Speaking of Images I Made That Look Like Other Images...

I was super excited a few years ago when I finally got a decent DSLR of my own. I bought a used Canon 6D (I wanted the 5D duh - but the 6D was the most affordable full frame for me at the time) from a very nice man on Craigslist who gave me a great deal since I told him I am a photography teacher and he basically threw in a lens he wasn't using much for nearly free. He said he was selling his 6D because he wanted to upgrade to the newest 5D at the time. I asked him what he liked to photograph most when we met at the food court of a big mall to make our camera/money exchange, and he said he only loves to photograph his granddaughter and he showed me lots of very sweet images of her. 

I poured over my manual and clicked all of the buttons to learn as much as possible. I brought my camera to my friend's apartment and made everyone model for me while I tested out some of the in camera double exposure and wifi capabilities. Begrudgingly, Siobhan agreed to let me point my camera at her and try out a double exposure shot with her siamese cat, Sushi. 

Much later, it reminded me of an image included in the Faking It: Manipulated Photography before Photoshop exhibition I had seen (and was very very excited about) at the MFAH. 

Siobhan is Sushi, 2014

Io + gatto (Wanda Wulz) Italian, 1903-1984, (Cat + I), 1932, Gelatin silver print

Student Excitement Over New Scanner Inspires Me to Scan In My Own Old Negatives

The Bellaire HS PTO generously awarded us the grant money I asked for again this fall semester. With the money this year, I was able to buy us a few more DSLRs and tripods for students to use as well as an Epson Perfection V800 pro scanner for my Photo 3 and AP level students to scan in the 120 Holga film they have have been shooting this school year. Some of them have their own 35mm film cameras they're experimenting with as well. I showed them how to develop their black and white film in the classroom and many have grown to be completely fascinated by the analog process.

I wish we had, at the very least, a small darkroom with enlargers for them to use, buuuut I'm also not complaining about our iMac lab I never dreamed of having in a classroom at my previous schools... As part of my interview with the principal at Bellaire, I made it aware that I had done some basic research and knew that there were plans for plans to remodel or rebuild the school sometime soon and asked for a small darkroom to be worked into the plans. I was told yes-ish and I'm holding someone to that when that time comes. 

ANYWAYS, seeing how excited some of my AP students were to learn how to scan in their negatives and get to use them digitally, really inspired me to take some time over spring break during my staycation to go back through some of my old work and finally get it digitally documented. I've always been somewhat reluctant to go back to old work, but I know some of it deserves to exist beyond negatives in a binder that moves from one apartment to the next every couple of years. 

I knew one of the first images I wanted to scan in came from probably something around 2006 - I believe my sophomore year of college at UH. It was a black and white 120 image I took with my Mamiya C330 when I was at a craft show in Brenham, TX with my mom. I saw this little boy walking around with these plastic fangs and I stopped him and his mom and asked them both if I could take his picture. They both agreed and this is exactly how he chose to pose for the shot. 

Boy with Fangs, Brenham, TX 2006 

Immediately, I was reminded of one of my favorite images from one of my favorite photographers from high school, Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C. by Diane Arbus. 

Not to say that I am or will ever be on Diane Arbus's level, I just am greatly aware of the subconscious influence her work has had on me and my work since I was probably 16 years old. I own quite a few photo books, but hers from Aperture, by far, has more little yellow tabs on more pages than any of the others I own. I looked at these so many time that I feel as if I have many of her images visually etched into my brain. 

Where are they going?

Not exactly sure why, but I started photographing these miniatures in the park.... 

I think they are heavily influenced by playing Dungeons and Dragons off and on again for a few years now. But don't tell anyone.... 

Not sure where they are going. Both the characters and the project itself. I'm liking it though. 

Nannie's Wedding Slides

This is Nannie, my mother's mother, or Charlene Spies. 

A few years ago, her husband, my mom's dad, Melbert, "Speedy" or PawPaw, passed away. 

This is PawPaw. 

Nannie has been working very hard on cleaning out a lot of unpacked belongings from their house. She has been going through packed away wedding gifts, years and year of photos, clothes, toys, you name it...

While cleaning, she came across this small box full of (very red and very dusty and scratched) slides from her wedding from the early 1950's in Weimar, Texas. She asked me if I could "make them into prints" and that if I could do that for her, I wouldn't need to get anything else for her for Christmas. I knew it would be a challenge and rather time consuming, but I knew that she deserved to have her prints and I wanted nothing other than to do that for her. I am so glad that I was able to (do my best) to transform these unusable slides of hers into an album of images she could share and display. 

