Friday Inspiration – Page 2 – Andrew Nixon Photography

November 28, 2014

Friday Inspiration: Christian Fletcher

A section in a book that I’m reading at the moment provided a twist to the ‘you’re the average of the 5 people you spend most time with‘ idea that has been circling the internet for several years now. Specifically it said that if you’re the smartest person you know then you need to get to know some more people, if you’re the most creative person you know then you need to get to know some more people and went on like that for quite a bit. It’s funny that the Ninety Degrees Five group is five people – all are very talented and successful, if the alphabet soup of letters that they are able to append to their names is anything to go by – I wouldn’t mind being the average of this group by any means!

Of this group Christian Fletcher recently won Western Australian Landscape photographer of the year and International Landscape photographer of the year. He’s based in Dunsborough in South Western Australia, which looks like a fantastic part of the world if his photographs are anything to go by and is now on my list of places to visit. Christian seems to work predominantly with digital medium format cameras, which allows him to create large prints of his work, working with photoshop to fully extract the potential in each of his images. Check out the videos below to hear more from Christian himself.

Phase One – Christian Fletcher from Michael Fletcher on Vimeo.

November 7, 2014

Friday Inspiration: Peter Eastway

I wanted to continue the Friday Inspiration series looking at the work of the Ninety Degrees Five photographers. Up this week is Peter Eastway.

My introduction to the ND5 group was actually through Peter Eastway. I’ve been a subscriber of Better Photography, the magazine that he edits and publishes, for a very long time now and have enjoyed his various online tutorials. In fact as I was thinking over the summer about the options we have as photographers to express our voice Peter’s work came immediately to mind. I essentially decided that there were two places in which your voice can shine through – in the subjects you choose to photograph and then how you choose to process those images. Peter has a really unique style that, to my mind at least, is largely achieved through his post-processing work. In particular I feel that he has developed a a distinct and unifying color palette, perhaps not intentionally, through the consistent use of a particular set of tools in photoshop. The masterclass tutorials show you his process in detail and are worth a look. For single image processing check out his photo atelier series which give a behind the scenes look at Peter’s thought process.

I found the interview below to be a fascinating look at how Peter thinks and works. Check it out:

October 31, 2014

Friday Inspiration: Ninety Degrees Five

It seemed appropriate, given where my head has been in the last few weeks, to look at the collaborative group Ninety degrees Five this week. One of the questions that I’ve been asking is ‘as a beginning photographer how can you accelerate your improvement’ and realized that being part of a working group can greatly help. While I was thinking about that I was also wondering once you ‘make it’ whatever that means to you then what. Does the group that you’re a part of still work for you, do you move onto a new group that are more aligned with where you’re currently at? Where do the modern day masters go for feedback?

It was interesting then for me to come across Ninety Degrees Five, Les Walkling, Tony Hewitt, Peter Eastway, Christian Fletcher, and Michael Fletcher. These four photographers and a film maker are in essence a group of modern day master photographers who are working together in the way that I described in my blog post earlier in the week. The image above of Dampier Salt Flats is by Les Walkling and is from the Pilbara Project. The projects that the group has completed include ‘South West Light’ and ‘2016 Shark Bay – Inscription‘.

One of the things that came out of the Impressionists was a group sensibility within which the individuals still had a indue voice. I think that could also be said for this group too. The work hangs together as a whole and yet they clearly have distinct voices. Check out the videos below for more about the Pilabara project and South West Light.

The Pilbara Project from Michael Fletcher on Vimeo.

52 Weeks On: A Pilbara Project Exhibition Trailer from Michael Fletcher on Vimeo.

South West Light – A Photographer’s Perspective from Michael Fletcher on Vimeo.

ND5 – A photographers Perspective – ‘Come on…..really! are you serious?’ from Michael Fletcher on Vimeo.

October 24, 2014

Friday Inspiration: Wynn Bullock

I’ve been working through how to give meaningful feedback to other photographers about their work and in the course of that I realize that our reaction to work tells us more about ourselves and less about the photographer. That was certainly the case with my initial intersection with Wynn Bullock. Bullock is generally regarded as one of the most significant photographers of the mid-twentieth century. He was a close friend of West Coast photographers Ansel Adams and Edward Weston and a peer of Minor White, Aaron Siskind and Frederick Sommer. I remember seeing his famous photograph Child in the Forest from the 1955 Family of Man exhibition curated by Edward Steichen and dismissed him as not doing something that I was interested in.

I was recently given a copy of ‘Wynn Bullock: Revelations‘, a comprehensive look at his entire body of work that was produced to support the exhibition now showing at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia. Of course there are a good number of nudes included in the book which was where he was as a photographer early in his career but then there are a large number of images such as the one above that reflect his interest in how to represent time in a still image. There are a large number of abstract color images that I also find very interesting.

In listening to the interviews with Bullock below much of what he has to say about his photographic explorations resonated with me. Well worth a look.

Conversations With The Masters, rare interview with Wynn Bullock. This interview was conducted by Steve James of the Eikon Gallery

This video highlights excerpts from the 1975 film by Thom Tyson, Wynn Bullock: Photographer.

October 17, 2014

Friday Inspiration: Doug Eng

One of the things that I continue to struggle with is ‘why do I photograph’?

There are of course many reasons to photograph, having your photography being in service of something larger is awesome, being able to tell stories with your images and to capture a moment in history is clearly important. Doug Eng is someone who does this incredibly well.

Doug is a Florida native with a background in structural engineering and software programming who works in both the natural and urban landscape. In fact some of his projects have involved bringing the natural landscape into the urban environment.

