paperography

What's the difference between a piece of paper and a photograph? We don't often look beyond the literal reading of it and see it for the rest of it's contents. Sometimes we have no choice.


















I'm a collector. Not surprising, given my interest in photography. It was born out of the desire to collect. To keep a physical, tangible (or digital) file of moments, people, places... memories. Storing, sorting and selectively archiving the past.

My collections are not specific or interesting or even obvious. I guess I'm more of a hoarder. But 'collector' implies interesting, 'hoarder' implies Today Tonight. I just keep stuff.

I don't even know if I like stuff. It builds up and adds unorganised chaos to my life. But I'm attached. It's excess baggage in literal, tangible, ugly, cluttery form. But all of us (except for a handful of monks), are incredibly attached. It is not easy to let go. Letting go is one of life's greatest sufferings.

A lot of my stuff is paper. Last year, after studying Artists Books as a Printmaking elective, I began to see paper differently. It was no longer just a means to an end. I had no idea how complex paper in and of itself as a medium could be. Soon enough I fell in love with it. It's one of the most common materials we encounter in daily western life, and well suited my interests in information storage, transmission and recording. Once I started reading beyond the words on the paper, I realised I now read paper like I read photos. Paper is tangible. It indicates context. It inspires memories. And evokes emotion. The lines were blurred, and I found my new form of expression: paperography.

During a particularly rampant junk exorcism last year, I encountered a lot of paperwork. I was determined to get rid of it all. Clean and sharp cuts. As if it were that simple! I started flicking through the pages. Old emails, notebooks, sketchbooks, diaries & documents... most were from an ugly era, which I really wanted to loose, Lacuna Inc style. Perhaps that's why I have such a terribly bad memory. I've trained myself to erase things before they even get a chance to become the past/memories. How ironic that my primary interests lie in the documentation of life in order to keep it. Or maybe I'm just a control freak.

The documents I encountered were powerful catalysts. I was instantly brought back - the locations, emotions, events and even atmosphere suffocated me. The me of now wasn't impressed with this unexpected blast from the past. But anything that can invoke such powerful emotion must be important. Throwing it all in the recycling pile wasn't enough. I needed to transform these catalysts into something new, recycle it myself. The actual physical manipulation served my diy self-help needs... and this is the result.

I feel good about it. It worked. Because now I love it.



Where does it go from here?

Now that I have a resolved and complete product, I have decided to go with the diy/zine/underground distribution style. I'm setting up a store on etsy, I'll go buy then rewatch the first series of Not Quite Art to get some ideas, and I'll sell them in independant bookstores around Melbourne such as Polyester. Maybe I'll even try to get it in some libraries around town.


Previously...
This video is the powerpoint presentation I showed last year when I started this project.

hiroshi sugimoto

Theatres

Hiroshi Sugimoto has been working on this project since the 1970's. He takes his large format camera into the theatre and exposes the film for the duration of the screening. It's beautiful.

Homepage

Art 21

weddings 1

Post in progress.

Wedding Phototgraphy on wiki

tips and techniques

wedding photojournalists association

apple iphoto books
more on photo books:
make them
info on custom profiling for iphoto books
a useful blog
another less useful blog

how camera cheats work

Super-cheap diy for the pov & nerdy at instructables.com

Cigarette pack flash diffuser
DIY Photography Gels
Remote Shutter Triggers for Canon dSLR's

everything is illuminated

Now that I've narrowed the subject matter down to people engaging in screen-based (mostly narrative-driven) activities, I have to deal with the technical realities of it. Many of these devices (mp3 players, cameras, portable gaming consoles & mobile phones) illuminate the face of the viewer. But not well enough for photography in the lighting conditions I want (dark, Crewsonesque). So I'm going to need to increase the radiant glow. This is what I will need:

- unwanted device bodies
- used disposable camera's (for the flash)
- someone on instructables, photojojo, makezine, or maybe even flickr groups to have already worked it out for me.
- some kind of diffusing system, probably gels too.

Or maybe a snoot or two will do the trick? I really want light to play a big part in this. I want it to be beautiful... not just a means to an end.

Time to experiment. And research... I'm sure this has been done countless times before.

how i got here

The following images were part of the basis for this idea. It probably started around the time that a friend of mine, who was in her final year of performance studies, was creating an installation based on video works that we worked on together, including an animation from an earlier post. Although the themes are quite different, I can see the link, or perhaps development of this idea from then until now. I was particularly interested in the viewer, identity, and screen-based media.



