Jay L: Random Thoughts on Photography & Art

Another landscape photograph

2011-04-28T00:05:00.000+03:00

Yosemite Valley

Still cautiously stepping into this area of "no-people photography". Looking for my personal statement.

Los Angeles Samples (#1)

2011-03-26T17:59:00.001+02:00

Los Angeles, the "hundred suburbs looking for a city", is not a "place". After visiting New York (almost feels like a second home) and San Francisco, what can one say about Los Angeles besides the accuracy of the previous quote? Anyway, maybe it is quite appropriate that this first image is not in focus.

Approaching Death Valley, Lone Pine California (Where are the people?)

2011-03-21T01:30:00.002+02:00

Now, where is THIS one coming from? I am just now starting to go through the photographs I took during our latest family vacation in the US. How come a photograph of scenery?? Is it the fact that I have started continuation studies at the Musrara school of Art & Photography that is opening up my vision, or is it just about time for something like this to happen?

What is interesting for me in this photograph as there are no people at all?
Could it be that this photograph relates to "scenery" photographs in the same way my people photographs relate to "street" photography?
I am looking for the common thread.

Stories

2011-03-19T21:09:00.001+02:00

This is a surprising photograph for me - mainly because I found it interesting at all. This time it is not the "individual" separated from the crowd, not the "made" icon, not the tension of standing time. Instead - a multitude of stories. I am sure this photograph will trigger something in my ongoing search in public places.

Barbershop, Tel Aviv 2011

2011-02-28T08:10:00.000+02:00

I have just gotten off a bus, probably my first bus ride (in Israel) for more than twenty years. Makes one feel a tourist in your own country. What a great setting for a fresh look at the city you know so well.

Celeste Prize 2010

2011-02-19T16:13:00.001+02:00

While not really news by now (the Celeste Prize 2010 took place in December 2010), I have only last week received the exhibition catalog.

FROM THE CATALOG TEXT BY MARK GISBOURNE(1)
"In another way the literal digital photographic approach without photoshop or subsequent digital manipulation is seen in a magnificently evocative photograph by Jay L. Entitled "Venice, March 2010", the work comes from a series taken in that city.. It has an immediate sense of "punctum", and the viewer is deeply touched by the young man's expectant waiting and sense of introspection. Visually in the tradition of the great post-war photographers there is a strong feeling of the incised moment about the image". (1) http://www.celesteprize.com/markgisbourne

Zuta - זוטא

2011-02-01T16:01:00.000+02:00

A weekly publication of a three poems and one image - in hebrew (Zuta)

There is a lot in common between poems and images: A poem to an image is like a story is to a film. Both capture a fleeting moment and, if good, live forever after in your mind.

As primarily visual person, I have not had much experience with poetry (beyond school at which time it was more of a chore), but I know I have been missing out and want to do something about it.

Jeff Wall & Me

2010-11-07T15:03:00.008+02:00

I attended, with several hundred other people, Jeff Wall's talk given at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. My "take away" points:

Welcome the accident. As one of the most meticulous photographers I know of, it was refreshing to learn how much Jeff Wall welcomes chance. He stressed he is unable to know, ahead of time, what the right photo will be. This does not say he doesn't plan what he wants, but he welcomes the unexpected. So many amateur photographers I talk to are obsessed with their internal need to "control everything". I think they are trapped by some version of Ansel Adams' quote: "In my mind's eye, I visualize how a particular... sight and feeling will appear on a print.." They feel that any "accident" cannot be truly "theirs" - as they did not "create" it. What a pity. Photographers should rejoice in the opportunities given to us by our unpredictable world.
Take many photographs, select later. Jeff Wall has embraced digital photography in a big way - the ability to select the one photograph that stands out as the best from many (even thousands). Again - many amateurs feel that this would be "cheating" - and get hung up in their creative process.
While my photography couldn't be more different from Jeff Wall's - I did find a connection: Jeff Wall creates a "false reality" from a "true" incident he has actually experienced. That is, he recreates a real situation using a set and actors, much like making a movie. In my photography I do the opposite - I try to create a "false staged moment" from "true" reality. May people have asked me whether my photographs are staged, as they appear to them surreal in some way, which is what triggered this thought.
I like Jeff Wall's idea of being able to "capture" moments without a camera (so they are "real", with no camera to affect the subjects) - and recreating them later. I do not know how, or if, to use this idea - but it does make me think further on the relationship between photography, memory and reality.

