046: Peer: Glass

Peer: Glass, originally uploaded by gingerpig2000.

Asymmetric

Our bathroom door is such a useful thing, it has appeared in so many of my images in many guises and disguises. This is the most mysterious so far. The hardest bit was sitting on the floor while I experimented with the positioning of me and the camera, but in the end I chose the second I took.

Notice the kind of waterfall effect of the light above my head? That was due to my Sony and its habit of corrupting some picture. The other, perfect shots I discarded in favour of this one. What is inspiration? Everything you deliberately choose to do or also what happens when you choose a deliberate path. I know that some of the shots will have the defect, yet I choose to keep on using that camera, nothing more than taking advantage of your camera's or your photo processing program's functions, except you can neve be sure when it will happen.

It is like using a special prop, the art is in how you use it, not in the fact that you have got it. Here I applied my art to the effect, draining the image of colour, tinting it and then putting two images in one, at different width compressions. I have no guide as to how to do it, no training, nothing more than experimenting with paints and deciding how best to use them to create an effect that I may not have consciously conceived off prior to the editing process. But the ideas were conceived.

043: Smile

Smile, originally uploaded by gingerpig2000.

Happy Sunday

Imagine you are at the side of a pool looking out along a diving board, are your pictures 'out there' on the board, while your diary writing is the real you safely on the land? Is there any risk that your art will just slip out too far, or that you and your writing might fall into the water? What if you walk too far out along that board to reach your art and then cannot find your way back? I mention this only because I notice that many people write about one thing, often the mundane real life stuff or technical description of the photographic process, and then their photographic images show something else. Can we tie our words and the expression of our images closer together, or is it necessary for some reason to keep them apart? Are our happy pictures a reaction to something else in our lives, or a striving for something we are not sure about?

Our words are one expression of ourselves, and our images are another, but neither are actually us, although together they give other people a better picture of us than either alone. Instead of imagining our lives and art as a diving board, perhaps it would be better to consider a see-saw instead, with our words at one end and our images at the other, with us as the fulcrum, that point of balance. Perhaps we use our pictures to express what our words cannot, together they better forming or describing our art, or to balance less positive elsewhere in our lives? If this is the case, if we change what we write about, does it also change what we photograph and display for others to see? If true, perhaps if we change what we write in our diaries, we will also change what photographs we choose to take or show - and vice versa? It might be easier to show in images what we lack the confidence to do so with words, or the other way around, and by experimenting with the form we have more confidence in might help us to do more with the other?

By creating this image of me pretending to smile, it helped me write that I was feeling sad that my wife had to stay on for another ten days in New York while I returned home. Would I have written that if first I had not taken the picture and then played around with it until it fitted my mood?

042: Badass Traveller

Badass Traveller, originally uploaded by gingerpig2000.

I'm a Flikr Badass.

Fresh back from New York. Don't you think that travelling can be so tiring, but I wonder why no one would talk to me on the plane? After a week out of the loop with the Fuggers, this was my return shot, incorporating my very recent travelling experience.

I came back to Poland with a number of books I had bought about the meaning of art, and finding these was harder than I had imagined because most books are either descriptions of technique or of artists' work. Reading them I can see the authors battling with exactly the same problems I have been, I do not always agree with their conclusions but I have found some very useful insights.

Art is your concept of the world. The only way to improve your art is to improve your understanding of people and the environments in which we live. It is not particularly relevant whether you choose to study poetry or physics, either will give you equal insight into the world and your art, as would market gardening or whatever else. You do not even have to study one thing, any and everything will do as insight is the key, not bodies of knowledge. Your personal art and the levels of art of the highest achievers in society have nothing in common, unless you wish to compete for awards - it matters not one whit what other people produce, you only have to produce your own art. Art does mean your best work under whatever conditions you live under, but not 'anything will do' as art requires patience, effort and, yes, some pain. Art lies along the limits of your abilities, and unless you push the boundaries of your understanding with each new piece the art fades into mere reproduction. Pushing boundaries causes pain, and events causing pain push your boundaries of understanding further out in some direction. If something is causing you pain, then that is not a bad place to look for your art. Remember, though, that there are many kinds of pain, but they all hurt! :)

041: The paparazzi are coming!

