We just finished the touring portion of the trip and are on our way to Oxford, England for the remainder of the summer. We took our final exams yesterday (we take new courses once we get to England), and then some of us rented bikes and rode up to the North Sea. It was a lot of fun, even though it was raining. We ate lunch by the beach, then rode back. Last night I ate traditional Brugge mussels, had a waffle with whipped cream and chocolate sauce, and drank one too many local Belgian beers. It was great.
Brugge is a charming little town, an absolute gem among the European cities I've seen so far. The facades on the short little buildings were wonderful; combined with the cobblestone streets, the winding canals and bridges, and the local residents all on bikes, Brugge is a beautiful city. They are very proud of the their chocolate, their lace, and their fried potatoes (they were invented in Belgium, not France!), and you can find these in little shops and restaurants all over the city.
I did not take a single photograph in Brugge, despite its beauty. I think this may have been due to several factors. First, I wasn't there for very long. We stayed just two full days, the first of which I spent most of my time in my room studying for the exams, the second day was spent on a bike, in the rain (during which I was worried sick the whole time about my camera getting wet). That's fine; I don't regret. Brugge will just remain a little nugget of European beauty unphotographed.
Instead I'm posting here a picture from the island of Burano, just outside of Venice, Italy. This is the island I spoke of earlier, where the colors of the buildings are just overwhelming. I'm not sure I quite captured that here--the yellow looks a little dull--but that was my goal.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
En Route to Oxford
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
En Route to Brugge
We're now on our way from Berlin to Brugge, Belgium, with an overnight stop in Bielefeld, Germany. Berlin was an interesting city, saturated with history from WWII and the Cold War. I think it's safe to say no other city in the world still feels the presence of the Nazi's reign or the Soviet occupation like Berlin. Everywhere you turn there is some military or holocaust memorial, a hill made of rubble from WWII bombing, or some sign of the Berlin wall and the division and struggle that went along with it. The city is is more significant to Americans than any other city I've visited; of the four most significant events in recent American history--WWII, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and the War in Iraq--Berlin played a major role in half of them. We spent a few hours at the museum at Checkpoint Charlie, reading the descriptions of events and pictures centered around the Berlin Wall and its one passageway. The extreme measures people took to cross this wall are quite moving, as are the psychological struggle of the Soviet border guards, many of whom did not want to be there are and intentionally shot over fugitives' heads. It's hard to think that it has come down less than twenty years ago, within my lifetime.
We spent some time in the Pergamon Museum, where I saw many great works of art, including the Temple of Zeus at Pergamon and the Ishtar Gates of Babylon, both of which were incredible. But the most striking work I saw was a statue, sculpted in stone, of a man I later discovered to be Apollo. There was nothing terribly remarkable about it--I've seen many male nudes on this trip--except for that all that was left of the original was the the torso: from just below the neck to the upper legs, no arms. The "cropped" subject and the contrapposto of his stance was strongly reminiscent of an Edward Weston photograph of the nude torso of his son. This is one of his most famous photographs, but the fist time I saw it I didn't know quite what to think. The boy is young and slender; the photograph is certainly not a celebration of man's strength or brawniness. Yet the photograph is still beautiful--a presentaion of the human form and stance with those wonderful slender dark shapes on each side. As I stared at the statue, which was absolutely a display of the strength of the perfect male form, thinking of all this, I was able to better put Weston's effort into historical context, giving me a much greater appreciation for the image. Weston, certainly, has thoroughly studied these ancient Greek and Roman forms (and all art since), and has internalized them to the point where they are second nature. He was able to stand in front of his nude son and frame exactly what he wanted, knowing full well (even though I didn't when I saw it) the reference he was making to Greek sculpture. The difference, though--and this is the wonderful thing about photography--is that this is no glorified human or god, and no figment of his imagination. This is a real person, his own flesh, really, with real human weakness. He was taking ancient sculpture and turning it around on itself, showing us not a beautiful woman or powerful god, but a weak adolescent, a subject we all know too well, for we all have been one. Michelangelo often scultped the hands of his subjects oversized (see his David), a reference to the idea that it is not he but God who is working through his hands. Weston comes back with this sort of surrogate self portrait and says no, I am not God, I am man, and this is my flesh. It's all very interesting.
Berlin was probably my most photographically successful city yet. I tried hard to stick with point, line, shape, form, pattern, texture, and color, and I think it paid off. At my current state of evaluation, I count seven keepers from just two days of shooting, including this one of the holocaust memorial. The graphic elements are obvious, and I had the sense to include a person on a thirds line to give it some scale. These blocks are arranged in ordered rows, and by choosing to arrange them on the diagonal the image gets a great sense of dynamism and motion, which is perfect because of how this art works: it is not something you look at, but something you move through. I really enjoyed this memorial. These cement blocks spread out in their rows for probaby close to half a city block. At the edges, they are no more than a few inches high. As you walk towards the center, zig-zagging through them in an attempt to get lost, the blocks get taller and the ground gets lower. All of it has an uneasy, imperfect feel to it--the ground is not flat nor inclined but rather is a series of unordered waves, and the blocks do not have perfectly vertical sides, nor do their tops line up evenly. At their tallest, we estimated them to be around 14 to 16 feet high. Once you move through the middle part and start coming out, the blocks get shorter again, more light gets let in, and finally you are at the edge where the blocks are barely above ground level. Moving through it is clear how relevent it is for a holocaust memorial. The victims of the holocaust were taken from their normal lives and thrown into the depths of some hell, organized but chaotic, surrounded by inpenetrable stone. Some of them survived, moving through the hell back into light. I don't think I've ever seen a work of art this abstract and this clear about its message. I was evesdropping on a tour guide who was explaining that the artist, a Jewish American, said there is no significance to the number or shapes of blocks (they don't represent tombstones or number of people that died, for example), they are purely abstract elements to convey the emotion. Apparently the artist came to visit it a while ago, and was moved by seeing very diffent reactions to his work: some people were weeping, leaving flowers by the blocks, while a little further down children were running through them, playing games.
