Fashion Photography

Fashion photography has always been one of my passions.  I love fashion and anything that relates to it is of interest to me.  Richard Avadon, one of my  favorite photographers produced some of the greatest fashion photos of all time.  Recently,  I participated in a fashion workshop that involved Ute Mahler, a Hamburg based professor of photography and one of Germany’s famous fashion photographers.   She was exhibiting at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery featuring some of her fashion photography and decided to offer a workshop while she was

in Dunedin.  I enjoyed the experience and hope to do more fashion photography.

Wisdom of Dunedin’s Centenarian’s

For another project, I wanted to highlight a portion of the population, namely Dunedin’s  oldest people.  Sometimes old people become invisible and no one is really interested in who they are or what they have to contribute to society.  Jerry Friedman, photographer and author says “We are who they were, and they are who we will become.”   Jerry Friedman, photographed and interviewed some of the world’s oldest people.  He founded the non profit organization called “The Earth’s Elders”.

I loved doing this project, it inspired me on many levels.  Photographer, Imogen  Cunningham, did a photo project on people over ninety.  One of her last photo books celebrates age in a way that is not usually seen.  ”Beyond Ninety”, was her study, her series of interviews, dead-on photos of people who were beyond ninety inspired me to endeavor such a project.  She said… I’ve tried my best to sell people on the idea that I photograph anything that can be exposed to light.” Her best photograph, she always felt, would be made tomorrow.

Photography as a social tool

Some of my recent  photography projects have centered around social concerns that I have and I have used photography as a tool to heighten  awareness to these issues.     One of my first projects was to do a photo essay on Stay-at Home-Moms.   I interviewed mothers in Dunedin who chose to stay home and raise their children. Much has been written  about the subject and I wanted to document these mothers in Dunedin and see how they compare to other mothers in America for instance.  Dr.” Laura Schlessinger–the vitriolic radio advice-dispenser who built a multi-million-dollar career out of admonishing other women to quit work and stay home with their kids-has a strong opinion about the importance of stay-at -home moms.    Leslie Bennett, author of “The Feminine Mistake, has been both criticized and praised for its views on women, working outside the home.  My photo essay on Stay-at-Home Moms raises awareness to the issue that women now have a choice and  both choices, to stay at home or work outside the home , should be honored.

Another project that I used photography as a tool to heighten awareness was a brief photo study that featured  some remarkable children in Dunedin, New Zealand,  who have Autism.  I wanted to draw attention and raise awareness through photographs and a brief interview with the families on what it is like to raise an autistic child.  There have been notable photographers who have used photography  as a means to forward a social cause.  Margaret Burke-White, American documentary photographer, photographed the conditions in the south (United States) during the Great Depression.  She was a pioneer for women in photography.  She photographed the India-Pakistan violence, the Korean War and many notable historical events that included human drama.  Dorethea Lange, another American  documentary photographer  best known for her Depression Era work for the FAM security administration.  Her photographs humanized the tragic consequence of the Great Depression and influenced the development of documentary photography.  These and many other documentary photographers inspire me to use photography as a tool to document issues that concern me as a photographer.

Through this project of photographing and interviewing the children and their families I hope that I was able to show what was beneath the label of Autism, that is what this photo essay is about-    the beauty and spirit of the Autistic child and their caregivers.

Pinhole Pictures so far….

I have been shooting pictures around Dunedin of iconic buildings with my pinhole camera.  I have been keeping a log of all the exposure times and time of day that I took the images.  Most of the negatives look quite dense, so I may be exposing them for too long.  I will need to keep going to get some images that I feel represent some of the great architecture Dunedin has to offer.

Cyanotype Workshop

Today  I participated in a Cyanotype workshop  organized by Lynn Taylor, one of the Graduates in Photography at the Polytechnic.   The workshop was interesting.  We watched a power point presentation on the history of the technic and how to use it in your practice.   I got some fun ideas on how to incorporate my pinhole negatives into the cyanotype technic to make them organic.   I used silk and coated it with the chemicals and it turned out really nice.  I also use some watercolor paper and exposed it to the sun for about 45 minutes and the end product was really beautiful…I think I will show it in my project drawing class because it looks like a painting and it brings the photographic art back to  it’s origins….I will have some images to follow..as soon as they dry..

New Ideas for my pin hole project:

This is my first entry into my blog.  It is somewhat strange to be informing cyberspace what it is I am up to in my photography.  Having said that I think it can add another level to my work.    I have modified a Kodak Brownie camera to become  pin hole  camera for my project drawing.   As it turns out the images have been quite interesting and I have decided to go further and see what comes of it …

Landscape

Documenting Otago

I have enjoyed traveling around New Zealand and capturing images of the beautiful landscape.