what do you see like: 2015

those 4 skies: the firmament. i appreciate the spareness of these, feels philosophical, esp like last 2

squirrel diptych (2014)

http://i.imgur.com/HzsuWVZ.jpg http://i.imgur.com/pkdPUAs.jpg

love it. more you look, more interesting & pleasurable diptych gets (e.g. noticing visual rhymes within each & linking the two).

:) at off-kilter fencepost, magrittean leaf-birds

& of course aw squirrel! deadpan (funny/ poignant) connection with animal there reminds me of ed panar’s animals that saw me (though this def its own thing).

ps delete "funny/poignant"; it's plain deadpan & i like that here

I'm trying to force myself to work on photos again, so here are some pictures I just uploaded. All from last year though.

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7659/16540403384_9825804378_z.jpg https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8757/17161200242_f362176b64_z.jpg https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7585/16540402824_aef9719cb3_z.jpg

these are all very good

& pink & blue taste great together

sorry you're having to force a photographic lifestyle, i feel you

it's hard to just dig through your chronology sometimes i think

well I just haven't been taking many pictures lately. anything sort of good comes from probably six months ago at least. I figure it will come back later.

(I think I can never be productive at making pictures and making music at the same time, and that's ok)

not that I've been productive at either lately, but I've wasted a lot more spare time using synthesizers. it'll flip back in a couple years probably. it's hard to get back into the same mindset as before, when looking at nice pictures made me very excited to take my own, and to edit them.

v cool, really like these, there's an uncanniness here that's up my alley

re digging through one's chronology, in my experience that can sometimes be as (or almost as) important as taking (new) pictures

an always developing aesthetic (personhood) doesn't just affect the pictures you take in the present, but also affects your appreciation/ recognition/ edit of the pictures you've taken in the past

i've been surprised at times to (re)discover (to "get" and come to love) photographs i'd neglected or put aside

even if old photographs don't make your "edit", going through your archive you learn things about your own sensibility, themes, etc.

and there's always the proustian thing. going through old photographs (maybe even more if they don't have obvious personal or sentimental value) is an existential trip

taking fewer pictures feels healthy to me
like letting some go by
remembering that they did not need capturing, really
with the exception of pictures of people
already so many pictures, &c&c&c
multiple sidewalk variations

& i don't know it's good to at least actually sense a natural inclination/disinclination, i think. instead of just routine clicking forever. especially if you're doing something else. sometimes when i'm not taking pictures it's because i'm tangled up in film vs digital debates or photography vs film torture, probably, in the background, have felt an impotence or lack of value to photographing things, have not walked half a block back to photograph a window that reverberated a little. it would be great if through all those spells i'd done the thing i was thinking about, instead of just not-doing the thing i usually did - so like if i had spasms of video & eras of digital, just aging. i read this beautiful david hockney bio, recently, & he was so good about aligning how he spent his time with where he was up to intellectually, or in mood. getting interested in polaroids & so dropping everything to pursue them, just fully engaging with the thing while he was enthusiastic about it & able to concentrate. going where the energy was. faxing drawings, &c.

really what i am saying is remember that william eggleston plays synthesised piano also

xp

& yes! drash otm

having to look while editing is how i got however smart i am

but also

chronology is tiring

& pretty heavy

i think

it's good to at least actually sense a natural inclination/disinclination

just fully engaging with the thing while he was enthusiastic about it & able to concentrate. going where the energy was

really what i am saying is remember that william eggleston plays synthesised piano also

otm, for me. (with proviso that photography like writing is different practice for different people, can’t generalize, etc)

but yeah— for me, photography is v tied to & dependent upon subconsious/ mood/ impulse— being moved to seek/ look/ frame/ press the shutter for reasons that aren’t entirely intellectually known to you. (really conscious, carefully planned or forced photography is more likely just to look like photographic paradigms you know. of course all photographs will look like your paradigms, to a large extent, but if forced it's more likely just to be hollow imitation). so imo it’s key to stay in touch with inclination, mood, etc. (not necessarily in a self-aware way; you can be opaque/ numb to yourself yet still feel impulse to take photographs).

it’s a cliche, but in my experience v true that what you read (or write), listen to (or play), what you live & experience, informs your photography as much as anything photographic. e.g. pursuing your aesthetic pleasures (in any medium) & taking care & time to savor that pleasure— dwell in it (poem, painting, song, film, feeling), not necessarily analyze it.

i have more vivid memories of photographs i didn't take than of photographs i did take

chronology is tiring
& pretty heavy
i think

this is true too. dealing with this at the moment, i think.

ps "photography is v tied to & dependent upon subconsious/ mood/ impulse"
and chance

chinavision did you ever share those photos you had in the book

I think they're all on flickr in some form or another.

or good old http://ihardlyknowher.com/altairnouveau

I can't write much right now since I'm back in the office, ready for another slog of a day, but I appreciate the thinking and writing here by people who can express themselves better than I can.

but yeah— for me, photography is v tied to & dependent upon subconsious/ mood/ impulse— being moved to seek/ look/ frame/ press the shutter for reasons that aren’t entirely intellectually known to you.