And then, just the next day - out of the blue - I heard that a photograph of mine was selected to be one of 10 photography finalists in the 2010 Celeste Prize Exhibition in New York between 11th of 13th of December 2010 (http://www.celesteprize.com/eng_1261)

Winning this competition is not important. Being selected from many by a professional jury is enough. One of the judges selecting my work wrote to me: "I found it a strangely beautiful image, not only for formal reasons, but like a good photographs it possessed an inexplicable inner life".

This exhibition does provide me the opportunity and justification to be in New York again. I do want the chance to see my photograph hanging on an exhibition wall for every one to see. Isn't it true that a picture can become Art only when viewed by someone?

The wonder of people photography in the city

2010-06-28T17:40:00.000+03:00

A city is a place where people gather. Visiting an unfamiliar city is an opportunity to meet unfamiliar people in a place I do not know. I come as a visitor but I am not interested in the eye of a tourist. I do not want to photograph the city, to document what has been documented uncounted times before. The city is a pretext - its streets, houses, sights and sites are only a backdrop for the inner state of people in the city.

When I photograph in the street I want to photograph people that are special but not a spectacle. I also want this "specialness" to allow for an underlying "generalness" to shine through. I want the ultimate viewers of the photograph to lose a beat - not knowing why.

I wander around the city, full of wonderment. I seek the people that signal me with their silent messages, addressing my subconsciousness. I look at them through my lens, awaiting that split second in which they lose their self awareness and purpose - to become both an individual and a symbol. Sometimes this moment never comes, other times I miss it completely, and all too often I misinterpret their wilingness to drop their mask. Almost always they are not aware of my presense, and when they are, I hope to capture the essense before they have time to change.

But the biggest wonder takes place when the photograph of "reality" (I was there, after all), becomes this completely fictitious depiction that could not have been there, but for me is as real as I am.

Feminism and the Nude - Ayelet's Point of View

2009-11-23T17:02:00.006+02:00

What does a feminist say about nude photographs? It depends.

Some time ago I posted a version of this photograph on a photography sharing site. A furious debate erupted with a claim I am humiliating all women (as one male photographer wrote). There were also positive comments, but they are not the subject of this post.

The debate went on for a couple of days, until the following was posted by a woman, Ayelet. She wrote (freely translated and published with her explicit permission):

"I want to say something I was afraid to say until now. This is meant mostly for Jay. When I first saw your photograph I was really angry, absolutely raving mad: How dare a man humiliate a woman in such a way??? I could not bring myself to comment because I was so mad.

A few days later I came back to read comments from others - and I was still very angry after looking at the photograph.

As time went by, I started to think about it some more. The anger started to subside, and then it hit me.

I suddenly understood I have been "damaged". Within the framework of this "Bullshit Feminism" we adopted, we did something very bad to ourselves. We, women, have only ourselves to blame.

We so wanted to be appreciated, to show the world that we are equals. In fact, that we are better! We started careers as women that have something to say.. But we also wanted to be seen. We became addicted to shopping, hair removal, make-up, cosmetics and more. But, in fact, we are "addicted" to another thing- to being a woman. And as a woman, nature gave us something we can't avoid - the mother instinct. This cannot be ignored even if you are a passionate feminist that feels you are allowed to keep your body undamaged by childbirth, that you can prefer yourself over your kid, and that you are entitled to leave the house in a less than spotless state - even knowing your babies will crawl all over that filthy floor. Oh really?? No! It's not that you are not allowed - you just can't! This motherly instinct will always be there.

