Back to Film

I've been going back to film in the past few weeks. It's been fun to be in the darkroom again for my Black and White 2 class at PCNW, but my work for the first couple classes were a bit rushed. This weekend, I finally had the time to print some of my images the way that I wanted to see them.

Ballard Locks

There were so many kids at the Locks today, and they were all so entranced by the fish. Some pictures from my weekend adventure...

Lola Alvarez Bravo and Intuition

Lola Alvarez Bravo "had difficulty speaking of her work as a kind of refined artistic expression; it had simply become an extension of herself."

This quote from Elizabeth Ferrer's book on Alvarez Bravo struck me while reading the biography. The instinctual nature of her photography is one of the things I admire most about her. In her portraiture, photojournalism and street photography, her keen observation comes through when she captures a quiet, unposed moment or interesting juxtaposition. Her sensitivity to the world around her, not any technical perfection or over analysis of the scene, is root of her images' power.

It's important to know the technical aspects of your craft. Analysis has its place. However, after spending several years surrounded by a culture of perfectionism and obsessive analysis, I don't think these things are as important as I once did. These days, the intuition in Lola Alvarez Bravo's work is something I aspire to.

UW Photography Exhibit: My first show!

Yesterday was an exciting evening at the opening of my very first photography exhibit. I snapped the photo above towards the end of the show, after the crowds had cleared out, but most of the evening the hall was so packed that it was hard to weave your way through. Plenty of friends stopped by and my friend, Kate, and my mother even came all the way down from Orcas to see it. I felt so lucky to have so many people come and support me.

The class show was the culmination of the University of Washington's Photography Certificate Program. UW's program was the thing that got me serious about photography, and it was great to look at the walls and see how far everybody had come over the course of the year. Now that the program is over, I really miss seeing all those Certificate folk twice a week.

You can still stop by and see the show. It is up until August 27th in the hall on the way to UW Hospital's Healing Garden, directly to the right of the Information desk. Here's my favorite picture that I exhibited, just to give you a little preview:

Beginning

I've been meaning to create this blog for a while, but am just now getting into 'work' mode after a busy month and a half of distractions. There have been lots of wonderful reasons to procrastinate.

Most recently, my good friend Kathryn visited Seattle and Orcas Island for the first time. We went on the most amazing whale watch and saw two mother and baby pairs playing. They swam all around us and right under our boat! Here are some pictures from Kathryn's trip: