Been crazy busy with work and a few other things the past few weeks.  Sadly that has caused me to miss my goal of doing a Shot and a Thought weekly.  Also adding to the delay is that I am about to head back to Canada for seven weeks.

The upcoming trip leaves me in a blue funk that tends to take over just before going somewhere.  As much as I love traveling, the process of packing, arranging and flying are things I just can’t stand.  I am very much in the middle of these blahs right now.  I should be finishing my packing, calling friends back home, making plans and who knows what other type of productive activity.  Rather than doing those though, I sit in front of my computer and procrastinate.  I know I will get the stuff done, but I can’t get up the energy to take care of things and have the cloud lifted.

Even once the bags are packed, calls made and organizational details are taken care of, the worst is yet to come.  I hate airports.  I hate airplanes.  I hate changing planes.  I hate the grime that seems to cover my body after spending the better part of a day in transit.  I hate, I hate, I hate.  I should be able to focus on the great holiday that my family and I will have, but for now it is the doldrums before the event for me.

Like Joe Wash says, “I can’t complain, but sometimes I still do…”

My next post will almost certainly be of a much, much happier tone.  Once wheels are down in Vancouver, the malaise will be a thing of the past.  There is so much fun to be had and so much to look forward to.  See ya then.

There is nothing worse than a brilliant image of a fuzzy concept. - Ansel Adams

While I certainly am not qualified to debate photography with Saint Ansel, I actually think he could have shuffled things around a bit and come up with a more accurate assessment.   My take would be more along the lines of “There is nothing better than a fuzzy image of a brilliant concept.” Far too often, photographers worry more about sharpness than content in their images.  I most certainly am guilty of this myself.  I have long ranted about an overemphasis on sharpness when it comes to lenses, but it is even more true when it comes to actual photographs.  The sharpness of a photo is rarely directly related to the quality of that photo.

What I am talking about is not blurred photos due to bad technique, or inappropriate shutter speeds, but of photos that are at least partially blurred because of movement in the photo (and sometimes from the camera as well).

What blur does very effectively is to infuse movement into what can’t help but be a still photo.  Once you are capturing movement, you are catching something that is happening, an event, not just a static scene.

I think the two above photos are pretty good examples of how movement can make a photo more interesting.  They were shot a fraction of a second apart, processed identically and the only real difference is the girl running through the background.  The girl is not the subject, but her running makes for a more interesting photo to my eyes.  I did see her coming and the first shot is what I had in mind.  I think it is pretty much always a good idea when you are out shooting to look around first and see if you can make use of someone moving as an element in a photo of another subject.

Here is shot that is similar in that I have waited for someone to move through the frame in order to create a more interesting photo.  Here, the blurred walker is just as much the subject as the wall I have chosen for the background.  Without him, the photo would simply be a capture of someone else’s artwork.

Panning is one way in which people intentionally add blur to their photos to make for better shots.  In panning, you try to keep your moving subjects sharp by moving your camera along with them; this blurs the background, while keeping who you are shooting relatively sharp.  In the shot above, I am using the most traditional, left to right, form of panning.  However, if you look at the first photo in this post, you can see something a little different.  in that shot, my camera was on self timer, tucked under my chin and Jerry (the smiling boy) and I are both spinning around madly, his feet flying in the air.  Shots like this take some luck and planning, but when shooting digitally, don’t cost anything.

In this photo, I used a different kind of panning.  Rather than following her from left to right, I walked behind her, trying to keep the same pace.  While not all that sharp, I like the effect created and the spots of relative sharpness.

Here is a shot where the blur simply makes the photo.  Sharply caught, these drummers would be boring, but with all the motion blur of the photo, I think it does a good job of passing along the energy and emotion of what was happening at the time.

In this image, the motion of the newspaper she is fanning herself with helps to  pass along the hot,  stifling atmosphere in her little stall in a small market in Taipei.  What makes this work is that I was able to find the right shutter speed where I could keep her face sharp, while having the newspaper be blurred.  Learning at what shutter speeds you can consistently handhold when using a particular focal length and still get sharp photos is something that you can really put to use when you are going for this type of effect.  Also, being able to predict how much blur you will get at a particular shutter speed is a good skill for creating shots with “just the right amount” of movement.

In almost every instance above, there has probably been some loss of ultimate sharpness, and all of the photos are the better for it.  If, like I have urged you to do in previous posts in this series, you are capturing people “doing something”, let your viewer know that they were doing it.  Don’t rob their activity of life by capturing it too sharply.  Don’t let your concept become sharpness, let the movement and energy help fill in your concept and tell us more about the people you are shooting.

Ansel was right.

]]> http://www.darrenmelrose.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=409 http://www.darrenmelrose.com/blog/?p=413 http://www.darrenmelrose.com/blog/?p=413#comments Mon, 07 Jun 2010 14:15:38 +0000 Darren http://www.darrenmelrose.com/blog/?p=413 On Saturday, I met up with David, Mark and Todd in Taichung for a photowalk.  It was a great day, lots of photo talk and some great weather.

Mark had a really good idea in that we should each make a blog post which highlights our favourite photos from the other shooters.  Here are my choices, as well as photos of the photographer in question.