Definitely. When I know what I'm trying to do I'm usually disappointed with the results and (this is something I especially notice now when I'm painfully trying to fill up a paid-for Zenfolio site) while it's maybe "good enough" for Flickr and def fine for a quick fire up to Instagram/FB, I'm completely nonplussed by its mediocrity and lack of surprise months later and don't really want it to represent my work. Whatever that is.

I do take an awful lot of meh.

I like this one for the O-O-F woman under the pier.

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8714/16954343847_947964297c_c.jpg

This appeals purely for verticals and backlit curves but everyone seems to like the fact that my children choose how to decorate my apartment and I have no control over it:

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8754/16974067768_dbe75a022a_c.jpg

And this because the grubbiness of the sign makes me wonder whether the frozen yoghurt has some essence of sea bird in it...

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8684/16975582689_e5d2d8c033_c.jpg

evocative, like these v much. i also feel, like you, that my most "successful" photos tend to have a surplus something compelling in them, fascinating or absorbing the eye/ feeling, that's not the visual-thematic focus of the photograph (though may have connection to it, not necessarily). often something you only notice later, often something very small, prima facie inconsequential to the "meaning" of the photograph. a gleam of light, a strand of hair. maybe related to barthes idea of the "punctum" (as opposed to the "studium").

at some point i'll have to share some photos with you guys, the ilp crew. just have to get over or around, somehow, my weird pathological need for online privacy/ anonymity. i.e. get over myself.

loved your site (sight), chinavision

I got an X100T for myself, and randomly had a couple of weddings to go to, so I decided to be the extra photographer for them:

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8770/16422743984_1a5fdcdb3b_b.jpg

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8599/15947181683_147c3a6bf9_b.jpg

And then I just liked this one of my son Owen at Glen Canyon:
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7352/16368741755_63ecfffa1b_b.jpg

great stuff schwantz - love the flare and unguarded moment in the first one, the sense of movement in the second and the starkness of the third - i'm a sucker for a landscape with a person in it

i love the x100 series so much

bizarro otm

Thanks!

schwantz, those X100T photos are nice, especially the last one.

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7642/17204617215_b8ed8cc6f1_z.jpg

Love the work here! This thread is always hugely inspiring. I've gotten out of the habit of posting new photos to Flickr because so much of what I shoot gets edited on iOS and uploaded to FB/Tumblr/etc.

Anyway: Flowers and demonstrations. Seoul's got it all these days.

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8813/16890723780_962bd7d59b_c.jpg

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8701/17008670378_9b391a19e0_c.jpg

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8805/17008784968_5c568b18f2_c.jpg

I like the colors in the demonstration pics.

also like composition of last pic. fond of photographs in which you only see fragment of person's face (eg eyes, mouth) yet rich with expression. here you've got this black inhuman wall taking up most of the image (shields of institutional power) yet peeking out from behind you see faces/ eyes of bespectacled young men-- so young they look like boys-- human, anxious, fragile.

I like everything posted recently but those demo pics really have something.

I've not posted in a while, had a year where I just didn't really do anything.

I hope this works...

1st one's Vienna, 2nd one's Ladybower Reservoir.
[Removed Illegal Image][/url][/img]
[Removed Illegal Image][/url][/img]

Oh well, that what i get for not posting for over a year...

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7689/17088618847_cf748d072a_z.jpg https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8826/16675818963_2aa44f1258_z.jpg https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8686/17088619337_7425e61c9e_z.jpg

Love all of those, especially the first.

^yes. the light and shadow.

thanks! still find that I'm forcing myself to work on photography rather than jumping into it lately, but so it goes.

It's only a sky, but it's my sky. (I.e, the view from my flat when I get home from work; 135mm lens on a crop body)...

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8791/17263070241_c15a82f385_c.jpg

St Giles angles, reflections, glassy texture and non-texture...

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7642/17263213371_8f7810b000_c.jpg

Same place...

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8822/17077528709_4eb1f4989e_c.jpg

Love that middle one!

http://i.imgur.com/jlH2OmA.jpg

Lovely triptych

Yes! Always happy to see this thread bumped!

^^^

So much light this April. From everywhere.

