Seat Assignment – Nina Katchadourian

August 8, 2012 | Leave a Comment

Creative. Smart. Hillarious.
What will you do on your next flight?

“Improvising with materials close at hand, “Seat Assignment” consists of photographs, video, and digital images all made while in flight using only a camera phone. The project began spontaneously on a flight in March 2010 and is ongoing. At present, over 2500 photographs and video, made on more than 75 different flights to date, constitute the raw material of the project. Visit www.ninakatchadourian.com for more information.”

Category: Photographers
Tags: Nina Katchadourian, photography, seat assignment

Environmental Activism/Advocacy Through The Arts – Eliot Porter

July 11, 2012 | Leave a Comment

No other photographer is more influential to me than Eliot Porter – save my father. I knew Eliot through my mother’s long collaboration with him designing and overseeing the production of over twelve of his books during my formative years. His influences on me are too numerous and wide-ranging to list them all here. A few stand out from the rest.

Eliot was a pioneer who elevated the use of, appreciation of, and collectability of color within the medium of photography, aligning his distinctive style with the subtle and complex palette of nature.

Eliot was probably the most widely published fine art photographer of his day. He was at the forefront of a handful of photographers that defined a style that would later characterize an entire genre of photographic environmental advocacy. It was during the production of Eliot’s book Intimate Landscapes where I was first introduced to digital imaging. When I saw the Scitex machines used in the 1970s I instantly wanted to use them for artistic rather than commercial purposes, but thought it might be a lifetime before I could afford what my mother called a “million dollar coloring book” until I got my own copy of the first version of Adobe Photoshop, which was a dream come true. The posters my mother designed to promote the book and exhibit ultimately became some of the Metropolitan Museum’s most successful, far exceeding the reach of the originals. I learned that an artist’s effectiveness could be dramatically extended beyond rare original works of art through publications made available to large audiences.

James Gleick’s (the author who popularized complexity sciences and fractal geometry in his best-selling book Chaos) choice to join forces with Eliot on their book Nature’s Chaos confirmed my opinion that Eliot had intuitively sensed a deeper order in nature than was conventionally seen and portrayed this in his images. Eliot’s background and continuing interest in the sciences informed his art.

Eliot described his book The Place No One Knew, a portrait of Glen Canyon before it was flooded by a dam, as a eulogy because it was released after the flood waters began rising and affected public opinion too late to stop the destruction of the canyon’s destruction. Hearing about both the successes and failures of advocacy through the arts, I decided that while I wanted to make my own contributions in this area, that there were plenty of other artists contributing in similar ways, and that new ways were also needed. He knew this when he threw down the gauntlet one day and said to me, “You know, it’s going to be your generation that decides whether we will hand down a habitable environment to future generations.”

Even more influential to me than his photographs was the man. In his 70’s and 80’s, Eliot was physically fit (walking 5 miles a day), adventurous (travelling to remote locations like Iceland and Antarctica), mentally sharp as a tack (loving intelligent respectful debates with anyone of any age or background and often playing the devil’s advocate just to see where the conversation and the other person would go), and actively socially conscientious (continuing his long-standing participation in organizations like the Sierra Club. He was a shining example in so many ways.

Find out more about my influences here.

Category: Influences, Influences - Photographic, Photographers
Tags: Antarctica, eliot porter, intimate landscapes, nature's chaos, the place no one knew

Chase Jarvis Live – Talks With Photographers

September 17, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Chase Jarvis talks with Chris Jordan – photographer to photographer.

Check out these other Chase Jarvis Live conversations with Zack Arias, Jeremy Cowart, Chris Jordan, Vincent LaForet and many others.

Read my conversations with photographers here.

Category: Photographers, Video
Tags: chase jarvis, chris jordan, conversations, Jeremy Cowart, Video, Vincent LaForet, Zack Arias

Photographic Insights From Eric Meola

September 15, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Eric Meola reveals what’s so special about photography – twice!

Here’s an excerpt of our extended conversation.

EM
I was almost literally hit by a bolt of lightning when I saw a print come up in the developer. My dad was a doctor, and one of his patients was an engineer whose hobby was photography. I was 12 years old at the time, and my father asked him to teach me about photography. My own hobby was “magic”- magic tricks. As soon as I saw the grays and blacks materialize under red light, I made an immediate, intense association and realized instantly that I wanted to be a photographer.

JPC
So is photography still a magic trick for you today?

EM
Well, it’s still magic…of course it is…and even more so. The ability to make our own archival prints and have completely control over the color is magic…and seeing new talent emerge is magic…and having more time now to shoot my own images is magic. We make the magic, or we don’t. And right now I’m having more fun than I’ve ever had, working on my own projects and books.

First, read my conversation with Eric Meola here.

Second, read Eric’s answers to 20 questions (more or less) here.

What’s the most useful photographic mantra?
Never stop looking.

What’s the thing you most hope to accomplish?
Making someone else excited about photography.

If you had to do it all over again, what would you change?
I’d shoot a lot more – a LOT more.

Read the rest of his answers here.

Find out more about Eric Meola here.

Visit Eric Meola’s blog Seeing In Color here.

Find out about our workshops in Antarctica and Greenland here.

Category: Photographers, Photographers - Q&A, Photographers On Photography
Tags: eric meola, photographers on photography, photography, QA