Next up was when my sister and I were watching the sunset. Only we weren't really watching it, just shooting it until it lost its attractiveness.



The next time was when I was checking out the ruins of Angkor. One of the sites had just wrapped up filming a Thai film. A young local was obviously influenced. It stood out only because the clichéd realisation that we all know but begin to really get when we travel... that life, when simple, and with limited resources, often appears much more relaxed and content. So it can be kind of confusing when you see the locals desiring the alternative western consumer driven culture.



And then, tourism/the veiwer/photography/location (where are you?). At the summit of a small mountain overlooking Angkor Wat for sunset, the amount of people, the chaotic search for the best view, and the amount of cameras, really just blew me away. That was for me, much more captivating than the sunset.




I'm just as bad. Especially as a tourist. At least most people only get their cameras out at the same time as everyone else. Inconspicuousness, not always my thing. I got a bit over excited when I found a Borders in Kuala Lumpur. And, even better, the Borders had an Apple store in it. The sales guy was taking our photo in PhotoBooth, of which I was taking photo's, of myself, with a fake Parisian background. So perhaps even when we're escaping, we're still escaping. To simplify.

the text reference list

This page will serve as an always updateable reference list. I will include recommendations, as well as things that I want to study, and things that I have studied. I haven't worked out the logistics of it yet but may sort by subject/author/date/status (recommended/read/want to read)... or perhaps I'll colour code in addition. Most other influences are noted as part of the blog but I guess I should list them here and perhaps link them to the original post? Open to suggestions :)

Recommended texts in The Digital Fine Print:

BIALOBRZESKI, P., RIBBAT, C. & HANIG, F. (2004) Neontigers : photographs of Asian megacities, Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany; New York, Hatje Cantz ; [Distributors] D.A.P. Distributed Art Publishers. Amazon or RMIT 770.92 B576

BLATNER, D. (2004) Real world scanning and halftones : industrial strength production techniques, Berkeley, Calif., Peachpit Press. Amazon or RMIT 686.22544 B644

BLATNER, D. (2008) Real World Adobe Photoshop Cs3 : Industrial-Strength Production Techniques, Berkeley, Peachpit Press. Amazon or RMIT 006.686 B644

CAPONIGRO, J. P. (2003) Adobe Photoshop master class : the essential guide to revisioning photography, Berkeley, Calif., Adobe Press book published by Peachpit Press. Amazon or RMIT 006.6869 A239

ELAM, K. (2001) Geometry of design : studies in proportion and composition, New York, N.Y., Princeton Architectural Press. Amazon or RMIT 701.8 E37

ENNIS, H. & NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA. (2004) Intersections : photography, history and the National Library of Australia, Canberra, National Library of Australia. Amazon or RMIT 779.0749471 E59

EVENING, M. (2007) Adobe Photoshop CS3 for photographers : a professional image editor's guide to the creative use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC, Oxford ; Burlington, MA, Elsevier/Focal Press. Amazon or RMIT 006.686 E93

FRASER, B. (2005) Real world Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS2 : industrial-strength production techniques, Berkeley, Calif., Peachpit Press. Amazon or RMIT 006.6869 F841

FRASER, B., MURPHY, C. & BUNTING, F. (2005) Real world color management : industrial-strength production techniques, Berkeley, CA, Peachpit Press. Amazon or RMIT 006.6 F841

JOHNSON, S. (2006) Stephen Johnson on Digital Photography, O'Reilly Media, Inc. Amazon

KISSELL, J. (2007) Real world Mac maintenance and backups, Berkeley, CA [S.L.], Peachpit Press ; Take Control Books. Amazon or RMIT 621.3916 K56

LONG, B. (2007) Real World Aperture, Berkeley, Calif., Peachpit Press. Amazon or RMIT 778.593 L848

MARGULIS, D. (2006) Photoshop LAB color : the canyon conundrum and other adventures in the most powerful colorspace, Berkeley, CA, Peachpit. Amazon or RMIT 006.686 M331

POGUE, D. (2007) Mac OSX: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition, O'Reilly Media, Inc. Amazon or RMIT (Tiger) 004.165M2 P746

-------------------------------------------
Benjamin, W 1968The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, from
http://fineartphotography.dsc.rmit.edu.au/?page_id=85

Berger, J 1965 Ways of Seeing Videorecording viewed March 2007

Bright, S 2006 Art Photography Now, First paperback edition, Thames and Hudson,
London.

