Robert Pinsky on Creativity

Robert Pinsky by Sigrid Estrada

I have fallen woefully short of my goal of publishing a photographic quote of the week, but I would like to share a quote related to creativity in general from former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky:

Whatever makes a child want to glue macaroni on a paper plate and paint the assemblage and see it on the refrigerator - that has always been strong in me. 

Toying With Ideas

Toying With Ideas: The Lo-Fi Photography of David A. Cory Robert Williams Gallery Box Factory for the Arts 1101 Broad St. St. Joseph, MI September 11 - October 24, 2015 Opening Reception: Friday September 11, 2015 5:30 - 7:30 PM When I tell people I have an upcoming photography show, they usually ask questions like “What is the theme?” or “What kind of photography do you do?” I find these questions difficult to answer. The art I produce with a camera doesn't fit neatly into any genre. The only way I can attempt to characterize the prints that will be on display at the Box Factory for the Arts in St. Joseph, MI starting September 11, 2015 is to say the photos are made with a Holga toy camera, some are single exposures, and some are multiple exposures. While I'm limiting the prints in the St. Joe to Holga images, at various times, I have used vintage film cameras, both medium format and 35mm, cheap promotional cameras like those once given away by Time Magazine and Holiday Inn, homemade and factory-made pinhole cameras, and even digital cameras. I wouldn't say I do architectural photography in a conventional sense, though the subjects some of my photos are buildings, usually in various states of disrepair and distorted by the plastic lens of the Holga, as in “Flower Shop” and “Good Hart General Store.” Flower Shop Good Hart General Store I don't do much portraiture or street photography, prompting one reviewer of my portfolio to comment that the photos I showed him looked like they were taken after a neutron bomb explosion. Buildings and other structures were intact, but there was not a human in sight. When I've tried it, I've felt a little weird and voyeuristic doing street photography, and I'm not that comfortable asking strangers if I can take their pictures. I have done it occasionally though. Clown Occupy Chicago These photos, by the way, won't be in the show. Perhaps this is something I can work on in the future. I often rearrange reality by making multiple exposure images. Reviewers looking at some of my multiple exposures of mechanical objects have referred to them as crazy machines or something out of a science fiction movie. Industrial Revolution #4 Springs I don't consider myself a nature photographer, but many of my photos include natural subjects, as in “Burdock #1” and “Vernal Vortex.” Burdock #1 Vernal Vortex I'm tempted to call the multiple exposures abstract or surrealistic, though I really don't feel they fit into either category. Trying to explain my photographs reminds me of Robert Frost, who, when asked to explain one of his poems, responded with, “You want me to say it worse?” So, I hope you will be able to come to the Box Factory show and form your own opinions. Sign up for the newsletter.

Photographic Quote of the Week: Alfred Stieglitz

In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality.

- Alfred Stieglitz

The Flatiron, by Alfred Stieglitz, 1903

Photographic Quote of the Week: Jerry Uelsmann

Ultimately, my hope is to amaze myself. The anticipation of discovering new possibilities becomes my greatest joy. – Jerry Uelsmann

Untitled, Jerry Uelsmann, 1996

Photographic Quote of the Week: Edward Steichen

A portrait is not made in the camera but on either side of it. - Edward Steichen

Charles Chaplin by Edward Steichen, 1925

Photographic Quote of the Week: Paul Strand

Cartier-Bresson has said that photography seizes a "decisive moment." That's true except that it shouldn't be taken too narrowly...does my picture of a cobweb in the rain represent a decisive moment? The exposure time was probably three or four minutes. That's a pretty long moment. I would say the decisive moment in that case was the moment in which I saw this thing and decided I wanted to photograph it. - Paul Strand, Sixty Years of Photographs by Paul Strand, Calvin Tomkins , ISBN: 0900406828 , Page: 35-36

“Cobweb in Rain, Georgetown, Maine,” 1927 (negative); 1927 (print). Paul Strand, American, 1890 – 1976. Gelatin silver print, image: 9 11/16″ x 7 13/16″ (24.6 x 19.8 cm). Sheet: 9 15/16″ x 8 1/16″ (25.3 x 20.4 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art, 125th Anniversary Acquisition. The Paul Strand Collection, the Lynne and Harold Honickman Gift of the Julien Levy Collection, 2001. © Paul Strand Archive/Aperture Foundation.

Art Comes Alive

I have a photograph hanging in the Art Comes Alive show at ADC Gallery in Cincinnati through July 24. The photos I submitted are online at the ACA website. "Uprooted " is the print in the show.