Words On Photography

Last Post Here

Tom — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 00:52:25 +0000

Hi,

I am not sure who you might be. I try not get sucked into Google Analytics too much. But due to a number of reasons, I am no longer going to post here. You can click here for the new blog. I am no longer interested in commenting. I hope to continue writing reviews for Photo-Eye, but as far as commenting about the state, I will leave that for others.

Thanks for coming by, and remember to update your reader.

Tom

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Yankeetown on Fraction #13

Tom — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:42:25 +0000

Downtown Elmira, NY

My Yankeetown series is featured in issue 13 of Fraction Magazine. David Bram deserves a big thanks for all he is doing with Fraction. The best part about being published is being surrounded by strong work from Jessica Todd Harper, Dalton Rooney, Emily Shur and William Greiner. I had the pleasure of meeting Jessica at the SPE conference last year in Dallas. Dalton makes the great Portfolio theme, which my website uses. I have followed Emily’s work since I saw this video. Amazing work all around.

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The Calumet Region, a review

Tom — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:27:20 +0000

My review of Gary Ciadella’s book The Calumet Region is now up on photo-eye.

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Short Track Review

Tom — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 01:54:07 +0000

Head on over to the Photo-Eye website and read my review of Jake Mendel’s book Short Track.

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Frame Lines is live

Tom — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 14:22:54 +0000

So earlier this morning I said that I was not going to put my blog Frame Lines on my server or into WordPress this week. Well, I was wrong. Not long after I wrote that I was struck with an idea. Go here to check it out. If anything I need to shoot, which is a good thing. So now I have my website, this blog and my photo blog all under the same umbrella and sharing similar design characteristics, which satisfies my inner German.

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Updating My Website

Tom — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 06:11:39 +0000

I am in the process of making my website mobile browser compliant. To do this I am using the Portfolio WordPress theme by Dalton Rooney. I have tweaked it some and will continue to for the rest of the week.

Checking out my old site on my wife’s iPhone made me realize the I needed to do something. I was about to use indexhibit after seeing the results David Bram was able to achieve. Shortly there after I came across Rooney’s theme and decided to go with that. I have WordPress here and on my teaching blog. I need to bring Frame Lines into the WordPress fold, just not this week.

If you are not reading this blog in an RSS reader, which you probably should, you can see that I have tweaked this place again. I went back to K2 because I wanted this to look like a blog.

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Gregory Crewdson paraphrase

Tom — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 03:40:13 +0000

Gregory Crewdson spoke at the Dallas Museum of Art the other night. I was intrigue to hear what he was going to say, or better yet what he was not going to say. “The murky content”, as he put it was off limits. No need to pull the curtain that far back I guess.
The one thing that stuck with me was that he said we all have one story to tell and we spend our whole lives telling it.
I also feel like I need to watch “Blue Velvet” again. Maybe watch “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”.
He also “freaks out” if the camera is ever moved a degree during one of his shoots.

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MSF Haiti

Tom — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 02:29:36 +0000

The Big Picture at Boston.com has a powerful gallery of images from the chaos in Haiti. This has been one of the few times that my personal reaction to a series of images caused me to try and help someone. You can follow the link below if you are so moved.

Here is an update from MSF. They treated 500 patients in 24 hours at temporary hospital in Carrefour, Haiti.

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Jay Maisel

Tom — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 14:25:11 +0000

This is the second Jay Maisel recording I came across this week. Over on The Candid Frame, Ibarionex Perello has an interview with him. Click on the December 20 button in the player.

George Jardine has interview with Maisel and Richard Benson here. Here is another interview, it needs to be read though.
Maisel is a photographer I have grown to appreciate. His work in color was not something that I was drawn to initially. Color work did not hold my attention early on because I was mainly using black and white film. Now when I read or hear him I am drawn to views of the medium. I am more interested in his newer work. Maisel is someone who has been working for a long time and now is exploiting digital for all it is worth. In the Perello interview, he says that he is now using higher ASAs and making pictures he would not previously been able to. That speaks to the power of digital.
The video is part of a series of Conversations at the Summit which is part of the educational programing from Rich Clarkson’s Summit Series of Workshops. If you are looking for a workshop I was strongly suggest this series. I have known Rich Clarkson for a number of years. He and his crew know how to put on an event.

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Dave LaBelle, Photo 1, Classmates and Teachers

Tom — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:43:02 +0000

It was 19 years ago when I walked in a Photo 1 classroom at Western Kentucky University for a class taught by Dave LaBelle. I was freshman who had big newspaper dreams. One of my classmates was transfer student from the University of Pennsylvania named Francis Gardler. He was one of the students who seemed to have it together, was level headed and organized. Other classmates included Craig Fritz and Patrick Witty. These three people were the ones who motivated me. One of the biggest lessons I learned in that class was desire to work. If I rested, one of my classmates of would out hustle me. I learned as much from them as I did from my teachers. There are times when I wish I stayed at Western, but I went west to Kansas after a while. Dave, who worked there for a period of time, told me of all the great photographers who came from Kansas. He encouraged me along my own path.

For as much as I claim Kansas University and the University of North Texas as my alma maters, Dave’s Photo 1 class put me on the track to become the photographer I am today. Dave taught the class with enthusiasm and passion. Looking back on it now, as someone who has a taught a Photo 1 class, my attitude as a student was not the best, but I learned. I can easily spot those students in my classes now who have my old mindset, stubborn. Part of the reason why enjoy teaching is the teachers that have had, not only Dave, but Rich Clarkson, Bill Snead, Mike Williams, Brent Phelps, Dornith Doherty, Susan kae Grant and Denise Baxter. All of these people have a common thread, they are passionate about teaching. Each time I walk into the classroom, I hope that I have that same enthusiasm that they all had shown me. If Dave had not shown a slideshow about Brian Lanker, I do not think I would have been able to approach Rich Clarkson to show him my work. That slideshow has stuck with me for a long time too. He had a photo of a high school football player after a game in a locker room that knocked my socks off. That photograph helped point me in the direction I was to go on.

Francis recently completed a documentary about Dave for his MA Thesis at the Ohio University School of Visual Communication. See it for yourself. Make up your own mind about it.

Dave LaBelle | The Lesson from Francis Gardler on Vimeo.

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