Huxley, A 1936 Brave New World, Flamingo, London

Bordwell, David; Thompson, Kristin (2003). Film Art: An Introduction, 6th ed. New
York: McGraw-Hill.

Cotton, C 2004 The Photograph as Contemporary Art, Thames and Hudson, London

Smith, L Photographic Theory from
http://fineartphotography.dsc.rmit.edu.au/?page_id=85

Stathern, P 2002 The Essential Kant, Virgin Books, London

Wells, L 2000, Photography: A Critical Introduction 2nd Edition, Routledge, London

Westbury, M 2007 Not Quite Art ABC, Television Series viewed on air 2007 ( and
some new art show on ABC tracing the history of the evolution of art, and its effects).

Gomes, L 2008 Why We’re Powerless to Resist Grazing on Web Data, Wall Street
Journal Online, viewed march 2008
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120527756506928579-
3wNdJRXhkpLqY4EDBt4j3ly1foo_20090312.html?mod=rss_free

making the digital fine print

Yesterday evening I headed into the city to meet up with Clover to print our photos for reviews this week. Neither of us had ever used the printers at uni before. I didn't have enough money to buy inks & paper so Clover said I could use hers, and next time she can use mine. Incredibly generous.

However, the evening did not get off to a great start. When I got into the city, I realised that I left the slide of megan at home. 40 minutes in the other direction. So even though my 5:30 class was cancelled I still didn't get there until 7:30, but that's what we had originally planned so that was ok.

When I arrived I couldn't find a slide holder for any of the scanners. Kelvin (what would anyone do without him!) told me to just remove the piece of film and pop it into the 35mm film holder. Brilliant. Open Nikon CoolScan and hit 'preview'.

And that's when I realised I had no idea what I was doing.

It's not like I don't know anything about this stuff. I was just blank. I've got a shitty memory, haven't scanned film for a long time (oh, how I love Raw), and I really had no idea what resolution, size, etc to do everything, let alone what order to do it all in. I popped on the net and downloaded Shane's notes on workflow from a recent class. It wasn't the solution to all my problems but it made a big difference just to have some sort of instructions to refer to; even just to jog my memory. I had much less confidence than I was expecting.

I scanned it in at 16 bit, resolution of 240, the same as the other file I was using from the 400D. I mainly just did some exposure adjustments before trying to clean it up a bit more in Photoshop. And then, again, realised I need to give myself a big refresher course in Photoshop and digital imaging. Which is why Shane recommended this references list for us. After a few hours of preparation in Photoshop, Clover and I built up the courage to print our test strips. I opened the file on the desktop by Les about printing. It was like a walk-thru for CS2 but we were now using CS3 so the interface was different. We couldn't find the same dialogue boxes but basically followed the instructions as best we could. I printed my test strip. It was incredibly fast. And then I realised, again, that even though I felt reasonably confident this time, I had no idea what I was doing. The print looked terrible. It had lines (like when your print heads are dirty), but these were brand new inks, and the last person to print was Kelvin; he would have told us if there were any problems to look out for. I was convinced that somewhere I had forgotten to apply the Ektaspace profile, or perhaps I should've been using the Illford Smooth Pearl profile... but Clover ran a test strip and got the same results. The colours were completely fucked. I kept having flashbacks to this cubish shaped series of colour spectrums that Shane showed us last year when explaining colour profiles. And how if you don't sync everything up, you can potentially shave a very big chunk of your colours out, and force them into being something else. Just extremely bad, sickening.

We didn't know what to do. We looked on the fine art photography site for help. We looked around the DD looking for the notes that were up around the printers last year. We found them... there was a blown up versions of Les' walk-thru, and some info on custom profiling. We then searched the computers for clues... we searched every option in Photoshop, over and over. Or so we thought.
I had already admitted defeat by the time clover realised that we needed to tell Photoshop to colour manage for us, but to make sure to tell the printer not to (as well as tell the printer about what surface we were printing on and which option of quality we would like). And somehow we realised that those options were in the dialogue box after the one we'd assumed to be the most important. I think that was because in Photoshop's dialogue box, the last option you can take is to hit 'print'. But later I realised it actually said 'print...', which in essence means, 'print with options'. I feel like such and idiot in retrospect but I really just assumed that it would be best not to mess with anything in the printer dialogue. But I have to remember I'm traing to be a proffessional, I cant get anywhere being intimidated by little dialogue boxes!

