Do You Know Your Visual Signature – Part 2?

So, I have been doing some work with the 50mm focal length after watching that “What is Visual Signature?” on YouTube.  See previous post for details.  I think I mentioned this before, but I use to shoot mostly at 50mm until I gradually moved away from it.  As I said in the previous post, I’ve been at 300mm for my Kinetic Ambiguity Project and 135mm for my Motion Project for a while now.  Well, I did not only experiment with 50mm, I also photographed with 1x1 aspect ratio as well.  I made some interesting self-discoveries in doing this that I will share with you on the next post.  I’ll say this though, 50mm is a proven focal point.  Still, we need to keep in mind our own visual signature.

(Designation, Objects 457 – not named at this time.)

A Quick Look at My Motion Project

The Motion Project is another ongoing project I plan on working on for some time.  What I was doing yesterday with this image creation was trying to make interesting compositions on the fly.  I was using my 6D Mark II on shutter priority (Tv) making the aperture set to auto.  I had also set my ISO to auto as well.  I normally set my ISO to 100 for this Motion Project but I was experimenting with the ISO.  Nonetheless, for this image, the ISO went to 100 and the aperture went to F/8.  My predetermined shutter speed was 1/640 second (my proven shutter speed for this project).  Also, my focal length was 200mm and my exposure bias was -1 step.  That exposure bias is a favorite of mine for everything I photograph, really.  And in that instant, I created this image.  Of course, there is my postproduction secret sauce that brings about this final rendering.  So, as you can see, this really wasn’t outside of my comfort zone, but it was a little experimentation with the ISO being set to auto.  I’m a little obsessed with control when I create images but I’m starting to loosen up, a little – a very little.

(Designation, Motion Project 40452 – not named at this time.)

California Poppies – Contemporary Art

That’s what I think; those poppies, flowers in general, are works of art created by nature.  To be clear, this is a secular blog so I’m not suggesting or hinting at anything.  I am pointing out the obvious, is all – nature has always been an amazing artist.  I spent a little time at the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve yesterday.  There were a lot of people.  That was not a lot of fun, but the poppies were worth it.  And I need a lot of flower images for a project I’m working on so I will need to brave some other spots during the anticipated “super bloom”.

Baltimore Museum of Art

Do you follow art news or the website artnet?  I have recently started to follow art news – it’s like a break from stories dominated by an orange dude who…  Like I said, a break from other kind of news.  I read this story about how the Baltimore Museum of Art sold some of their top dollar artwork by white guys (Andy Warhol, Franz Kline, and Robert Rauschenberg, for example) so that they could acquire some top dollar artwork by people of color and women (Jack Whitten, Amy Sherald [the artist who painted Michelle Obama's official portrait], Wangechi Mutu, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, and a bunch of others).  The personally sad thing about this was that I did not know who these, people of color and women, artist were – and I’m a studio art major.  Hell, I graduated with honors on top of that.  I felt like a dumbass and I know I’m not dumb.  I know it goes without saying but I did know of all the white guys they mentioned in the article.  So, I had to look up a few of these artists whom I did not know.  I was really flabbergasted by one artist in particular – Isaac Julien.  This dude…  Wow!  Well his website says that he is a “filmmaker and installation artist”.  But he makes photographic prints too.  And “Julien was awarded the title Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the Queen’s birthday honors, 2017.”  So like yeah.  Well, you never stop learning.  I need to hurry up and get my stuff out there.

The images below are some early work from 2014.  I have a lot more newer images that I need to finish up the post production on but the preoccupied state of subjects in these two makes them still very relevant today.  And I like them.

Brick and Mortar

So, I know where I’m going but I can’t work on it at the moment.  I’m on another mission at this time.  But that’s ok – I can still share with you these images from my Victor Valley Project.

The Journey

A goal is starting to take shape – there is a destination.  I’m that kind of person, I thrive on seizing objectives.  Does that sound a little Army like?  Yeah, I guess that’s what you get when you spend most of your adult life as soldier.  Thus I display snippets of a past life here again today.  But that’s neither here nor there, the point is there is a goal – things are starting to take focus.  And I realize it is a two pronged approach that I’m after.  To begin with, I have to breathe some life back into TEAM TEN Tops & Tees and get that to bring in the initial funding for the photo project.  The project is another iteration of the Objectivity Project and I think it’s going to be a compelling body of work.

Yes, the journey is all too important but I really need to know where I’m going to begin with.  Truth be told, I feel better now – I have target.

8:30am, Breakfast, Jan 23, 2004 in Iraq.  We were at our halfway point where we spent the night.

 9:00am, Preparing before we hit the road.

 3:00pm, Our destination – the team we were changing out at the 3^rd ACR’s forward operating base.

6:00pm, Dinner, before we closed out the day on another journey in Army boots.