From today’s journal - http://hudsongardner.com/walk-around/june-19-2013
いよいよ今日は市ヶ谷へ行ってビジュアルアーツにPhotobook Award 2013年のために作品をだしました。 去年トーテムで発表した「ネブラスカ」という人気があったシリーズです。自分しか撮れない。そういう作品にもっともっと目指したいです。「外人が見た日本」なんて吐きたくなるほど皆が撮ってんだからもっと個人目線を鋭くしたい。 とりあえずこのコンテスト私はまったくチャンスがないというを事実分かるけど、ヤンナイよりやって負けるのほうがいいんじゃない。その動くフィーリングがいい。一歩一歩。
Went to the Visual Arts Tokyo campus yesterday to submit a portfolio for their annual “Photobook Award” contest. The prints are from a body of work shot in Nebraska over the past decade.
The judges are photographers Moriyama Daido, Seto san of Place M, Dodo Shunji, Uedo Yoshihiko, and Photo critic Iizawa Kotaro. Needless to say it is a Legit kind of contest- one with a first (and only) prize of a full-on photobook complete with a professional designer, editor, printing & distribution. While the call for entries is open to the public, I fully understand that my lack of connections to the school leaves me with about a zero percent chance of winning.
Even though, the effort to submit a body of work is worth it. (and WORK it surely is-this took over a month to get ready) Technically, applying and failing leaves one with the same result as not trying at all- in this case no photobook on store shelves around the nation- but there’s absolutely nothing to regret knowing one did their best to take it to this level at least. That feeling of moving forward, even by (or especially by) simple personal goals is what everyone needs to have in their lives.
Walkers
This is a photo taken by my friend Brian
I’ve looked at it a lot over the years.. coming back to it again and again. I think I keep coming back to it because of the questions the photo raises. Look at how far displaced the photographer is from the people in the distance. Was he with them? If so, why did this person wait so long behind the others? Was he walking in the opposite direction, as the leftmost tracks suggest? It looks like there are six figures, but only five sets of footprints. And with each wave riding up the beach, those nearest to the water are washed away.
Of course this photo carries implications about loneliness and togetherness, emptiness and disappearance, and travel. At one point in the distance, the tracks merge into a solid mass, with the edge of the mountain coming down to the water, almost pointing at the walkers themselves. I think it’s a good image to look at, and wonder about.
Garage sale day
Geometry Time #1
To take photographs is to put one’s head, one’s eye and one’s heart on the same axis.
One shouldn’t think about it, but the basis is geometry. Intuitively, I know how it sits. But that’s all I can say.
It’s the physical rhythm — 1.618, 3.1416, the golden number.. we know how it sits. A compass will tell you, but it’s in the eye.
Sockeye salmon returning to their natal spawning beds in Funnel Creek, Bristol Bay, Alaska. Say NO to the Pebble Mine at SaveBristolBay.org. Photo by @ben_knight
