people / personage # 12 ~ concentration
Wednesday, January 6, 2010 at 11:24AM 
Daniel and Maureen in the pool • click to embiggen
Hugo in the pool • click to embiggen
Hug in the pool • click to embiggenDespite how it starts, This is NOT a gear post.
That said, one of the reasons for my EP-1 purchase was to acquire a people-friendly camera in the sense that human picture subjects tend to be more at ease when a smallish P&S style camera is pointed in their direction than they are when an "intimidating" dslr is staring them in the face. This seems to be especially so when the human subject is a person-unknown to the picture maker.
The reason that I wanted / needed a people-friendly camera is simply because I want to put much more emphasis on picturing people - both known and un-known to me. It's time, or at least I feel that it is time, for people to start appearing, front and center, in my picturing endeavors. Something more like lifescapes as opposed to landscapes. Can you say, Lifescapist?
That said, I have been pondering the current state of human subject picturing - at least as it is presented around the blog-o-sphere / web. Much of that work is of people-looking-at-the-camera-with-a-sullen/deadpan-expression (as an example), especially so when the intent is to make "portraits". Happy people, at least those who manifest it, seem to be in rather short supply or, more likely, out of picturing favor in the Art World.
I really don't have any desire to contribute to that genre but what I am wondering is - do smiles or happy people have a place in the Art World?
I don't mean smiley faces posturing for the camera. What I mean is more like people just doing things like Daniel and Maureen in the pool. Or, is that just too fun and friendly - family snapshot style - to be considered as "serious" picture making? Is that too happy for the times in which we find ourselves?
My intent for people picturing is much like my intent for my other picture making - capturing the everyday in the daily flow of life. I am certain that some everyday people in everyday life will not be happy as a clam but does that mean I have edit out "happy" and only include "not happy as a clam"?
Just wondering ....
All that said, the focus of my people picturing is 2-fold:
1. While I certain that I will make a fair number of single / standalone / one-off pictures like the pool pictures above, my real interest is in making "relationship" diptychs / triptychs like the ones below. Pictures in which the subjects - happy, sad, thoughtful, confused, whatever - are somehow "related" but not looking at the camera.
Family relationships • click to embiggen
Dog and Man ~ Thanksgiving Day • click to embiggen
2. Continuing my life in pictures series which will include people - on the street, in stores / malls, etc. - doing whatever it is they are doing. A kind of street photography thing but with a big-brother-(who wants you to spend and get)-is-watching twist to the proceedings.
A life in pictures ~ Bell Centre, Montreal, CA • click to embiggen
A life in pictures ~ Madison Square Garden, NYC • click to embiggen
A life in pictures ~ W34th & 8th, NYC • click to embiggen
My New Year's Resolution, such as it is, is to concentrate on a few focused / ongoing bodies of work - specifically, Relationships and Life in Pictures - both of which are people-focused. Hence, the EP-1 and just 3 "pancake" lenses - a 17mm f2.8, a 20mm f1.7, and a 25mm f2.8. I am also thinking that a second EP-1 body is in the offing as well.
FYI, I am certain that smiling faces / happy people will come and go as they present themselves.
gravitas et nugalis
Featured Comment: Sven W wrote: "I hope the EP-1 comes with a waterproof housing! You might not be in the pool when you took the first image but it sure feels like it."
my response: the pictures look like I was in the pool because I was in the pool, albeit with my weather-sealed E-3. At the time I was still about 6 hours away from NYC and the biggest camera store in the world.
That said, I probably would have taken the EP-1 into the pool with me because it was a very controlled environment - a small pool with only family members present, all of whom are used to seeing me with a camera and who also accept the idea that I will kill them if they do anything stupid.
Reader Comments (4)
Thats Daniel and Maureen in the pool.
I hope the EP-1 comes with a waterproof housing! You might not be in the pool when you took the first image but it sure feels like it.
The Art World in general does seem to be going through a phase where work exressing positive emotions is very much out of favour. This wasn't always the case, and indeed seems to be a late-twentieth/early-twenty-first century attitude.
I'm going out on a limb here, but I wonder how much this has to do with the worship of teenagehood and all things youthful that has arisen in the same period? Teenagers tend to love art which expresses the darker side of life (often because they haven't yet experienced much of the real thing, I suspect), whereas old farts like me tend to prefer art which covers the whole gamut of life - light, dark and all the interesting grey areas in between.
I blame Rineke Dijkstra (and you should see how many Dutch students are copyists).
Or maybe it's because the pros are spending so much time futzing with large cameras that the subjects get bored.
Oh, and "Life in Pictures" surely "Life under Pictures".