Zen in the Art of Archery

This book is important because it has a lot to do with self. Eugen Herrigel writes about how in his process to learning archery and also learning about the zen buddhist culture/religion/way of life, he has learned that one must be patient and one must be in tune with oneself in order to master one's craft. It is important because i think and have thought that it is one of the if not the most important thing in life to find and truly be tune with yourself. It is also important because patience and persistence are crucial for success and mastery in any field or way of life.

I have learned from Herrigel about the intricacies and difficulties of archery. In some ways it reminds me of the first time i shot a gun in terms of him holding the bow the right way and very much about the breathing part in the third chapter. I have taken in a lot about the buddhist way of life, which i cannot say that i have learned fully from this book, because i am buddhist (not zen) and i am very familiar with many of these concepts already. It is always interesting for me though, to learn about buddhism and repeat the ideas in my head. There you go, repetition.

I think that this applies to me and my work first of all because i really need patience and persistence. I am at SOME times very impatient and i am also very hard on myself. I want each shoot to go a certain way and sometimes it is difficult for me to accept that not every shoot will be perfect. However, i feel that i have gotten this far through persistence and repetition and attempt at mastery. I feel like the zen teachings are applicable to photography as an art in that me and my camera are as one and i should be one with it in its functions and also in the viewfinder and my compositions choices. I also do not think that learning how to photograph can be attained by studying. Photography never leaves my daily life, it in inescapable. Also, very importantly, it is a contest with myself (the archery concepts not so much just the zen and buddhist teachings). I do not fully agree with the thought interfering concept however, and also i don't think it applies that if i were to be fully spiritual i would not need my camera.

Sports Photo: Week 3

Today i discovered the photographer Sandro Miller and i fell in love with him a little bit. He does portraits and documentary etc. but he has significant body of sports portraits and work and they are beautiful. His stuff is bold but quiet and is genuine and moody. He also has done a whole book on the bull matadors in Spain and the book is really awesome. I was actually really quite lucky and was given a copy by an amazingly sweet woman. I love the emotion that he captures and thrusts out into the world through his portraiture. His tones and lighting are also beautiful. Sandro had a few images of fencers as well which got me excited just in terms of me thinking about how slight inspirations for my kendo project. There are portraits of the fencers with their masks and head gear on and you can see their faces through the masks. I really like that. Both his black and white work and his color work are great. His color is actually really pretty. I love Sandro's work because i feel as though it has peace and power at the same time.

Sports Photo Week 2

This is a photograph of John Clay by photographer Morry Gash. I just think it is an amazing shot even though i don't even like football, because of his beautiful use of reflection. It says so much. it shows the intensity of the game and each player's role as a lone person on the field that has to get their shit done for the team. it shows his point of view and his view of the game through his face mask while also hiding his face. It is so amazing how you can barely see his eyes. I just think that it is great shot and it it is framed beautifully and it is so different then all of the other sports photos that i see that pertain to main stream sports like this on the field with like press coverage stuff. as opposed to more intimate moments with them or whatever. Awesome photograph.

Sports Photo Week 1

so for my blog posts for this class, i kind of thought i would start by exploring some sports photographers and find some inspiration. i guess because i am not really a sports photographer myself and i am not what one would even expect to become one. however i see something in it that could make me a better photographer perhaps or perhaps help me develop who i am. or maybe just learn something new. i thought it was kind of funny that i asked tony after class to give me HIS top ten sports photographers and kind of like the hall of fame that i could be inspired by and start exploring. then right after that class i kind of had this book put in my lap of portraits of basketball players. they are beautiful. i was given the task of scanning the book and therefore now i have the fully scanned book and that is what i want to share right now..just a few selects of images that i like from the book.

Adolescents

Lolita complex. infantilization. Not much comment needed. It is a fucking infantalized girl being humped by a censored teddy bear. I found it interesting that every time i looked up definitions for the lolita complex, Japan was brought up first, before the book, or the movie.



This is an example of infantilization. It is a photo of a trend/fashion trend in Japan of Harajuku girls who dress in baby doll styles and go out everyday fully decked out like this. They do not just wear baby doll dresses but they wear full on outfits in baby doll styles. I cannot say that this would go for each and every one of them but generally they would act very cute to go with their cute attire and this would be an example of adult women dressing and/or acting like little girls to be cute and sexy to men or to each other.



