Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2010/01/16

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Subject: [Leica] LA Review
From: richard.lists at gmail.com (Richard Man)
Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 22:59:22 -0500

Finished the portfolio review today - met with 3 people yesterday and
3 today. The first day was slightly discouraging in that while one
gallerist (in fact, up in the City) says we should get together with
the gallery owner and talk, the general comments is that while my B&W
darkroom prints are good (but can get better of course), but
regardless how good they can get, in terms of subjects of the CA
coasts and redwood etc., it would always be: why would people be
interested when there are Sexton's, Westons' and Adams etc. abound?
The worst comments come from reviewer doesn't seem to grasp why I am
doing it. She asks "are you interested only in the Asian market?"
Another suggests that may be I should do the calligraphy on the mat.
Ouch and double ouch.

Anyway, this is one question I have been struggling with: B&W print,
which I love, but how do I input my personal vision? I tried writing
calligraphy on a couple photos and while they look good, they are
lacking simply because the photographs are not the best images. I was
thinking that I should go visit China and take some classic Chinese
landscape images for this purpose.

Anyway, the first reviewer today, after seeing my portfolio, made a
startling simple, commented: "Use Red Ink."

Duh.... on hindsight, it's the most obvious thing to do - it matches
the chop's color, and would be distinctive on the B&W prints!!!

My mental block is that Chinese calligraphy is always Black on White.
In fact, I tend to lighten the patch where the calligraphy will go on
a computer file, so this simple suggestion is like one of those Zen
Koan - breaking open my mental block. I discussed the idea with the
remaining two reviewers after I did the presentation, and they do
agree it's a great idea and made more suggestions.

So I have some work to do in the next couple weeks to enter in a
couple competitions with these new ideas. This is GREAT!!!

and tomorrow I will drive to Indio and do a couple day of shoot around
Salton Sea and the Joshua Tree.

****
I am also trying to sign up for the week long John Sexton B&W Printing
workshop. They used to fill up really fast but things may have slowed
down a bit now. We will see...

-- 
// richard m: richard @imagecraft.com
// w: http://www.imagecraft.com/pub/Portfolio09/ blog:
http://rfman.wordpress.com
// book: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/745963


Replies: Reply from imagist3 at mac.com (George Lottermoser) ([Leica] LA Review)
Reply from s.dimitrov at charter.net (slobodan Dimitrov) ([Leica] LA Review)