So what does it have to do with my anger? Everything! While the media is full of perfectly looking thin models on every corner and sign, you still need to give birth. You will be left with folds on our stomach and fat that does not want to go away. You will get up in the middle of the night to feed your baby. You will get up early to dress him and get him ready for the day. Then you will stop putting on makeup before work because you are late. You will stop going to the gym because you have two "jobs". You will not buy new clothes because now you prefer to spend the money on your kid. You will no longer feel sexy even for your husband (and here I start crying. Fuck you, Jay! What did you do???). And then you no longer spend the same energy at work like before and your boss will give the promotion to the guy that sits next to you because he can spend more time at work while you will be doing washing, cleaning and breast feeding.

What is left is to hope your husband will continue loving you in spite of all that – and what is more important, that you will continue to love yourself. But how? Everywhere you look, everyone is promoting the thin look, shopping, beauty, body care. It is not bad - but what to do when it is impossible? You really try, but you can't!!

And this is where you enter, Jay. You reduce my anger (after all) but at the same time increase it hundred times more. My anger towards you subsided and shifted towards the rest of the world. Towards the clothes makers, the cosmetics firms, the marketers, the photographers, the publishers, and mostly towards us - women: That we did not see this coming and then let ourselves into this trap from which we have a long and difficult path to get out.

So… thank you, dear feminists, that you made me angry while seeing a photo of a real woman with all her beauty and faults. Thank you so much!!"

That was what Ayelet wrote.

It is not often that I get a glimpse of what goes on inside a person's head when seeing a photograph of mine. I want to thank Ayelet for sharing and for letting me know I made a difference. Small as it may be.

Man in Front of a Large Window

2009-10-13T00:10:00.000+02:00

Someone in front of a large window. At the Musemum of Modern Art in New York. No words.

The rest is in your head.

The Street as a Reflection of the Soul

2009-08-10T12:13:00.015+03:00

I sometimes find myself roaming the streets, with my camera and a lot of spare time, seeking subjects that inretest me - and find nothing. Everything is bland, gray, mundane. All the interesting people are gone. This is when I ask myself what am I really looking for in street photography. And then there are times I cannot stop pressing the shutter, to the point of exhaustion. The pictures jump at me from every direction. Over there! A man sitting on a bench, thinking about something next to a mysterious reflection.. There - a women with red hair on the background of a rusty door, her eyes set on one spot on the horizon.. There! a woman in black walking briskly with her hands flying in all directions and her body leaning forward - looking at me exactly as I press the trigger.. Over there! a women lifting her dress and caressing her thigh unconcious of my gaze.. until it is too late.. Everything is interesting, the heart soars, the spirit is singing and the happiness is unbounded. These are the moments I know exactly why I photograph on the street.

How can this be? What makes the difference? Can it be that in the first case I just happen to be in boring places?.. Am I lucky, in the other case, to be with all the interesting people?

Today, after experiencing both cases, I am confident the answer is mostly inside me.

People in the street are interesting to me when I give myself the freedom to relate, really relate, to what is happening around me. This is not a forced connection.. It is something transcendent. A connection in which I feel light as a feather, almost gliding above the ground.. Not pushing the photograph. I am between worlds, I see but am not seen among all the special people aroung me, allowing myself to be exposed only that much, sufficiently for them to notice me, not enough for them to be changed. They are still inside themselves - these are the people I want to photograph at the time I want to photograph them.

The people are the same people, the camera is the same camera, surely the photographs, too, are the same?.. However, it is not so. On days in which I feel heavy, forced, forcing, the photographs are not good. I don't like them. On the light days, I like almost all of them.

My photographs are different when I am flying. I am sure the people photographed also feel differently when I are soaring, touching them ever so lightly. My photographs are then different, too.

Photographer or Artist?

