forward to finding more of his images.

Blue Window

March 18, 2008: Paris

Currently at the Tate Modern there is a wonderful exhibit on Duchamp, Picabia and Man Ray (I HIGHLY recommend it). I was lucky enough to get to go with my Modern art in London class, which meant we had our professor there to give some extra information. I was SO excited to see all the Duchamp work that I had learned about last semester (Nude Descending a Staircase No.2, Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors Even, The Fountain.. etc.), but when I got there it wasn't Duchamp's work that blew me away. More so, I was very intrigued by Man Ray's work, his nudes in particular (surpise, surprise). At first I really couldn't understand how I could've missed studying his work the past few semesters as they do EXACTLY what I've sorda been trying to do with some of mine in terms of playing with light and how it looks on skin (Google Image: "Man Ray nudes" and check out the one of the woman looking to the right with her hand on her head and the incredible little spots of light on her breasts). More specifically I've become really interested in his use of solarization in combination with his nudes. I've always sorda thought solarization was a bit too cliche, and to be honest I had basically written it off as ever being an option of something to try (especially with the nude work I've been doing). Man Ray's work, however, has totally changed my mind on that. What I learned is what the process of solarization can do to nude skin is absolutely beautiful.. I still can't really get over it. Everytime I google his work (which is pretty often these days), I'm just blown away by the beauty if his nude shots, especially the ones of Lee Miller. I definately want to give solarizing a chance next semester and try to imitate some of Man's work.
All in all, I think I learned a couple really important things by way of going to that show.
1) Try not to only look at the work of artists I already know about, because it's usually the ones I've never heard of that really inspire me.
2) Never stop researching new inspiration because there are so many artists out there.. and I've barely cracked the surface of them (and inspiration can be found in all sorts of places).
3) Don't make any conclusions about an artistic process until I know the entire extent of what it can do.

For those who don't know, a couple weekends ago I spent three nights in Paris. Unfortunately, it rained pretty much the whole time, but I still managed to shoot 3 rolls of film and a bunch of digitals ( yes, I carried both cameras around the whole time, it was not fun). To be honest I think that the film work is probably much better, but I'm currently getting it developed and have to wait another week until they're ready. So, in the meantime I'm sorting through the digitals and finding ones I think work.

Here's two I chose mostly because I like the colors and the simplicity...

Green Doors and Wet Cobblestone

March 17, 2008: Paris

Graffiti

March 18, 2008: Paris

For the past 3 months of my life I've been living in London, working in an art gallery and seeing lot's of museums/galleries, and yet I barely wrote a word about it. To be honest, I usually dont like to write/talk about how I feel about art, mostly because I'm a bit embarassed. That is now going to change.

To be completely honest, being so submerged into the 'real' world of art has made me a bit cynical about it all. Whenever I go to show and see work hanging on the wall I have to question whether it's up there because the artist is really talented, because they have the "right personality" and talked their way in, or simply because they're popular and someone wanted to make some money off of it. Sometimes I just get plain annoyed that some else's work is hanging on the wall while mine is stuck (probably forever) in my portfolio in my closet. This brings me to one thing I truly enjoy about the gallery I work at (East West Gallery). David and Jill, the owners, pick artists to represent simply based on talent and how much they believe in the artists work. They don't care if the artist is popular at the time or if they're going to make them super-rich; they just want to show work which they believe in. I didn't really know it was possible to encounter people in the art world who functioned on such a completely unselfish manner, because so many other people I've met just seem to only think about themselves.

On a sorda different/ sorda similar note: What I find most confusing about art is that it's supposed to be about creating something beautiful and expressing oneself (cheesy, I know). But then all this business comes into it, and suddenly your art is being judged and criticized in a million different ways. And then you have to figure out how to make living off of it?!? It all seems so confusing to me. To say what I'm thinking rather bluntly, sometimes I (and I'm sure you all do to) just want to say "screw the art world, I just want to take pictures", and I don't want them judged and I don't want to explain why they're good or why they're not.. "I just want to take pictures". Why does it have to be so damn complicated?

Anyway, I have TONS of pictures from Paris and Prague to touch up / even more to still take in London. I am determined to come out of this trip with something that I actually like... I must show myself that I am capable of more than just take pictures of naked people and oak trees. So please stay tuned...

More film work, this time shot in Camden Town