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8690/17371915511_ce3afc9d90_c.jpg

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8854/17372211655_f66cbd8f95_c.jpg

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8770/17346222996_6daac65b99_c.jpg

Zoo with family yesterday: http://ow.ly/M5Fbq

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/wp1qb9ueustf5wy/c1314727.jpg

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/8yk1ss09ykomzg8/c146229.jpg

those are really nice. I like the blocks of color in the top one.

thanks, chinavision (about time i posted something, to prove i am actual person who actually takes photographs sometimes)

Yeah, good colours!

Oh, I bought myself a little camera. I couldn't resist. Fuji X-M1. My first day out with it...

https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8805/17033607133_4f66ee97d5_c.jpg

https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8837/17031943974_77a2767a35_c.jpg

I've just recently felt like I'm emerging from a real period of drought and lack of inspiration that has lasted more than a year, London can be a really boring city to look at when you've been here 20 years.

I had a couple of days in Paris recently while my other half was at a work conference so I made a plan to visit as many of it's famous passages as I could, some were amazingly beautiful Belle Époque style arcades with fashionable galleries and little tearooms and some just had 20 barbers and a curry house, the grimy ones were more interesting to photograph by miles though.

This is Passage Caire which is the longest remaining one and is given over to clothes wholesalers mostly.

http://i60.tinypic.com/9tzrqh.jpg
http://i62.tinypic.com/o7ppvd.jpg

Couple more...

http://i57.tinypic.com/2vwwv3a.jpg
http://i60.tinypic.com/30ausjp.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/pC0dILJ.jpg

WTF is that?! Looks cool...

I do a lot of digital manipulation of the photos I take. If you turn your head sideways, you’ll see all the busses lined up.

Thanks! Kind of jacked everything up a bit in Lightroom this time. Also, it's the perfect time of year for good light around here.

Lots of lovely fog lately.

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/751/22792112475_787b6672a2_c.jpg

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/589/22778619032_7c06ca181e_c.jpg

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5624/22170997713_7ba66cdb28_c.jpg

Great time of year (for taking photos)!

Some favourites from Mexico:

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/635/22069147390_0d6606e377_c.jpg

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/771/22043338439_74a89d1f25_c.jpg

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5716/22044700299_cdabfa1f83_c.jpg

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5644/21643898463_5cb9ea27fc_c.jpg

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/608/21590104394_e11a3a4d7b_c.jpg

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/657/21584378573_e1d84bbf63_c.jpg

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/722/22011633410_bf18de6f6b_c.jpg

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5804/22003428750_4042fc241b_c.jpg

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5689/22151867236_3a6a125ba7_c.jpg

Great stuff! Going to Thailand next week - hopefully I can get some good pics...

Isle of Sky again, 5am start for the Old Man of Storr, had to stop for this. I'm a sucker for a sunrise/sunset...
https://farm1.staticflickr.com/767/22957651942_34aabdb011_c.jpgUntitled

Another from Skye...
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5738/22594244574_cbe727b213_c.jpgSkye Bridge

A few from my family trip to Thailand...

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5741/23091527109_4ddb0b0335_b.jpgShaved ice toppings by David Isbister, on Flickr

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5710/22834087923_4f91fce508_b.jpgLong boats by David Isbister, on Flickr

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/738/23352004972_a74733acb0_b.jpgGrilling fish by David Isbister, on Flickr

The whole set is here

Love the ice toppings one.

Great shots, particularly 2 & 3, is that salt on the fish?
That's a great camera and lens you're using, how is it usability wise?

Another from Scotland trip, one of the Three Sisters in Glencoe
https://farm1.staticflickr.com/665/23248509220_89eabff518_c.jpg

Thanks! Yeah, that's salt. I'm using the X100T (no detachable lens). I love it. Only drawbacks are:

1. Stuck with one lens. Makes the camera small, but it's pretty wide-angle.
2. Battery life isn't great. I bring an extra battery, and it can charge via USB so you can use one of those phone backup batteries to charge it in a pinch.

I'm sure there are other ones (esp. Vs. a high-end camera), but I've been very happy with it. If I had to do it again, I might have gone with the X-T1/10 so I could get some different lenses.

phone dilettante here, considering purchase. virginia in october: http://imgur.com/a/EAlyM

http://i.imgur.com/X1zBcyj.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/UmpKa76.jpg

That second one is really pretty (first one good too)!

Another from the Scotland road trip. I'm going back in march, Doing the NC500 this time, I hope i do it Justice
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5622/24009354715_0b612a8499_c.jpgNeist Point

An alleyway at the Glasgow Cross end of Argyle Street.

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1676/23416787743_e4d18451e0_z.jpg

A few shots from the studio:

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1577/24079241219_a3bfab0320_b.jpg

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1686/24151685280_824cd98f5c_b.jpg

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1560/24427257656_960bb3e373_b.jpg