[L, diary, ephēmeris] 1) BLOG

"…The true artist is interested in the art object as an art process, the thing in being, the being of the thing, the struggle, the excitement, the energy, that have found expression in a particular way. The true artist is after the problem……If we sharpened our sensibilities, it is not that we would all agree on everything, or that we would suddenly feel the same things in front of the same pictures (or when reading the same book), but rather that our debates and deliberations would come out of genuine aesthetic considerations and not politics, prejudice and fashion… And our hearts? Art is aerobic."
—Jeanette Winterson—
 Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery

The Art Process.  Yes.  The Process. That is so much of the joy artists experience in their work.  Even as they struggle with frustration while learning to master a technique for their expression of making visible the invisible, there is the heady undercurrent of feeling as well as seeing the process unfolding.

While I was joyfully playing with the unfolding of last post's subject (the utilization of digital software to edit cellphone photographs), I was equally conflicted with memories of 'how it used to be'; a traditional old-timer's lament.

Twenty years ago I used a film camera.  It was an entry-level Nikon with very few automatic features.  While struggling to master the manual controls, I accidentally discovered a feature I have since mourned the loss of an equivalent, from my present cameras.   It was while taking three photos of my grandson helpfully unloading camping equipment from our van that, after processing and printing the film, I learned the camera could deliberately NOT advance the film.  Three photographs taken of Sam had become a single, multiple image of a very busy boy whirling around the campsite, manfully carrying various loads.  It was a delightful portrait, far more evocative than any single shot would have been.

Captivated with the possibilities, a new and very challenging process entered and greatly influenced my artistic life.  Multiple-exposures with film required severe concentration to visualize what the successive shots would require from the first shot. Particularly when composing 'candid' photographs, not studio images.  While looking through the viewfinder, one had to position the subject to include in the periphery, dark, not fully exposed, areas in which to place the successive photograph/s.  It took a lot of slow experience to develop the skill for judging what choices produced successful results because one had to, first, wait until the whole roll of film was exposed, and then wait further while it was being developed and printed.  There was no immediate gratification of digital, then. Nor were there an array of preformatted sliders to utilize for composing a final image, either.

I had a sense of 'something missing' during my recent experience using the cell phone's software, and wrote to my friend:

"I love that you showed me the editing software on my cell phone, and will use it once in awhile, I'm sure, but the gift I treasure most from you and our time together is the renewed energy I have for working with my own photos again--though more likely it will be through Photoshop.  What I have to write for the second post is how much I loved it when I could take double-exposure pictures via the camera itself…the fore-thought needed to judge how to create a mood, which is what kept quietly nagging at me while having so much fun, so easily, with the cell phone.  I have no desire to knock the software--equally inspiring possibilities, too, and I want to make that clear--but there was something more that I missed and have yet to define.  Hopefully, without sounding judgemental, placing one above the other in quality..." 

...to which she replied:

     " There are times when I miss my SLR. The intimacy of the lens is a game changer for sure. My last SLR died and I moved on to a small point and shoot. Great for travel. Then I got this Samsung 6 with my cellphone plan and thought I would test it. What resolution, easy to use, I could take huge photos and crop. Oh my! It was almost stealth, too. And always with me. And then to find those lovely "unintended circumstances." And trying to shoot on the run from the jeep --my son does not slow down for water buffalos (my absolute favorite) or jeepneys. Then.....this year, I discovered how "elegant and graceful" the Filipinos are. Who knows what next year will reveal?"

So the process of discovery continues for us both.  After gaining a little experience with the photos taken with the cell phone, and still eager to do more, I wanted to then craft into a single, multiple-exposure portrait, the three Nikon photos I'd taken of my friend.  For that, I needed Photoshop.  Ugh.  It has been too long since using it, so the 'learning curve' was arduous (ah, but at the start of this post that is what I said we artists love, wasn't it?). 

BEFORE:

AFTER:

"...the most elementary form of human creativity (...is) the capacity to add something of one’s own to the common world."

--Hannah Arendt

...anybody have any thoughts on this they'd like to share?