Yearly Archives: 2011

Lazy Art, Painting

Tweeting the Gonzo Art Creation

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On Monday evening I had lighting strike of inspiration hit my head. First, I turned off 300 on my computer, then I finished reviewing changes to a research paper, and then I decided to Tweet the creation process of a painting. The idea was, I’d take pictures at different intervals and then post them to my social networks including Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook. Since they’re all tied together, I just send it all to Tumblr and the updates were forwarded to the other accounts. I don’t know if this was a good idea, or if it just seemed like it should have been a good idea at the time, but it seemed like an idea, and so I followed through with the plan. I like Facebook for networking and Twitter is cool to get an overview on trends, but I’d never attempted to harness these things to broadcast a message of creation. However, after downing a red bull, everything seemed possible, so I pulled out a canvas and manga markers and started writing some things and sketching out a large head.

Mortal Lust

I can’t say for sure what was going through my head, but I wanted to start small, and wrote, “all the things you long to forget” on one side of the canvas. After some fun with the manga markers and using a stencil to write out MORTAL LUST – or was it before? Well, at some point early in the process I added the line, “It’s distasteful to think that every day should be special and beautiful. That you must enjoy life just because the sun warms your face with love before giving you skin cancer.” I don’t know where this line came from, possibly from a journal entry or maybe it was the red bull twisting my mind. In any event, I decided that the large head needed some fire coming out of the mouth and that it would also need to be green at some point.

I like using manga markers on canvas. It’s something about the way that the fabric soaks up the ink. With these markers you can go back and blend two colors together, so I’ll start with a base color for the edge of the flame, and then fill and blend it with a lighter color on the interior. It’s like taking all the fun of Photoshop and transplanting the experience to 3D reality. This also gives off a lot of vapor, and possibly this inspired me to write, “Shaman set me free” in the corner of the canvas. This all formed the basis for the painting, and I decided that it was now time to retire to the paint-throwing wing of my apartment, and get to work blending colors together. So I tapped up the plastic that had fallen down in my painting room and setup the canvas on the floor. I was barefoot of course, because that’s the best way to paint.

I made it point, when I moved into my place, to not buy any furniture. People move into places and buy stuff and then the whole space is filled up with useless places to sit and relax. Fuck that I thought, I want a laboratory to create in. So I left a room connecting to the photo studio mainly empty, and eventually covered the floor and walls with plastic to throw paint around in. Now that I’ve ben in to painting for a year or so I’m getting a collection of works. I’ll either need to hang them all up, or sell them, or just destroy the basterds with a chainsaw at some point. But, until that time I’ll stick with creating paintings. I’ll call this piece Gonzo Art II, or maybe Mortal Art, or whatever. Names can be so meaningless without a proper context. As I said, I had the bright idea to tweet the creation process and uploaded the images to my Tumblr account, which then filtered to Facebook and Twitter. I don’t know if this had a positive impact on the world, but it was a fun experiment, and all the images can be enjoyed here below.

Bands, The Formers

The Formers Band Portraits

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The Formers are a local Zurich band that I’ve been working with lately. It started with their show at Zak in Rapperswil, and I dropped by their jam session in Zurich to shoot some portraits. The Formers are the type of band I love working with. They’re motivated to play their music and you feel the passion they have just by walking into the same room. I also like their music, this might seem irrelevant for a portrait project, but it’s a powerful motivator for me as a photographer. When you can identify with the people you’re shooting you have a much better base for creating images which combine and communicate all the essential elements of those people.

The Concept

We wanted to go with something that combines the band members and also had a sort of gritty texture. I wanted to start out with individual portraits, because it gives you the ability to relate to each person as an individual, before figuring out a concept for everyone together. I decided to go with a ring flash and post-processing concept, which would give gritty portraits with a certain edginess, but allows each person to be focused on. So my concept was to put the portraits together in a classic square compilation. This is ideal since you can view and relate to each image, but see them together in one image. I like this because each member of the band has distinct features in their face and hair, and it would be a shame if we had highlighted the singer and left the drummer in a shadowed background, or simply lined everyone up in front of a brick wall (the worst cliche in band photos).

On the processing side I went with a high-definition look and desaturated everything a little bit. This makes the features of the face like cheek bones and beards stand out strong and gritty. I used my Sony A900 with a Sigma 24-70mm set on like f/3.5 for the aperture and my Sony F58 flash off-camera in an Orbis ringflash adapter. I then focused on the eyes and this makes the eyes sharp in focus with a nice defocused area around the rest of the face.

I’ve had a fabulous time making images of the Formers at their show and portraits at their jam session. If you’re in Zurich I can highly recommend checking out their next show and their music on  The Formers MySpace. Their next show is at Abart in Zurich on February 27th.