First, the organizer himself, Mark.

And his photo,

This is the Luce Chapel and I really liked both Mark’s use of symmetry and his filmlike post processing in making an eye catching shot.

Next, is Todd.

And his photo,

Todd says that this was more or less a hip shot, but his composition worked out well, I think the slant and the moving scooter make for a pretty dynamic shot.  Like Mark, I like how Todd has given this a filmlike look in PP.

Finally, there is Dave.

and here is his photo,

This kid was cute and I like how Dave caught the kid looking back at his parents for encouragement.  Without his parents, no way would he get so close to the cow.

It was a great day and always good to meet up with photographer friends.  A special thanks to Mark for putting things together.  Hope we can do it again sometime soon.

This shot came to mind while I was on a bit of a photo walk in Taichung yesterday with David Reid, Mark Forman and Todd Alperovitz.  Both the photo and the thoughts are from a few years ago.

You see these paths in many of the parks here in Taipei. They are some rounded, smooth, blackish rock set into concrete. I believe the idea boils down to accupressure; when you walk on them, you stimulate certain nerves and it will cure what ails ya.

In theory, this is all very nice and good, healthy too. In practice, this amounts to a self induced torture. The stones are smooth, but they are sparse enough that they don’t support much of your foot, so when you step down, they put quite a lot of pressure on a small area. Being rocks, they are tough buggers too, nothing soft about their caress. It just hurts like bloody hell, I have never managed much more than about 10 meters before having to bail out. As an insult to my pride, I feel very awkward when walking on this little mounts of hell too. Even though they are laid out in an even height, once you get on them, balance seems to be out of the question. Hence, not only am I in pain, I embarass myself, staggering as though I have downed dozens of beers.

The oddest thing about these areas of torture is that there are actually people who seem to enjoy it. I watched this guy cover hundreds of meters, with far more grace and far less grimacing than I will ever be able to accomplish. I guess my western tootsies are just too tender.

This will be a pretty photo heavy post, not really much commentary I need to add.  I will separate the shots between those taken during the performance and those taken in the preparation area backstage.

Now, the backstage shots.  This year, it wasn’t quite as open in the backstage area, so good photos were a little difficult to come by.

Auto repair shops are quite different here in Taiwan than what I was used to in Canada.  They are much smaller and most importantly, most are centered around around motorcycle and scooter work, as opposed to cars and trucks.  Given the traffic make up of Taiwan, it makes perfect sense.

One shop is pretty much the same as the next.  In front will be a big drum for recycling oil, in and around the shop are enough petrochemicals to soil the environment for years to come.  They are staffed with mechanics with blackened hands and betel stains and there are tools strewn about.  What they all also seem to have in common is they are home to a shop dog.  These dogs are remarkably consistent as well.  Always large of mixed breed, they are, like their owners, covered in a film of lubricants.  Unlike most of though, these dogs are fat and lazy.  You will never see one which is fighting trim and you will rarely see one who will even give a visitor a passing glance; it is just too much work.  Certainly, they are not there for security, as that would require effort on the dogs part.  Mostly they are there for company I guess and to provide a bit of a mascot for the shop.  Being a bit big and lazy my own self, I have always felt a certain affinity to these passive mutts.

Here, I was lucky enough to catch one in action.  When walking past the shop, this fellow actually ambled over to give me a once over sniff.  He seemed curious enough about my camera as well and immediately after the shot was taken, his nose hit my lens, leaving a big smear of dog mucous.  This shot was taken years ago, when I lived in another neighbourhood; the dog was always there, usually sleeping.  Makes me think of making a trip to the old haunts to see if he is still around.

LaChapelle was first brought to prominence by Andy Warhol, and like Warhol, he works in lots of mediums and freely borrows from artists of the past.  Here, the inspiration clearly is from Michaelangelo’s La Pietà, with Michael Jackson subbing for Jesus.  As I understand it, LaChapelle never did actually photograph Jackson; I am not sure of how it was created, though photorealism is not a big thing for LaChapelle.

The huge portrait of Andy Warhol was without a doubt the most traditional “photograph” on display.  It was also one of my top three favourite pieces on display.  A simple black and white headshot, shot on large format film, I am sure.  It was really nicely done. At the left, you can see one of LaChapelle’s riffs on Warhol’s famous Marilyn silkscreens.

MOCA is a big place and even so, all available wall space was needed to show all that was on display. Here, the wall on the landing as you move from the first to second floor was packed with images as well.

After you get onto the second floor, you move from two dimensional photography to where there were more three dimensional installations on display.  I am not an artist and not certain of what to call them, photocollages maybe?

This was one of the bigger three dimensional pieces on display.  Like a lot of LaChapelle’s work, this had very strong religious and apocalyptic themese merged together.  When you put together religion and destruction (whether from war or environmental disasters), I think there is always lots to think about; clearly LaChapelle has done a lot of that thinking.

Here is the main room, with the biggest display space on the second floor.  Unfortunately for me, I felt that the sort of car/robot mash-ups on display were the weakest part of the exhibit.  The huge photographs/photo illustrations that were on display on the lower floor would have been so much better served up here IMO.  As it was, I didn’t even take photos of them, as the rooms were too small and crowded.