Well I've definitely learned a few big lessons. Which is the point of uni... but the biggest is that I really need to get these big time-consuming things out of the way much earlier in case of any other big lessons I need to learn. My prints didn't come out exactly as planned... some resizing issues came up when we finally began printing. I'd saved my images to A4 size with a white border... but I forgot the printer wouldn't know that my white border was nothing, therefore didn't exceed the printable area. Next time I need to know what the size of the printable area is! Obviously! But everything like this is obvious in retrospect, so I guess in that respect it's very helpful. I'm not likely to forget in a hurry. So, Clover and I had finally finished up. Her prints were really incredible. I was really happy for her (and I won't deny it, jealous!) But then we realised the clocks were wrong, due to the delayed change to daylight savings, so it was actually more like 4 am... I was too tired to care anymore. But then something good happened. We were walking down Bowen Lane, when I noticed a lot of paint cans in a construction dumpster. I've recently started cleaning out my garage to make my own digital studio. I would probably have finished by now but I ran out of paint. And money. But now I have paint, and got to saved a bit of extra landfill going to waste! Thanks, RMIT!

like a rolling stone

Michel Gondry you're my hero.

I saw his clip for The Stones' Like a Rolling Stone again yesterday. It's not my favourite clip but one that's always intrigued me. When I started getting into film and editing a couple of years ago I was under the impression that it was created using two techniques:

- 'Bullet Time' from The Matrix; a series of still frames taken simulaneously, then played in sequence with a slower (generally) frame rate for film.
- Again, only still frames, morphed together.

When I watched it again yesterday, I realised I was only scraping the surface:

- The shots of the Stones, while confusingly constructed, appeared to have been manipulated frame by frame in Photoshop, using the smudge tool (I can't remember the name but the one where you can 'move' pixels as if stretching and pulling the image).

Anyway, I just found the answers to all of my questions :) http://www.director-file.com/gondry/promos.html

It's not just the incredible effects Gondry employs, its how perfect they are to communicate the story, an innovative, and genius. I actually feel disgusting, like I'm 'on the boat', when Patricia Arquette is walking home and the background can't quite keep up with her. I just really love Michel Gondry.

Watch it or buy it.

the first review: a chaotic new world

How to avoid the chaos? Avert your gaze.

Unititled 1

These will be the images I will show in my first review. I've got to clean them up a bit first but this is just for reference. They're not perfect but they're a good starting point.

The project's working title is A Chaotic New World, heavily inspired by the classic distopian novel by Aldous Huxley, which is in turn, inspired by Miranda's speech in Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act V, Scene I.

intro: the documentation and voice of chaos

I'm always so overwhelmed by the prospect of creating art. Why should I? Who do I think I am? I don't even know what I want to communicate! I don't have anything new or original to say! And what the hell is art anyway?!!! Am I doing this to punish myself? I'm not even starting on the actual theoretics behind it all. It all makes me crazy... but here I am.

Working it all out is so chaotic, it raises questions, too many for one girl and one lifetime. Who are we? Why do we exist, why are we so dependent on each other, why do we like, or need art? Why do we need to communicate?! What's my role in all of this? Why can't someone just tell me! Sigh.

Because I like finding answers? Maybe I like finding questions. Perhaps that's why I always feel so overwhelmed and under-informed. I produce questions more rapidly and randomly than I find the answers (if they even exist). But it's not always about questions. It's bigger than that. It's about truth; identifying it, connecting with it, enjoying it.

Thus, my documentation of it. What better platform to document my search than a blog? It's more reliable than my memory. I'm more likely to think more about what I've just seen before closing that tab, if I think it's worthy of posting here. And its perfect for my never-ending desire to justify my thoughts and actions. And ideally, this will all lead to my making sense of it all.

So, essentially, the following are my thoughts & findings, which I will analyse the fuck out of, with the intention of working out who I am, what my place is, what my strengths, interests, likes/dislikes (never underestimate the greatness of the process of elimination)... and the perfect platform to voice my incessantly analytical internal monologue.

Oh also (and possibly most importantly), this should also document my ideas and thoughts about my Photography project/s for the year! *Deep breath*