6 month Pinhole Exposure

I stumbled upon this image and thought I should post it in honor of our pinhole day shindig this past sunday. The photograph of Bristol’s Clifton Suspension Bridge was captured using a pinhole camera made of an empty can. It was taken by Photographer Justin Quinnell, who attached it to a telephone pole overlooking the bridge and left it from December 19, 2007 to June 21, 2008. This six month exposure documents the suns changing orbit in beautiful imperfection.

Erin E.

End of Semester

Things to remember as the semester is ending…

• All work not picked up during our final time will be available in the Art Office until May 7.   After the 7th it’s gone forever.
• If you have files stored on the ArtServer, they will be deleted on May 4th.  Please back up any files you want to keep.
• The Course Evaluation forms are available.  Please take the time to complete the form.  I really do read these.

World Pinhole Day

World Pinhole Day

If you can make it on Sunday, please bring your pinhole camera, photo paper and food.  Sorry, no alcohol in the park.

Senior Pavilion behind the Nature Center 12-?

Class Book

Please post your images and a statement on the server so I can put together a class book from this semester.  I’ll email everyone once the book is complete.

May 2, 2010

Lens: Photographers Prepare for a Moment in May

By By DAVID W. DUNLAP

Published: April 20, 2010

Hundreds of photographers are getting ready to take a picture at one moment on Sunday, May 2. Here’s how you can join the project.

Danny Lyon & William Eggleston

Tim Mulheon

Danny Lyon was born March 16th  1942 in Queens, New York. In 1959 at the age of seventeen Danny Lyon entered the University of Chicago where he studied photography. He first real photography series Lyon worked on was during his last year of school in 1962 talking pictures of the civil rights demonstrations in the south. From the beginning Lyons got very involved with the movement and even had a hard time finishing school because he was so preoccupied with it. The next big project that Lyon became a part of was documenting a motorcycle gang called the Chicago Outlaw Motorcycle Club. Lyon didn’t just take pictures of the gang though he became a member. Lyons was a motorcycle rider already so he would ride all over the Midwest with the outlaws taking pictures along the way. Since the Danny Lyons has continued with many  projects in documentary photography including a series with the Texas dept. of correction where he went inside Texas prisons taking pictures of prisoner and actually ending up befriending and staying in contact with many of them.

William Eggleston was born July 27th, 1939 in Memphis, Tennessee, and was raised in Sumner, Mississippi.In 1965 Eggleston began to work with color photography, a medium that to that point was associated with commercial and advertising mainly. Eggleston was among the first to be using color photography as a serious photographic method
He first stared using color negative film, then switched to color transparencies or Kodachrome. The most important innovation came when Eggleston discovered dye-transfer printing in 1973. The highly saturated color of the dye-transfer gave his images a sense of hyper reality that fit the subject matter brilliantly and could not be achieved by any other process. From the beginning Eggleston’s photography has been rooted in the culture and community of the Deep South where here has always lived. The other thing that has defined Eggleston’s photos from the start is his interest with the ordinary, everyday, offbeat, sometimes lowbrow people places and things that do make up the South.

What I love, and am influenced by in Danny Lyons life and career in photography is how immersed he gets in what ever he’s taking pictures of. When he was taking pictures of a biker gang, he became a member of the gang. He went into prisons to take pictures but he actually got to know and became friends with the people he was taking pictures of. I admire that person-to-person interaction so much. That’s what it’s all about for me, the experience, the people you come encounter with, the adventure along the way. Without that attempt to have a real connection with the people and places that you are taking pictures of, the photography comes off as so impersonal, and insincere.  Lyon was honest and the people he was talking pictures of knew that. That’s why he could get such great images, because they trusted him and they knew he wasn’t trying to extort them , the people felt comfortable with him. That is a quality that I strive for.
What attracts me to William Eggleston and his photography is along the same lines as the all in attitude of Danny Lyon. In Eggleston’s case though he took a culture (the south) that he was already a part of, and ugly or beautiful that’s what he took pictures of.  He took pictures of what he knew, and what his life really was made up of. It is again that idea of honesty in your art. It comes through in the pictures. Eggleston didn’t care that color photography was not something that other respectable photographers were using. He didn’t care that the things he was taking pictures of were not traditionally what fine artist took pictures of. That’s what he knew and like and lived so that’s what he made images of.  I think it is important to note that both Lyon and Eggleston were also film/video makers as well, which makes perfect sense, and is also a field that I have a passion for and am involved with.  I do believe it is possible for people to make great photos and films and not be into going out and talking with the people and sharing a relationship, or having a higher connection with your surrounding place, but for the documentary style work that I love they are quality’s that I hold very highly.