One final installation, this one vehicular and religious in nature.

Overall, I really enjoyed the exhibit; it is always better to see real prints than to view things on the web.  For me, the highlights were some of LaChapelle’s most traditional photography.  Particularly, I liked the portrait of Warhol I mentioned, as well as one of Naomi Campbell, Eminem and Lil Kim.  By far though, my favorite image was a headshot of Angelina Jolie; ironic in that Jolie is IMO one of the least attractive people that the rest of the world seems to find beautiful.  LaChapelle’s headshot could change my mind on that.  In the two dimensional works, I personally liked the simpler, more “true” portraiture better than the much more grandiose and experimental photoworks that he is more well known for.  Clearly, the rest of the world doesn’t all share my views there.  I did like his more complex and involved three dimensional work more than the similarly complex 2D stuff.

Anyways, a very worthwhile show, one in which all art lovers will find something to like and something to think about.  Too bad it all ends on Sunday, as you won’t have much more time to get there (assuming you live in Taipei.

Addendum:

Also ending Sunday is the World Press Photo winning photos exhibit.  This year, it is in a bit of an odd spot, but it is very close to the Shihlin MRT station  and is free.  The pluses to this one is that it won’t be so crowded (there were long lines at MOCA), it is free, it is held in a cool space and it has some of the best photojournalism from all over the world in 2009.  It is very much worth checking out.

You can see the World Press Photos exhibit at:

Shihlin Paper Corporation
Add：No.31, Fude Rd., Shihlin District, Taipei

士林紙業股份有限公司
地址:台北市士林區福德路31號

I know this post is coming too late, things in Bangkok have settled down for the time being and for that I am thankful.  Hopefully calm will prevail, though I have my doubts.

Like many, the city of Bangkok has been on my mind for the past while. I know that I am by no means alone in my feelings, but like many expats living in Asia, Thailand has a special significance for me. Like millions of others, Bangkok was my first ever stop in Asia and other than countries in which I have held residence, I have spent more time in the Kingdom than any other. There is no doubt at all that without first visiting Thailand in 2000, my life would be very different than it is today. Most obviously, I doubt very highly that I would be living in Taiwan had it not been for my first Asian adventure. I felt at home there; more so now that I have been through a dozen or so times.

My feelings are different now; and I am not doing well at sorting them out. It would be easier to sort things out if I better understood the politics and sociology in Thailand; but the fact that I don’t doesn’t lessen my feelings. Violence always saddens me, but this case has been even worse. Usually when there are clashes, I feel pretty comfortable in at least siding with one side who I view to be in the “right”. Two years ago, when people took to the streets of Yangon, I had no problems at all siding with the monks and against the government. During the protests in Iran, I was clearly on the Green side. In the past month or so in Bangkok, I am really ambivalent. I don’t like the Red Shirts methods; they seemed to step past civil disobedience towards purposefully violent chaos. I don’t like that they seemed to be manipulated by Thaksin, whom I have very mixed feelings about. On the other side of the coin though, I can’t help but feel the government and army didn’t diffuse things as well as they might have and I realize that the government is backed by the wealthy vs. the rural poor of the Red Shirts. Finally, I feel very saddened that the King, whom I once quite respected as far as monarchs go, was ineffectual at best. All of these things just leave me cold and sad. I know this has been some time in coming and I realize that I had been looking at things through rose colored glasses, but somehow I feel that my innocence has somehow been lost. That makes me feel sad and not very hopeful.

Most importantly, I hope for better times in Thailand ahead. Not important to anyone but myself, I hope that I can soon have the same warm feelings for Thailand that I had not so very long ago. I hate to feel so cynical about a city I once considered my favourite spot to spend time in.

Here’s to better times in the Kingdom.

I took this photo in 2004 on a trip to Myanmar.  We were taking a ferry from Mandalay to Bagan, which took something like 8-10 hours if memory serves. This guy was all over the boat.  I don’t believe that he had any official position on the ferry, but his mother ran the snack bar/galley and he tagged along for the ride.  His father had passed away.

The kid was completely full of personality and it was quite clear that everyone who worked on the boat was both very fond of and very protective of him.  He helped out here and there; cleaning dishes at the snack shop, I saw him doing some sweeping and other general tidying.  Most of all though, he goofed around in the way that any kid his age would.  Here, you can see the first mate keeping an eye; no matter where he went someone was keeping tabs.  My guess is that his curiosity had gotten the better of him at times and now everything he does is watched.  None of that is all that important to me though; what draws me to kids is strong, outgoing personalities and he had that as much as anyone I have ever met.  He was just fun to be around; everyone was drawn to him.  One of the greatest little guys I have run across.

As a photo, this is one I am fond of because of all the repeated triangles throughout.  From his flip-flops, to his legs, his hood, shapes on the ship; the triangle just seemed to pop.

I remember getting on the rather small ferry and dreading the long trip ahead.  Those house past in a blur.  What a fun time, thanks in part to this guy here.