“Andre Kertesz has two qualities which are essential for a great photographer: an insatiable curiosity about life and a precise sense of form.”
~Brassai~
Born in Hungry in 1894, Kertesz was self taught. When asked what interested him most, he replied, “Everything….The camera is a sketchbook…I made many many mistakes and learned…Everything I did was exactly composed…The camera is my tool. Through it I give a reason to everything around me.”
1983 BBC Series
“The photographer watches and waits”
“Photographing children requires total attention to their state of mind—a state that changes constantly from smiles to tears to wonder. These glimpses of magic slowly unveil, but illusively disappear the moment the photographer tries to capture them. Like an audience engrossed in the subtle character shifts of an actor, the photographer watches the child and waits for cues. “
~Cheryl Machat Dorskind
From my book, The Art of Photographing Children
Join me for my online class, “Photographing Children: Rising to the Challenge”
Class begins this weekend!
“I don’t work from drawings or color sketches. My painting is direct. I usually paint on the floor. I enjoy working on a large canvass. I feel more at home, more at ease in a big area. Having the canvass on the floor, I feel nearer, more a part of the painting. This way I can walk around it, work from all fours sides and be in the painting. Similar to the Indian sand paintings of the West.
Sometimes I use a a brush, but often prefer using a stick. Sometimes I pour the paint straight, right out of the can. I like to use a dripping, fluid paint. I also use sand, broken glass, pebbles, string. A method of painting is a natural growth, out of a need.
I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them.
Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.
When I am painting I have a general notion as to what I am about. I can control the flow of the paint, There is no accident, just as there is no beginning and no end….a painting has a life of its own, I let it live.”
~Jackson Pollock~
Excerpt from the video Jackson Pollock 51
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrVE-WQBcYQ
Hans Namuth and Paul Falkenberg (directors)
Morton Feldman (composer)
Saturday, January 28th, marks the anniversary of Jackson Pollock’s (the father of Abstract Expressionism) 100th birthday.
This weekend celebrate his genius: visit a museum, view his work on an online gallery, buy a book, or watch “Pollock” directed by Ed Harris.
Here’s a sampling:
“There is an old adage in music: “if you play when you practice, you practice when you play.”
~Ansel Adams~
Over 50 years ago Ansel Adams, feeling restless, made a career choice, forgoing the life of a classical concert pianist for that of a photographer.
He was encouraged by family and friends to stay the piano course. “Oh Ansel, don’t give up the piano, the camera can not express the soul…The only answer I had to that was, I don’t think the camera can, but maybe the photographer could.”
Friday Quote: by Cheryl Machat Dorskind
“If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough.”
~Robert Capa~
Have a great weekend,
Cheryl
Friday Quote: If they were willing to give, I was willing to photograph
“It doesn’t matter if you use a box camera or a Leica, the important thing is what motivates you when you are photographing. What I have tried to do is involve the people I was photographing. To have them realize without saying so that it was up to them to give me whatever they wanted to give me… if they were willing to give, I was willing to photograph.”
~Eve Arnold~
Conversations with John Tusa
http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/eve-arnold-personalities
Eve Arnold, a pioneering photojournalist, died this past Wednesday at the age of 99. She began her career in 1946, when career women were a rarity, let alone women photographers. She was one of the first women to join Magnum Photography Agency (along with Inge Morath). In her memoir, Arnold recalls how she studied contact sheets she found at Magnum to learn how the other Magnum photographers, such as founders Henri Cartier Bresson and Robert Capa, approached their assignments. She noted that Henri Cartier Bresson’s work in particular taught her to tell an entire story in a single image.
In the 1950s, Arnold carved a niche in Hollywood and is perhaps best known for her “natural and intimate portraits” of Marilyn Monroe, and “unflattering real portraits” of Joan Crawford. Yet, Arnold prided herself in staying away from “women pages” and whenever possible worked from a global perspective, traveling the world, documenting infamous faces, and winning many prestigious awards, honors, and publishing 12 books.
Have a great weekend and take a moment to reflect upon the work of Eve Arnold,
Cheryl
Red sits on top of the rainbow and the Adobe Color Picker
This holiday season was wrapped in red heart colored ribbons instilling messages of love and good will.
Red, both a pigment and light primary color, sits on top of the rainbow and the “Adobe Color Picker.” At its digital purist, red is 255 R, 0G, 0B.
Red is an attention grabber. Food photographers know that red stimulates appetite and product photographers will use bold reds to help brand companies. Check out the logos for Canon, Costco, Netflix and Target. Portrait photographers use red to create flattering flesh tones. Red can emphasize a toddler’s vitality or convey (with a red sweater) a teen’s confidence. Juxtapose red with green to add contrast (green and red are complementary pairs and create a natural impact). Red, considered a warm color, creates an optical illusion of an object moving forward in a composition.
Red has the longest wavelength and is said to be the first color a baby sees. Red stirs emotions; it is powerful, seductive, and elegant. At its full intensity, red jostles the senses—red may even raise your blood pressure.
While both reddish, red is not the same as magenta; red is a primary and magenta is a secondary color of light. When mixing light primary colors, red light and blue light combined will create a magenta colored light. Reducing red in your digital file will increase the amount of cyan, while reducing magenta will add more green. (See the screenshots used to adjust the flesh tones.)
To reduce the reddish flesh tones, I move the red slider to the left, thus adding more cyan
Alternatively, to reduce the reddish flesh tone, I can add more green by moving the magenta slider to the right.
Here’s to a Happy New Year and realize your red potential.
Join me for my class “All About Color” to learn more about Color Theory.
Cheryl teaches the following classes at ppsop:
All About Color
Photographing Children
Painting Photos
“Perhaps every culture leaves markers for the future, a means of connecting the dots of linking the past to what is yet to come. The “frozen moment” of photography provides a possible answer to the problem of Heraclitus, that one cannot step into the same river twice. Perhaps one can look at the same photograph twice. Even though our thoughts and our memories change, we change, the perspective through which we look at the world changes, there is the thought that a photograph partially takes us outside of ourselves. That it gives us a glimpse—even though it may be only a two dimensional representation—of something real.”
Errol Morris
From the Book “Believing is Seeing”
(Observations on the Mysteries of Photography)
Wishing you a safe, healthy, happy, and prosperous New Year!
“Equipment should fit like a good pair of jeans, moving, adapting, and forming to the moment with comfort and ease.”
Cheryl Machat Dorskind
From the book
The Art of Photographing Children
