yea they are really short thus far...i think mostly because im so excited for these photos to come up...i just have to. its only like...4 photos after this...bummer.
anyway, the period of time in between this one and the last post i've been shooting a bit (and studying mostly) and just waiting until i return to the darkroom at my old high school.
and i suppose it was a worthy wait...and i understand chris weeks' and every other street photographer's sentiment about film...how waiting really increases the pleasure when you first see it. i understand it all now (mostly because before i've just been shooting digital)....hitting that RC variable contrast photo paper with 8 seconds of light using an ilford 3.5 grade variable contrast filter...dipping it into the photo developer and just sitting there...waiting..anticipating the outcome. Is it good? is it bad? or is just eh.....
but then when it comes out perfect...ahhh the greatest feeling in the world (besides spending time with the love of your life or something...whatever kicks you into euphoria) you just cant wait to run it through all the required chemicals and processes (stop bath...fixer...hypo clear...5 minutes in the wash....30-45 minutes on the dry rack) and just mount it on a board and display it somewhere. thats the best feeling in the world.
accomplishment.
but funny how accomplishment requires stupid patience. STUPID PATIENCE!
haha remember this photo? yea well, here's the film version...and strange to say even though the shadow quality isnt the same...it just...far surpasses the digital shot in everyway...maybe im just bitter because i suffered with three different prints to get it right (i uploaded another one where i tried to manually burn in the shadows more....fffaaiill...)
anyway...i was just wondering about the whole prejudice with digital and photo communities around here. i mean i understand chris weeks' sentiment of the whole purist idea (im only using chirs weeks' perspective because i dont know any other...haha) of shooting with just leicas and film for street and thats a completely worthy argument...but it feel strange because it sort of seems as if the purist idea sort of rags on digital because its too easy...and i think thats exactly it you know? its sort of a bitter resentment of digital because its too goddam easy to make a photo...and just ruins the purpose.
i mean the whole purpose is to capture incapturable moments right? well i mean, you get it. of course thats not the whole purpose...but those jem moments that every street photographer really goes after is, funny enough, almost incapturable. and digital seems to bridge that gap of the incapturable and gives the photographer, although not magically the ability to capture those moments, the ability of (in game terms) infinite lives. infinite retrys to get that moment again because we are able to look down at the little lcd screen and find our error and try again within that same time frame.
and essentially...that just takes away the magic of the moment. by messing up once, we are only given one life to try...and that forces everyone to try and try again in several different time frames...thus forcing us to learn from our mistakes fully and completely rather than lightly learning at the particular minute..then essentially forgetting about it in the next minute.
so in that case i suppose mr. weeks is right in his disregard for digital as a decent medium for street photography.
this is a sort of alright shot....notice the incredible flare out there...haha well...you cant always control nature.
i like the way he's covering his face like "I HATE THE GODDAM FUCKING SUN!!!"
but ironically...sitting in the sun. lol.
some of these hobos and rather out of it people on the streets really make beautiful mediums for photos because of their quarkyness. its always fun to watch them go about...to them everyone is crazy. to us....we beg to differ. haha.
now this one sort of came out as an iffy one ( i wasnt sure i'd like it mostly because of the awkward developing phase i had to deal with)
but later on i changed my mind and really liked it. it wasnt so much the composition or the framing or whatever...it was the development itself.
its old...nasty...has specks of dust and bad chemical washups all over it. to me, it just screams age.
and thats what really drew me to this photo. to me, it sort of echoes the 1970's to 80's and maybe even as far back as the 60's (hah! the camera i shot this with is from the 60's! right on!)
...you know, back in the days of uprising...sort of discontent with the current state of affairs...scandals...segregation still an issue
black
white
yellow
brown
just echoes to me the distant discontent past.....
maybe im just a dreamer....at 18? man im not old enough for that. ;D
and this is my last photo of the night....my favorite capture as of....like...now. i just dont feel like anything else in my long set of work compares. i love the people in the background...the flying rats in the foreground captured in midflight...
this was sort of an "oh shit! SNAP!" picture. i wasnt totally ready (well i was, focus was sort of set and i had already set the f-stop to 5.6) so when this happened i quickly lined the camera up and CLICK! (thats the sound a yashica makes pretty much)
so i really experienced an interesting moment in street photography. PRETTY FUCKING RAD!!!
haha so ends my blog post...short on photos long on words. yea yea yea i know. dont trip. i will try to add more photos later.
thanks for looking.
cheers from clear and cold milpitas!
oh and i entreat everyone to take a look at this
its really quite amazing and they see things in a really interesting perspective. not bad for blind people huh?
Have a look at this page dude ! http://www.markushartel.com/blog/