Tag Archives: texture

  • Rooted and Rocked Mountain Biking Washington by Jay Goodrich

    Owen Dudley rides the rooted, rutted, super technical rocks of a trail near Bellingham Washington.

White Noise

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Have you ever heard of a Holga? Or Lomography? The Holga might go down in history as the biggest piece of shit plastic camera ever produced. And it was made in and for the country who is notorious for producing cheap crap replicas of reality–China. At the same time though, they produce pure perfection like the Mac Book Air I am typing this post on. Lomography grew out of a similar trend. This time with a piece of crap Russian camera. Both of these tools had a lot of things in common, mainly their light leaks and cheap fabrication, and it was primarily these two features that surprisingly allowed them to grow a cultish following among photographers. If you knew your camera leaked light along the top horizontal edge, you could effectively compose for it and use its disadvantages to your creative advantage. Much like Guerrilla Warfare.

I can already feel my purist colleagues rolling in their proverbially graves. What no multiple exposure merging? Disregarding image perfection. It is necessary to make sure that you eliminate the shadows and find detail in every part of the landscape. Your thought process is ludicrous Jay. You have fallen off your rocker. Maybe sippin’ a little too much of the Old Lady’s moon shine again are we? Maybe. But I am changing, not into a butterfly, I am developing my mission and viewpoint as an artist. And as this occurs, my likes and dislikes are changing as well. The world is far from perfect and I am beginning to believe that photography shouldn’t be perfect either.

Photography is becoming extremely sterile. And in that pursuit, so is the creativity, so is the style, and so are the images. I am seeing so many photographs of popular places in different light (albeit amazing light) with different compositions, but these images now possess almost nothing of interest to me. Is it because my growth as a photographer is turning me into a snob? I don’t think so. Is it because I am tired of looking at the places I have seen so many times prior. Probably not. I think it is because those images are becoming so typical in their style that they are benign. Lustless. Clean. I want True Grit or at least a grit that fits the subject.

I think this quest for perfection became a most sought after ideal as the film industry began to give way to the digital era. Companies like Fuji had films like Velvia with its ridiculously fine grain structure. They worked this engineering so hard because publishing techniques and secondary separations tended to blur/muddy the final outcome at that stage of the technology game. That mission of smoothing out film continued with noise in the digital sensor. Nikon has managed to surpass their heralded D3s with their forthcoming D4 in noise suppression. Now every image will be perfect and to the entering amateur that may in fact continue the sterilization process to the point of a photography demise in my opinion. There are times I want that noiseless perfection, knowing full well that I can junk it up if I so choose. So even at a time when photography is becoming sterile, I want a camera that can produce sterile as long as I can create T-Max 3200 with light leaks in the end.

Maybe you are striving for that image perfection like many others. Perfect light shining across some vast expanse as the sun kisses the horizon in an f22 starburst with just the right amount of pink clouds in the upper third of your composition. Ah yes. The perfect checklist of capturing one-stop exposures for your ability to join everything together in a two-hour Photoshop session. I know, I have been there, and sometimes still go there, although not that often anymore. I want grain. Simplified color. Or no color at all. Strong lines and textures. What I often thought I wanted was Jackson Pollock. Now I want Jay Goodrich–a recognizable situation, with abstraction mixed in to the point that you almost fall off of my view point, but somehow manage to stay connected as you see that point get driven right through the head of my subject like a vampire stake. I am going to take your checklist, crumple it up, and light it on fire. Why? Because I can. Now all you have to do is leave the cattle behind and come join me on the razors edge. I will have a mason jar full of black cherry moonshine waiting for you when you do.

Defining the Abstract – China

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Caged and Free, Shanghai, China by Jay Goodrich

I spent ten and half hours on a plane sitting next to Art Wolfe and a woman that we both dubbed the “Pilipino Crazy Woman”. Yeah that’s right, six foot two inches tall and stuffed between a 300 pound woman and Art. She received her titled because every so often she would nudge against me and yell out in voice deeper than James Earl Jones as Darth Vader, “I go Seattle.” She also followed this up by religiously turning and coughing directly on me without covering her mouth. And it wasn’t one of those dry, minor, ah-hums, it was a yellow, snot-infested, pneumonia hack like my one-year-old gets after spending a week at his germ-filled day care. How happy do you think I was for those completely miserable, get me out of here, caged animal hours? A bullet to the head would have been such a simplistic freedom.

Chicken Blood, Yuang Yang, China by Jay Goodrich

This time did allow me to review the thousands of images that I created in China and I came up with a series of posts that are due to follow the first concept that I posted last week on the 17 day trip. There is no doubt in my mind that culture shock clubbed me over the head like my wife when I get it all wrong, which seems to be more prevalent in my life right now for some unexplained reason. When spending an extended amount of time in any location regardless of the location of the destination has me (and should have you) planning to come up with more than just the blatant tourist composition. You should look to this experience as a portfolio producing project and with that in mind realize how to capture that which responds most to you.

Pathways, Yuang Shao, China by Jay Goodrich

I have written many times about my love for the abstract. For some reason, the confusion that some see when viewing an abstract photograph, painting, or printing process drives the exact opposite emotion for me. Photography itself could be one of the creative mediums that lends itself furthest from the abstract, due in part because your creations are still a recording of realistic events. In fact, many would argue that the very definition of photography removes it from being an art form, but for my purposes, it is just another medium for one to be creative in. This alone makes me see photography as art, and thus it can be used to highlight the abstract. The process to achieving the definition of abstract can be harder in the photographic medium. And this may in part be because of the earlier sentence about recording what is already there. A painter’s blank canvas can lead to the most simplistic of statements , but removing elements for a photographic composition takes a much more deliberate thought process.

Processor, Shanghai, China by Jay Goodrich

What is the true definition of abstract art? Well, I just so happen to have one of them new-fangled dictionary thing-a-ma-bobs handy and it states:

Pinky, Xin Meng, China by Jay Goodrich

ab•stract art

noun

art that does not attempt to represent external, recognizable reality but seeks to achieve its effect using shapes, forms, colors, and textures.

Radioactive Man #1, Xin Meng, China by Jay Goodrich

Now I need to take this post a bit further and figure out how some of these images can be considered not only abstract, but art as well, because they are in fact captures of Chinese Calligraphy. Thus, a form of communication, and even though my communication skills can be considered abstract at times, for most, this is not the case. However, I personally can’t read Chinese. Making those beautiful symbols completely unrecognizable to me, and in turn, abstract. Now, I can create pure art from them using the shapes, forms, colors, and textures right? Well I can give it my best shot. A person who can understand written Chinese can always reply, “Jay you are the dumbest shit ever, your abstract art says, this way to bathroom.” Yeah, Yeah, I know, but that is the way the cards fall for me.

Rain, Xin Meng, China by Jay Goodrich

There are no shortage of locations to create my toilet sign photography, it seemed like around every corner. China is full of these amazing places where torn paper, wall writing, and even symbols are carved directly into the concrete and stone. What a texture base for creation. I could spend years here just shooting this subject matter alone. And spend years trying to explain that I don’t really care that “the toilet is to my left”, I like the colors, patterns, textures, shapes and forms. This is unequivocally abstract China to me.