2009-08-01T15:19:00.004+03:00

What am I, a Photographer, an Artist, or both? (I will ignore, with your permission, the possibility of "neither"). In an attempt to simplify the analysis, I will define four points on a continuum. These span from a "pure" photographer to a "pure" artist. From Photographer-Photographer (PP) to Artist-Artist (AA) through Photographer-Artist (PA) and Artist-Photographer (AP). For sake of simplicity, anywhere I use "he" I mean "he" or "she". The epitome of a PP would be someone working for the National Geographic. Whether professional or amateur, the PP is most interested in making the perfect photograph. This would be distinguished by excellent technique, good colour, fantastic lighting, mastery of all the ways to make a really "wow" photograph. I believe 95% of all photographers fall into this category or wish to. Most online photography forums cater to this population (and financially speaking, this makes perfect sense). The AA, at the the other extreme, is first and foremost someone wanting to express himself through Art. He may use the camera as a way to make studies or use it as part of the work. He does not define himself as a photographer at all. With the PA and AP, things become more subtle. The PA is in love with photography. In this respect, he may not be any different from the PP. I believe, however, that the PA is also interested in the philosophy of photography. In addition to the love of making photographs, he is constantly in awe about the nature of the photograph. He has read Barthes' "Camera Lucida" and is amazed with the uncanny meaning photographs give to life and death. He has also read Benjamin's views on photography. He constantly questions himself about the connection between photography and reality and is fascinated with all the questions that photography raises. The PA is also an Artist and has swallowed books on Art in an attempt to understand what it all means. He wants his Art to express himself using photography and nothing else (except text, maybe, which is a different topic). He believes photographs need to show more than what is there. The AP on the other hand, is first and foremost an Artist, and only then a Photographer. He has probably studied in Art school before using a camera. He is less concerned with maintaining an indexical relationship between picture and reality. The photograph is primarily a tool for self expression, and he is more likely to experiment with other media in conjunction or instead of the camera. He could use photography without taking photographs via appropriation, he can use photography as a canvas on which to paint. He will define himself as a Photographer. So where am I on this continuum? It should be no surprise to the reader that I see myself today as a Photographer-Artist. I may find myself one day moving on to "the right", towards the AP, but one way or the other, I do not see myself abandoning the camera.

As a way of demonstrating this point, above is a photograph of mine that would probably fall into the definition of a "good photograph" that could have been taken by a PP. However, when a photograph is so "pretty", one can miss the main point. In fact, one can ask "is there a point beyond the obvious?" And then there is this photograph.. Also a spontaneous street photograph. Far less "aesthetic".. For me, it is a photograph I like much more, as it connects to those parts of the human condition I am most interested to explore.

Nude as Mask

2009-04-20T15:15:00.014+03:00

I received an e-mail from a young woman one day. She was an aspiring nude model, interested in Art, had participated in a few nude sessions already, and thought it could be an interesting experience to work with me. About 30 minutes into the session, after I had photographed the transformation from a fully dressed young women to a nude model, she asked me what I wanted her to "do", how I wanted her to pose for me. She felt she was not "doing" anything to justify her role as model. I told her I am very satisfied with how it is going, and what she is "doing" already is exactly what I am looking for. She suddenly took on a very worried expression, and said: "You know, I have never ever been photographed without posing, and that worries me a lot. I really don't care if people know what I am - I am used to showing off my body, and I know it looks good. But I am scared people may get to know who I am, and then find out I have nothing inside me". That was a shocking thing to hear. I assured her I would not publish anything without her approval, and we continued the session. Before she left, she asked to look through all the photographs in the camera, and while doing so she exclaimed "Wow.. I see I can look good even when I am not posing!" A few weeks later, I received a letter from her telling me what a profound experience she had gone through, and that she had taken some life changing decisions based on it. That was the first time I realized, in such a concrete way, how much the "nude" can be a mask behind which to hide ones true self and how much more one can reveal when looking deeper than the skin.