For an example of this work check out the ‘Beyond the Facade’ project where Doug installed huge prints on the east facade of the old Barnett Bank building. The behind the scenes section (click here) gives a fascinating look at how art on this scale is created and handled.

I was fortunate to recently hear Doug present his project ‘On Fertile Ground’ which captured images of the last property of his family’s truck farm providing a record of his family’s successes for future generations. I was profoundly impacted by these photographs, they made me really feel that the farm stopped while the world moved on.

I came out of Doug’s presentation thinking that everyone with a camera, which means almost all of us now, should spend some time documenting their family history.

‘On Fertile Ground’ is currently on show until December 5 th, 2014 at the Lufrano Intercultural Gallery. Check out the video of Doug describing this project below.

October 10, 2014

Friday Inspiration: Jasper Johns

I’ve been thinking a lot about aging recently – are my best years behind me? They very well could be! In the physical sciences such as mathematics or physics people seem to have made their important contribution in their early 20’s. Perhaps because they’re less contaminated by dogma at this stage in their career. In the biological sciences scientists are generally older, when they have had an opportunity to amass a broad and deep understanding of their field, when they make their most important contributions. What about in the arts?

It was interesting then, with this as a back drop, to see an exhibition of Jasper Johns recent work ‘Regrets’ at the MoMA. Unusually this wasn’t a career retrospective, or a themed retrospective as one might expect fitting for 83 year old Johns who is referred to as America’s greatest living artist but rather a new body of work completed in the last year. The work caused such excitement among the MoMA curators that they rushed the whole body of work into the museum for an exhibition in a matter of months. They tell the story here.

For an able description of the work check out this article on ArtSpace.

It is interesting to see how the work evolved and spiraled out from a single photograph. An approach that might not work for all of us but is worth having in mind when it comes to exploring options to extend and deepen a body of work.

Jasper Johns: Regrets (March 15–September 1, 2014) from Above York, LLC on Vimeo.

September 26, 2014

Friday Inspiration: Hobie Porter

When I first saw Hobie Porter‘s work I wasn’t sure what I was looking at – a ‘straight’ photograph, a digital mash-up or what. He is of course a landscape painter, and his work is a juxtaposition of the grand landscape with artifacts that he’s found. Perhaps not surprisingly what caught my attention are his seascapes in which he incorporates old ropes, propellers and a variety of other things that he’s found at the beach. One of the advantages that painters have over photographers is that they are able to paint what ever they imagine and so I had assumed that these beach artifacts were figments of Porter’s imagination. Not so. While there may be an element of interpretation he actually collected these objects for use as reference and then for the exhibition shown in the video below displays them as part of the exhibition. Check out the videos of Porter at work and of him discussing his art below.

Hobie Porter ‘Continuum’ from Arthouse Gallery on Vimeo.

Hobie Porter ‘Full Circle’ from Arthouse Gallery on Vimeo.

September 19, 2014

Friday Inspiration: Richard Long

As I was thinking about British artists that I remembered seeing when I was younger Richard Long came to mind. The stone circles that I remember him making resonated with me at the time, and I still find that I’m drawn to simple geometric shapes, his sculptures, lines made by walking, was more of a mystery to me. I find some of his recent ‘mudworks’ to be quite interesting. Long considers these to be two dimensional sculptures having originally started this work on the ground before progressing to working on walls at quite a massive scale. The mud that is used in the work comes from the river Avon, a choice that reflects his upbringing on the banks of this river. As can be seen in the image above he’s brought some of his stone work indoors, making both mudworks and stone circles that interact with each other for some of his exhibitions.

I’m enjoying reading Juliet Miller‘s analysis of Long’s work in her book ‘On the Track of Richard Long‘. It’s worth a read if you can find the book.

Check out Richard Long at work in the videos below:

September 12, 2014

Friday Inspiration: Andy Goldsworthy

I dimly remember Andy Goldsworthy from when I lived in the UK, perhaps through that veritable institution Blue Peter, but his work didn’t connect with me at the time. I recently rediscovered Goldsworthy through his book, Time, that I found when I was browsing in a bookstore – remember those?

Andy Goldsworthy is a ‘land artist‘, a sculptor who uses the elements of nature as the materials for his sculptures. There seems to be a balance between the permanent works done with stone and the more ephemeral sculptures made with fallen branches, leaves, and ice. Thinking about his more transitory work made me think harder about why I photograph, I’m not sure that I would be happy to see my constructions disappear as the weather changed or the tide changed. Perhaps the change that ensues is part of the process and that seeing how the work develops with time is as satisfying as it was to make in the first place.

It was interesting to see Goldsworthy working in the field and to realize how close to the edge he operates. Many times it seems as though he could be 2/3rds of the way into making a work and it collapses, not once but over and over again. I hardly think that I would have maintained my composure in the face of such frustrations as Goldsworthy manages. Persistence clearly wins the day. Check out the videos below to see what I mean.

September 5, 2014

Friday Inspiration: Jim Denevan

Jim Denevan is a chef and an artist. As a chef he is the founder and driving force behind the ‘Outstanding in the Field‘ farm dinners. The aim for the meals is to reconnect the diner to the land, to showcase the talents of the farmers who grow the food and the chefs who prepare it. Here’s a link to the companion book. They were in Boston this week visiting Island Creek Oysters but unfortunately I missed them!

As an artist Denevan creates some of the largest drawings on the planet. Working most often with sand on California beaches, but also in other parts of the world including Siberia (!), working quickly to beat the incoming tide he creates geometric patterns that because of their scale are best viewed from the air. Very impressive. Who ever said that crop circles couldn’t be man made has never seen a Denevan drawing. Check out some videos of Jim at work below.

Jim Denevan: Sand Drawings, Spanish Banks from Michael Cox on Vimeo.