Lottery for the Arts

My print, Stormlight Over Wetland, was accepted into the Blue Line Gallery’s annual Lottery for the Arts show/fundraiser. Lottery for the Arts is the non-profit Blue Line Gallery’s largest fundraiser of the year. From Blue Line Arts:

The Lottery for the Arts is a fundraising event that provides art collectors with an opportunity to acquire original works of art while also supporting a non-profit organization and community of artists. Everybody wins during this exciting event; every ticket holder will take home an original piece of art produced by artists from the Northern California region and beyond, while also supporting community art programs.

Blue Line Gallery
405 Vernon Street, Roseville, CA
Artists’ Reception: April 9, 2014, 6:30 p.m.
Lottery for the Arts: April 10, 2014, 6:00 p.m.

More Information →

Stormlight Over Wetland

Olympus Pointe Open Space

This wetland on the east side of Roseville, California is part of a larger network of open spaces that wind through the city from Granite Bay to the old Fiddyment Farm on the west side of town. They generally follow a pair of streams that run from the foothills near Auburn to their ultimate destinations in the Sacramento River. These slices of semi-wild land that cut through highly developed urban/suburban areas are arguably the most valuable assets the city has, providing habitat for numerous wild animals while providing recreational opportunities such as hiking and biking for residents.

Olympus Pointe Open Space

Time

Naturally, when we think of landscape photography, we think of place. Places are our subjects, captured in fleeting moments for future viewing. The shutter clicks and a particular place at a particular time is frozen on the film or sensor. This is the essence of still photography. 

It is possible though, to record more than just place in a photo. With a tripod and shutter release, anywhere from a few seconds up to multiple hours of time can be captured within a single still image. The images below are examples of photographs that capture multiple minutes of time in a single frame.

In each case, the camera was mounted on a sturdy tripod and the shutter was controlled manually using an intervalometer*. To lengthen the exposure time, the ISO was set to 100 and the lens was stopped down to f/16. To extend the exposure even further, a 10-stop neutral density filter** was placed on the lens, which took the exposures out to multiple minutes.

The primary subjects in the resulting photographs are both time and place. The captured movement tells the story of time, an aspect of the landscape that would have been completely invisible using conventional exposures. 

*An intervalometer is an electronic remote shutter release with a built-in self-timer, interval timer, and long-exposure timer. I use a Canon TC-80N3 that can be set anywhere from 1 second up to 100 hours.

**A neutral density filter (ND filter) is a middle gray filter placed on the front of a lens to reduce the amount of light that enters the lens. They are available in various degrees of density from light gray to almost black. The 10-stop filter I used on these images is designed to block 10 full stops of light. It is one of the darkest ND filters available.

Skunked

Landscape photography is a lot like fly fishing. Both are more about the experience than the end result. We may embark in the morning with high hopes, spend a wonderful day out in nature, and come home without rising a single fish or capturing a single worthwhile image. As frustrating as this may be, the overall experience is always enjoyable and worthwhile. And while we'd like to think we’ll be “successful” on every outing, a bit of uncertainty in the process is not a bad thing because it keeps us on our toes and coming back for more.

Wasted Entry Fees

I've entered a number of high profile photographic competitions this past year, with very little success. It's impossible to know why a particular photograph is either accepted or rejected by a jury, but looking at the photographs that were chosen can offer some clues.

Jurors for these prominent shows overwhelmingly chose images that are what I'd consider “conceptual” or “avant-garde”. In each case, straight photography such as street, portrait, or especially traditional landscape, were grossly under-represented. In fact, it appears as if photographs in these traditional genre had virtually zero chance of being accepted into the shows. A majority of the jurors came out of the MFA system, and I'm guessing their preferences reflect their educational background as well as the current state of the fine art gallery scene.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with avant-grade photography, but  I have to admit to being frustrated by the fact that so many shows seem to include predominately the same type of photographs (edgy, conceptual, avant-garde), regardless of the subject matter stated in the prospectus. For photographers like myself working within a traditional genre (in my case, the Western Landscape tradition), the opportunities appear to be somewhat limited. I've had some success within the few staunchly traditional shows I've entered, and I've had a number of opportunities to show my work locally, but the effort to get my work out to a broader national audience has been frustrating.

I suppose the answer is to be very selective and make 100% sure the shows one enters are sympathetic to traditional work. It may also be prudent to remember that most shows are market driven and the preference for avant-garde work has to do with money, the collector’s market, and the current climate in the MFA photography programs in our universities. Keeping this in mind might save one a bit of frustration and a lot of wasted entry fees. 

The Essence of Things

"Most of us look at a thing and believe we have seen it, yet what we see is often only what our prejudices tell us to expect to see, or what our past experience tells us should be seen, or what our desire wants to see. Very rarely are we able to free our minds of thoughts and emotions, and just see for the simple pleasure of seeing. And so long as we fail to do this, so long will the essence of things be hidden from us."

– Bill Brandt

Beauty in Every Apple

"Pursuit of definitive answers to creative challenges is like seeking the best apple in an orchard. You may find one that you believe to be it, but it is unlikely that you will be correct, or that such a thing even exists; and even if it does exist, it likely will change with the passage of time. It is far better, instead, to appreciate the beauty in every apple, the subtleties of taste and color that make each one unique."

– Guy Tal

Meaningness

"Look at the things around you, the immediate world around you. If you are alive, it will mean something to you, and if you care enough about photography, and if you know how to use it, you will want to photograph that meaningness. If you let other people's vision get between the world and your own, you will achieve that extremely common and worthless thing, a pictorial photograph."

– Paul Strand

Progress

The two images below were processed from the same digital negative; the version on the left in November of 2011, the other just this morning. They (hopefully) demonstrate progression in my photographic development, from the more heavy-handed and garish, toward the more subtle and nuanced (click to enlarge each). Occasionally undertaking an exercise like this is valuable in that it can provide insight and motivation to continue the hard work that leads to progress and improvement.