I'm not normally one to be extremely interested in family history. I mean, I love and respect my family and ancestors, but it just wasn't something I've been curious about. As I spent hours and hours restoring some of these images, I couldn't help but think about the people in the photographs that I didn't know. What relationship did they have with my grandparents? Where are they now? What are they doing? Are they happy? Are they alive? Who took these images? How much did wedding photographers pay in the 1950's in small town Texas? 

I've always been much more interested in the sometimes too personal stories of individuals rather than just documenting the usual names, birthdays, relations, locations, etc of a traditional family tree. I started to dream of creating a web based interactive family tree using some of these images people in them may not otherwise ever see...

We will see if that whole family tree website idea ever comes into fruition.

I am definitely the go-to for anything photo related in my family. I gladly help them all out. My parents paid for my college education and bought my film scanner, so I never mind being able to repay them all as much as I can by doing these small things for them. I can't even begin to explain how much happiness it brought me to be able to give Nannie her album and to know that it brought her so much happiness as well. She told me that it was her favorite Christmas present. I think it was one of my all time favorites to give as well. 

I know I'm making a post about Christmas gifts on the first evening of spring break in March... but hey I'm a high school teacher so lay off me, man... 

A Very Aaron Siskind Inspired New York Set

Last week was my first time taking a group of 20 high school photography and art history students to New York City for 5 days with the art history teacher as my co-pilot. It was a great success and a lot of fun. I look forward to this being an annual tradition for the photo department once again. We went to Aperture, MOMA, The Whitney, The Met, Guggenheim and photographed all through China Town, SOHO, the World Trade Center, The Empire State Building, Grand Central Station, Chelsea Market, Time Square and THREE Broadway productions! It was moving from one place to the next non-stop! Anyways... When we had time to break apart in SOHO for shooting and shopping, I kept going back to photographing textures and reflections - I am sure because I had the black and white abstraction project I was going to be presenting to the photo students next on my mind. Here are some of those images. 

Mastering Your Camera with Dion McInnis at HCP

So I'm so lucky to be working at Bellaire High School now. I love it so much that even though (despite my good record with phones) I lost a phone (for the first time ever) while camping only a few months ago, shattered my new phone (for the first time ever) when it fell off of the kitchen counter AND THEN only two days later my phone fell into the toilet when I forgot it was in my back pocket and I'm all down about this bad luck, I'm STILL thinking, well, at least I really enjoy my job! Bellaire is fantastic and will help you get professional development beyond the school to further your own education with the thought that this will make you a better educator. Makes sense, right? 

Anyways... So I was fortunate enough to be able to sign up for this interesting looking class at Houston Center for Photography about "Experimenting With Your Camera". Dion McInnis is a thoughtful and passionate educator and I enjoyed watching his style, word choices, and what he chose to emphasize and remind me about photography and why I've loved the medium for so long. He challenged us to use settings on our DSLRs that maybe we overlook and pushed us to use them in the "wrong" way with artistic intent.

A lot of good ideas came to mind during his initial lecture, but I ended up completing a study on my Canon 6D white balance. I've always just used either auto or manual white balance and never thought to let my camera decide what is "correct" white and color in any given situation. I had seen some fake fruit at Hobby Lobby a few days prior and I was drawn to its plasticity and the thought of cliche of fruit bowl oil painting still lives. I spray painted each fruit white (not with much grace or success) and set up a makeshift white box out of pieces of mat board I had lying around on top of my ironing board and lit by two desktop lamps from either side. I took the same image of each fruit with each pre-set color balance choice (ie... tungsten, shade, sunny, fluorescent, etc..). I was really impressed and intrigued by the completely different colors and overall moods each image assumed. 

I thought about various means of display to be able to compare the colors side by side. I played around with various layouts in Photoshop. I thought a lot about Andy Warhol and his pop art images. I thought about what a disgrace my terribly painted bell pepper is in the context of art/photo history and Edward Weston's "Pepper #30" - a long time favorite and inspiration of mine. I thought about the unnecessary process of removing color from these images and tediously re-adding color back to the images... Dion had great feedback for everyone in our small class when images were shown from our assignment. He said that he sees this study as a great jumping off point for a larger body of work. I really enjoy the process and hope to continue to grow this into something more....