Web Portraits Zurich

Blankpage Portraits

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I was introduced to Blankpage through one of the team members, Lukas, who I met through Web Monday Zurich. Blankpage is an expanding startup in Zurich focused on B2B content distribution solutions. Blankpage was looking to be a part of the web portraits project, and this offered an opportunity to shoot a full startup team. I visited the Blankpage offices in Schlieren to discuss a shooting concept and get a feeling for the startup. Getting to know new people and hear about their startup ideas is one of greatest benefits of being part of the Web Portraits Zurich project. Blankpage is working on stuff I’m working on in the back of my mind, so it was great to see the iPad version of Das Magazine that they’re coding. Essentially, businesses like newspapers and magazines can come to Blankpage, and they offer solutions for getting that content onto mobile devices like iPhones and iPads, but this is better said on their website:

Design, build and customize electronic publishing technology to maximize business and usability impact for our customer solutions.

This was also my first location shoot for the web portraits project. All the previous shoots were done in my studio, and this offered the opportunity to see the company and get mobile with my lights. I brought a few lights to their offices and setup by a wall with enough space for a large softbox, reflectors, and a fill light.

For the concept, we wanted a certain uniformity between the shots (since it’s a team series), with a certain edginess, but not totally overdone with textures (like I normally do). I decided to go with some simple lighting, one large gridded softbox from one side to get some nice structure on the faces, another normal medium box from the other side, and some fill in the front reflectors.

One of the most interesting portraits from the shoot is Bero, the Linux Guru of Blankpage. He came to the set with a box and a sketch of a face tapped to the front. This sort of humor is simply awesome. We shot a few portraits with the box and then pulled it off, Bero has that perfect mix of hippy and high-tech code warrior and I could easily do a whole series with this concept.

http://blankpage.ch

1 Day of Art, Artcast

Experiments in Video Production

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I’ve had an interesting trip the past two years. I started focusing on photography, turned to painting, and now I’m into the idea of mixing everything in video/film production. I like learning new things, it drives me in life to look back after a year after and see those interesting turning points where I learned something new about my position in life and those around me. In the past I did some experiments with Art Casting, making stop-motion videos of paintings as they’re painted to show the evolution of the work. After I participated in 1 Day of Art Copenhagen I realized there could be something more.

I wanted to create a video that brings together the thoughts in my head and the music that I feel as I paint. So after getting back from Copenhagen I picking up a Sony VG10, started watching the Vincent Laforet film class from CreativeLive, and began learning how to make short films. The first few so far are Birth – Kraft and Gonzo Art. The goal is just to make something, that is going in the right direction. I’m basically a self-learning film student at the moment, and my first goal is to get down the film production workflow and make 1-2 minute films with a message.

Birth – Kraft

Birth – Kraft is a collaboration with Ethan Oelman, a photographer in Zurich. He planned a shoot with a dancer and rented out a pool in Altstetten in Zurich. I came by with my VG10 to shoot footage for a behind-the-scenes video and also to experiment. I shot footage of the dancer coming out of the water and then cut that together with still images that Ethan made during the shoot. I used Abaltat Muse to make the soundtrack. The flow of the film and the transition between themes was my main focus. Abaltat is an interesting program for quickly cutting music for videos, but I need to energize some music skills into the workflow.

Gonzo Art

Gonzo Art is a video of my favorite painting from 1 Day of Art Copenhagen, made for (t)here magazine. It includes a lot of writing inspired by Copenhagen and has many visual elements like fire and a giant head. How do you capture the texture of a painting on video? How do the visual forms need to be presented? I don’t know exactly, and that’s why this is an experiment. I used Garageband with samples from Computer Music magazine to cut the music. I then added voice-over using a helium filter on my vocals in Garageband. The soundtrack sort of sucks, but it’s a starting point for moving forward. Video production is forming the motivation to develop my music creation abilities, something I always wanted to get into.

What’s Next

I don’t know the future, I just know the awesome feeling I have cutting visual and music elements together. It feels right and powerful in an intimate way. It’s important to look back on how you got where you are. This short Gonzo Art video started with Talenthouse and a Creative Invite. I submitted my Lazy Art paintings and (t)here magazine picked my work, allowing me to participate in 1 Day of Art Copenhagen. This opened up a turing point in my creative life, I realized the ability to create is there, it just needs the right motivations and environment. You excel when you have awesome people around you, chilling on your own behind a computer is a recipie for mediocracy. The internet and social media are awesome for connecting people to one another and to new ideas, but you need a healthy creative environment in you life.