This would be an example of the opposite of infantilization. I am not sure if we discussed a name for it but we discussed it in class and i came across this image and knew it was too perfect to pass up. This is a photograph of the strange tradition of little girls trained at a young age to be mothers. They push strollers while they could be sitting in one themselves, and they carry around and care for baby dolls while they were just that a short while before. I don't think that most people even really think about how funny it is because it has become such a typical thing in our society. It has a very long standing tradition for little girls to play this way. I think that most mothers would think this is cute. It does remind me of the movie Away We Go in which the bohemian mommy Maggie Gyllanhal is against strollers and says, "i love my child, why would i want to push him away from me!!!"

Something O-So-Awesome

http://mocoloco.com/art/archives/016976.php

Franck Juery uses his polaroids and toy cameras to make imaginative scenes the bring a fuzzy nostalgic feeling to the viewers hearts. I like these images because they are playful and creative. The artist uses his photographic abilities to make something creative with his work. Also, Juery's photographs ties well to our topics in class and the books we have been looking at.


http://www.lifelounge.com/photography/gallery/bruce-davidson-and-1950s-gangs-of-brooklyn.aspx

This is one of Bruce Davidson's images from his Brooklyn gang series. The link leads to a bunch of images from the series. Davidson shot this Brooklyn gang called The Jokers in the 1950's. The photographs are kind of raw and beautiful and as i am a sucker for the 50's and the 60's, i love these photographs. Make sure to click the link and check out the others.

Body as Landscape: Sex Sells.

After having our class lecture which included portraiture, pictorialist portraiture, and images of body as landscape, reading the articles and readings assigned, and looking at and thinking about images, i realized some very interesting things. I feel like body as landscape today is very sexual. Everyday we look at images of bodies that are practically nude and it is perfectly okay and socially accepted. That is because sex sells. Sex sells lingerie and underwear and even clothing.

Sex sells cheeseburgers.

Sex sells everything, this could go on for days and i could run out of upload room. Basically, these may not be great images of body as landscape such as Maholy Nagy's or May Ray's, however these images do portray today's version of body as landscape. At some points we do not even think about the person as a whole anymore we just look at their body or the clothes or lack thereof that are on it. One great example is the image of the girls curve with a sports car curves (perhaps a corvette). Unfortunately i could not find that image to post, however that is the idea.

These ideas of body as landscape and sexuality in photography tie very interestingly to the readings, because in the article "1850-1918: Gender and Eroticism in Pictorialist Photography," the topic of pornographic usage for photographs of women is discussed. Artistic nudes and art photographs "presented the female body as an aesthetic and erotic object" in the 1850's in France, just as photographs of women do today. It is discussed in the article that photographs of women were used as softcore porn, and even viewed in galleries for mens' sexual fantasies and voyeurism. I feel that this is a very interesting connection between the history of photography and the present state of photography.

Another Very interesting point that i found in the reading is that during the same period, England mainly focused on the female body rather than the male body, just as France did. However, England, more often, clothed the women. Many people discuss the topic of how the way women were portrayed at this time, in photographs, represented the social and political issues surrounding them at the time. Such as, using their photographic image to make political statements about birth control use, and about regulating prostitution. I feel that in a similar sense, we use photography in the media and in our culture, to make the female body image look a certain way, and tell young girls and women that they are supposed to look like that. We are programmed to think that women who are thin and beautiful, and get their hair done and colored, and get manicures, and dress a certain way, are happy, will get married, have beautiful lives, and be successful. In this same sense, Dove used photography in their campaign to make a social statement that women are all strong and beautiful and that they should embrace the skin they are in and be proud and confident.

This goes against the popular current ideas of plastic surgery in a world where, for many plastic surgery is a perfectly normal thing. Some women have botox appointments setup like dentist appointments, or maybe even more frequently. This is a social and cultural issue and it is similar to those concepts of societies ideas of birth control back in the day. It is interesting that we are still using the photographic images of the body to speak for our social and political issues just as they once did in England, and I am sure elsewhere as well.