(the person in the photo is not related to the above, except my conviction that she is not wearing a mask)

My street photography: the penny is dropping

2009-01-11T20:30:00.001+02:00

In parallel to becoming totally immersed in what was initially my "Nude Photography", I also started to experience street photography. I have always been a "people watcher", so this was a natural interest for me and a way to experience photography outside the studio. It became a side diversion that I could do while traveling on vacation and during snippets of time while on business travel (see - http://jaylphotographer.blogspot.com/2008/07/my-first-post.html). However, I was not clear on what it was I was doing, i.e. what is "my voice" when I photograph in the street? I recently had several people observe, within days of each other, that they see something special - something about "little moments" and making them big. Someone, to whom I will refer to as "H", had been quielty following my photographs for a long time.. And then, out of the blue, she wrote to me: "I suddenly realize what it is I like so much about your photographs.. There is nothing more intriguing than watching people; what they look like, what they wear, the way they go about their business, their expressions, and then make up the story of their life.. In your photographs you manage to capture these aspects of humanity in an amazing way, select the most interesting people, and it is so much fun to examine them and sail away in the imagination". I am sure many people think my street photography is "banal", with no "punch line". But it is to the few that appreciate the same little moments that are so interesting to me, that I dedicate my street photography.

What is the difference between "Nude" and "Naked"?

2008-12-24T16:16:00.005+02:00

"Nude" is a way to see the body as an artistic object. "Naked" is to see the person. I am much more interested in nakedness - emotional as well as physical. When masks are removed.

And while we are discussing the subject - do you chose to wear your mask everywhere? Always? Are you prepared to strip completely naked even when you are alone?

Sometimes, being in front of a camera can be the opportunity to investigate these questions.

I use my photography to ask these questions of the people I photograph, and through them also discover things about myself.

Street Photography in Tokyo

2008-10-10T16:45:00.000+02:00

This photograph is one of the first I took during a business trip to Tokyo. I was waiting for the "Limosine Bus" to take me from Narita airport to the hotel.

A few months before this was taken, I started carrying my photography gear around with me on my business travel. One never knows when there will be an opportunity for a shoot.

In this case, I simply took out the camera at the airport and looked around. I love finding people that interest me in some way and capture something true about them. I don't usually ask for permission before I take the picture, but often propose to send a copy after I have taken the shot. Catching the moment in which I am detected is always interesting. I am very curious about how people react to the camera. In this case, I didn't feel it would be a good idea to strike up a conversation.. We both went about our own business.

"Fine Art" Photography - is it the only Photography "Art" category?

2008-09-24T17:45:00.009+03:00

I hear so much about "Fine Art" Photography. Seems to me it is typically black and white and tends to highlight (excuse the pun) lighting, "beauty" and, in general, "pleasing" pictures. Maybe this is what most people want. They can hang it in their living room. The Ansel Adams legacy.

I am not saying Art photography (or Photography art) cannot be "beautiful", or "pleasing" - but surely it is more than that? I read somewhere that Art is about asking questions and not answering them. I think this is a key concept. A photograph that is "what it is", as beautiful as it may be, can extract a "Wow" - but it cannot intrigue you.

I want Art to be intriguing - I want to wonder why I am interested in it, I want it to make me think.

I do love photography. I like the magic. Yet there are so many photographs that bore me to tears. I want so much more out of a photograph.. the "something else" that gives you a twitch in the stomach. This is why I don't like most photos of sunsets.

Emotional content - the secret to a good photograph?

2008-08-18T17:44:00.004+03:00

I just read an article that claims the brain consumes some 30%-50% of its capacity on visual information. This got me thinking. Memories are made of still pictures. This is why the photograph is so important, it's a short cut from reality to memory. Now, resources are always scarce, including memory cells, so wouldn't the brain be more susceptible to pictures that are worth remembering?

Wouldn't a photograph be "better" if it encapsulated more memories in it, be these real memories or created memories?

A good photograph, for me, should stop me in my tracks, startle me in some subtle way - creating a new memory.

Nude photography..

2008-08-17T00:13:00.006+03:00

I am so not interested in the "typical" nude photograph - the one that has the women make an unreasonable pose in some unreasonable location. It is not to say that I don't like looking at the female body, but it is to say that ever since I became seriously interested in making art I have been looking to put something of myself in the photograph.. Create something special that contains a unique mix of the individual I am photographing and what I bring to the set.

(Just to make sure there is no confusion.. This is not me in the picture)