Paparazzi, originally uploaded by gingerpig2000.

Paparazzi

Central Park is a great place to visit, especially if you do not mind the over the top 'romantic rustic' look, with the too many 'fallen logs' scattered everywhere around the Ramble. I liked the architecture of this gazebo, reminiscent of a Monet I remember, which made it excuse enough for a backdrop, what other excuse does one need?

On editing I decided to play around with the colours, simplyfy the palette a little. This brought out the pink in the hand, as a kind of warning colour against the cooler blues and greens - as well as the mysterious black silhouette that was me, blending in with the roof.

Ideas rarely come to fruition in one blinding flash, you often have plenty of thinking time somewhere between the stages of conceiving the idea, possibly seeking the right location or props, taking the photo and then finally processing it. The earlier you can get your thinking in, then generally the better, especially in a work environment. But one must not be switched off to later ideas, unless the delay they create is unacceptable.

028: Off With His Head

The Man Who Fell To Earth, originally uploaded by gingerpig2000.

The images were supposed to be accidental, but life is short and why waste a great image idea?

It is important to remember the relationship you have with the world around you, here the idea of a cut off head image and the shape of my new vase just came together and then sparked off the linking 'man who fell to earth' concept (it's a film from the 1970s).

Working on art in one part of your life helps to spark innovation in other parts, and with practice you can end up with more innovation than you can handle. Bu the practice is important, especially in a world where most people feel safer if you remain, like them, as a passive observer instead of a creator.

Creation and observation are two different skills, one passive and the other active, and most commentators are observers of other people's art and are quite happy if you restrict your thinking to their commentary. Creation, on the other hand, means your personal involvement in all phases of what you are doing.

27-Smile... It's Friday

The end of my rainbow, originally uploaded by gingerpig2000.

Smiling, and a shot straight out of the camera.

Always be prepared to drop an idea when it begins to fall apart. This one was supposed to show the top half of my head in the main mirror, and my smiling mouth offset in the small mirror, but it was just too difficult to set up without the shower appearing in shot. So I dumped it, and went for putting the beer in the small mirror and then doing a series of shots until I was in shot - and by some luck I picked up some of the flash on the side of my face.

The camera I set to the 'dusk' automatic setting after quickly trying out several other settings to get the best colour - the indoor setting was washing out the colours, while the beach and the sunset settings made everything go too red/yellow.

26: Nerds

Culturicalus Nerdii, originally uploaded by gingerpig2000.

Today I uncovered my inner nerd - not, although there is something of me in this image. After seeing so many repetitive 'silly walks' too close to the Mont Python original yesterday, I was glad that I had accidentally gone down a different road.

In a similar vein, someone wrote that they were staying in a hotel room, with no props, hence were frustrated they could not put together decent photographs. However, I think that their problem was not a lack of props but basic classicalism. It goes like this - you like taking pictures, and you look out for suitable things which would make good props. Once discovered, they become labelled 'props' in the mind, and we can use them in whatever way we feel in our photographs. However, a hotel room is full of 'hotel room things' like a bed, chair, mirror and such, and the chances are they are not what we would choose if we were looking for props.

What, though, if we were to rid ourselves of all sub-classes of object and instead just thought of everything to hand as 'things'. We exist in relation to whatever things surround us, our existence can be defined in terms of our relation to them. If we are always some form of 'we', and everything else is just 'things', then the only thing restricting us is our preconceptions of how we relate to the things. Dump that mind set, and then what you are left is the opportunity to photograph your present self in the present situation using whatever things are to hand at present. If you can achieve that, and it does require practice, then no where is frustrating because you always have to hand everything you need.