Student Photos from Irvine Valley College

I've been teaching still photo at Irvine Valley College for a year now and wanted to share a few of the student shots from last semester. As the new semester begins, it's nice to take a sec to look back at last semester's work. There's a lot of talent out there. http://www.flickr.com/photos/66703208@N06/6500420145/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24179963@N02/6498271771/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/65912524@N06/6497741053/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/katrinaazoqa/6350304097/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/christinamojica/6283509389/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/65912524@N06/6283745092/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24179963@N02/6283076541/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/65912524@N06/6237679237/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/66710569@N06/6190826119/

 

Medium Format

I was driving down 5th ave in San Diego a couple weeks ago and saw a pool of light in this parking lot and wondered if it would work for a portrait. That got me thinking about a portrait series here in SD and that got me thinking about photography in general. For the last year I've been experimenting almost non-stop with different camera systems just trying to get inside all of them to see what they do and how they work. I think I'm ready to quit doing that and start trying to tell stories instead. Sarah E at Night:

Large Format Test

Here are some test shots from my Crown Graphic - first time out with this beast of a camera and I have a new appreciation for the great photogs of yesteryear who hauled these things all over the planet.  

 

 

Homemade Cyanotype 4x5, The Kitchen

Here's my second try at exposing a homemade 4x5 cyanotype negative, this time looking into the kitchen. It's a seventy hour exposure, plus or minus, at 5.6 on 135mm lens. The blue one is the negative, the black and white is after it's been scanned, inverted, and flipped. It's surprising to see how much information is revealed in the positive image.

A Fourth Generation Camera: Kodak Brownie

My aunt gave me my Grandmother’s Kodak Brownie camera last November. It turns out it was actually my Great Grandmother’s camera and she photographed my Grandmother as a little girl with it. It’s absolutely incredible to me. I feel this connection that goes back almost a century through this little box camera. Here’s a picture of my Grandmother when she was a young woman taken with a Brownie:

Here’s what I’ve learned via the internet:

The first Brownie went on sale in 1900 for $1.00 and was designed to be as simple and easy to use as possible. The birth of the Brownie = the birth of the snap shot. Kodak sold a quarter million the first year.

Snap shot was a term borrowed from hunting that described an unplanned shot from the hip.

Kodak thought the Brownie would appeal to children so he named it after a popular children’s character, which was often featured in the Kodak print ads.

In 1930 Kodak gave away a special edition of the Brownie camera free to any child who turned 12 that year. (see the ad here)

The really exciting thing about this camera though is that it still works. It uses 120 film, which is readily available. Below are a few test shots I took with it. I love the aspect ratio and I learned that subjects have to be pretty far back to get sharp focus. There are no controls, only a lever to flip a spring loaded shutter. I can’t believe I’m taking photos with my Great Grandmother’s camera! It's at least eighty years old probably closer to 90.

A Few More Photos

These are from Venezuela 2010: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/5365991519/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/5365991577/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/5366604770/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/5365991753/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/5365991883/in/photostream/

and one from Tel Aviv:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/5365992041/in/photostream/

Street Photographer Vivian Maier

Here's a great little video about a street photographer from Chicago named Vivian Maier who worked as a nanny but spent all her free time shooting street photos. Amazing street photos: (Thanks Hani)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWEDOnBfDUI&feature=player_embedded#

Trucker Buddy

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/2652858758/ There are some people in life who you meet and you can’t and don’t know why but you just love them right off the bat - that’s how I feel about my friend Danny Kupkie. He and I worked in Iraq for almost two years together. At that time he was putting a lot of his income into his heavy haul trucking business back in Illinois while I was working to pay off my student loans. As I got to know him I also heard a lot about the Peterbilt truck he had back home. He told me that it had gold flake paint and custom 9/11 murals on three sides, which I found impressive. I got to see him and his truck when he was passing through San Diego last spring, which resulted in the video below.

Danny is headed out to Afghanistan this month to work. I’m wishing him success and a VERY safe return.

http://vimeo.com/13119379

More photos from Venezuela and the Revolution Will Not be Televised

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/5307394038/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/5307382952/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/5307382812/

The man with the sugarcane is in an area called Los Llanos in the SW of Venezuela. It’s an expansive plain veined with wetlands, there are giant rodents called capybaras, snakes, piranha, fresh water dolphins, cayman and birds birds birds. The dog is in Caracas, poor devil, that’s a tough town even if you have teeth. The flowers are on the road going from Los Llanos toward the Andes. Three weeks and at least a thousand miles by car around Venezuela and we didn’t bump into Hugo Chavez once. I would have liked to.

The Revolution Will Not be Televised is a documentary film about Chavez and the coup that temporarily took him out of office in 2002. It captures his overthrow from inside the president’s mansion, which is an incredible filmmaking feat. But the most important part concerns the Venezuelan people’s reaction to his removal, which is stunningly democratic. Less directly, it’s a comment on the American popular narrative of Venezuela and the willful misinformation campaign(s) that shape it. Man we get some whack information here. I actually thought he was a dictator until I went. That said, don’t listen to Oliver Stone or Sean Penn either.

Unfortunately it’s not available on Netflix or available on Amazon but you can watch the whole thing free here.

And here’s a YouTube clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id--ZFtjR5c

New Photos: Venezuela

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/5305366166/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/5304770895/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/5304770853/

When I met the soldier at the top he asked me where I was from. In bad Spanish I said I was from the States to which he quickly and casually replied, "Oh, so you're an imperialist." I think I'm still trying to decide if he's right or not - though it's certainly not how I think of myself.

Venezuela Jan 2010

Afrika Post

The internet is incredible. An editor from the Afrika Post in Germany found some of my photos from Malawi on flickr and asked to use them in print. It’s really neat to see them printed.

Bush League: New Shots from Malawi - Vmbuza

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/3013532141/ Vmbuza is a healing dance. It happens at the traditional healer's compound once a week, usually on a Friday night and lasts all night.

The women play a rhythm with wooden sticks. A couple guys play a second rhythm with hand drums. It's LOUD and it's POWERFUL. The traditional healer led the songs, which I think are partly or wholly improvised and can last 15 or 20 minutes.

The patients dance until they can't dance any more. I have no doubt that it makes people feel better. It makes me feel better every time I go!

Drinking the TIgris: New Shots from Baghdad

Some new shots from Baghdad. http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/3671172034/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/2911981311/

This, for me, is the untold story of this war. All the labor; cleaning, cooking and washing is done by S. Asian laborers. Their pay is meager. The guys who clean at the Dining Facility work 12 hours per day seven days a week and make, in total, $350.00 per month. If Nike or Coca Cola made a fat profit off their backs the way KBR (Halliburton) does, people would be up in arms. But nobody knows about this, and it's happening at every base in Iraq. In our Dining Facility there are NO Americans serving food. Maybe one now and then. The staff is well over 25 guys per shift and they serve thousands of meals per day. They clean the floors, take out the trash, pour the coffee, they work the registers at the PX, they do everything except fight.

The truth is, for many of these people it's a great opportunity but what I wonder about are their labor rights and how many of them are indentured servants.