The travel portion of this trip is pretty much over. We will spend two days in Brugge, most of which will be spent studying for our final exams, before heading to Oxford on Saturday, the 23rd. We'll stay there until about the first week in August, then I fly home. Although I've enjoyed the traveling, it will be good to get some stability back in my schedule. I plan to take some trips on the weekends (we get three day weekends every week), but I also want to explore Oxford thoroughly.
I miss my girlfriend.
Friday, June 15, 2007
En Route to Berlin
We're now on the bus, four hours away from Berlin. Prague was an interesting city, a world apart from more western cities like Paris and Vienna. The Soviet influence is still strong here; you can see it in the faces of the people. The older generation in Prague looks hardened with chiseled faces, as if they've drowned years of hardship with beer and vodka. Their dark wrinkles tell the story of the struggle for freedom. The younger generation, though, show a vibrancy not yet touched by that struggle. The women here are beautiful, wearing flirty skirts and low-cut blouses as they strut down the street in pairs. Are they the first generation to escape the hard life, or are they just starting down that path? Time will tell.
A generation before the Soviet rule there was Nazi influence. Wednesday we went to a former concentration camp in a town called Terezin, about an hour outside of Prague. Terezin started out as a sort of military base in the Austro-Hungarian empire, later held POWs and other military and political prisoners, and in the forties under Nazi rule it held many Jews and others of an "inferior race." The whole place was quite eerie. We saw the places where these prisoners slept, ate, were executed, and were cremated. The photo here looks into one of the eating halls, and if I remember right it also doubled as and overflow bunker. It was like a sort of ghost town; it was empty with cobwebs everywhere, and this sort of musk pervaded every room. I felt uneasy the whole time.
Photographically, Prague was yet another failure. I took pictures of the city, but my pictures cannot speak for the city. I tried to get up this morning and shoot from the famous Charles's bridge before dawn (the sun rises at 4:50 a.m. in Prague), but completely overslept. My suspicions before I left for Europe have pretty much been confirmed: that I am photographically not ready for an opportunity like this trip. I feel like I'm trying to sit in with Thelonius Monk when I know my scales and a little theory, but I can't really say anything with my horn yet; I can't put it all together and construct a successful solo. That's not to say I'll give up trying, but there's only Berlin and a short stay in Brugge left for the traveling portion on this trip, and I don't see anything short of a miracle that will allow my skill and photographic eye to improve enough to make those cities successful.
As I read through what I just wrote, it sounds awfully depressing, but I want to make it clear that I am not going around sulking about my boring pictures, and that I most certainly am having a great time on this trip. One thing I believe I have been successful with is separating my photographic pursuits with my enjoyment of Europe. The whole experience has been no less than amazing. The people I'm with are great, and the places I've seen are breathtaking. Last night we went to see Mozart's Don Giovanni in a beautiful opera house (we had good seats!) in the city where it premiered in the 18th century. Afterwards we ate ice cream on a bench in the main city square and just watched people go by on a busy night. That kind of experience is priceless, and I honestly don't care that I don't have a photograph of it.
However, my work is cut out for me when I get back home. I now feel very comfortable with the controls and limitations of my camera, and should be able to focus exclusively on the creative process at home, in locations I am familiar with. By the next time I'm in a special place like this, I should be able to instantly recognize the graphic elements of point, line, shape, form, pattern, texture, and color, and make effective use of the photographic elements like depth of field, motion blur, point of view, and perspective/lens choice. I cannot photographically "waste" another opportunity like this (although I doubt another quite like this will ever arise).
You know, come to think of it, this is a good thing for me photographically, even though I don't consider it a success. Under what other circumstance would I be practically forced to a) Take many photographs everyday, and b) Constantly evaluate the success of those images and my progress as a photographer? I can think of none. If were taking classes in Atlanta right now I'd be lucky if my camera came out of the bag once a week. There has been definite progress in my both my skill as a photographer and my ability to evaluate myself, though that may not be obvious in the images. In that sense, the trip is a photographic success, even if there are few successful images.
OK, I've rambled long enough, and I'm running out of battery on my laptop. Wilkommen in Deutschland!
Monday, June 11, 2007
En Route to Praha
On the bus again; we just crossed the Austria-Czech border. They checked our passports, and took three of ours in for further evaluation (an Indian, Kenyan, and Chinese passport). Former Soviet Union, here we come.
Vienna was a very cool city, the most modern yet. Although it was probably no bigger than Paris, it felt more expansive, with larger, newer buildings and wide streets. I got my share of sausage, wienerschnizel, and Austrian beer. I liked that city.
Photographically, I don't think I have any real keepers (though I haven't spent much time evaluating). I felt very frustrated the whole time. I was here in this cool city but couldn't really "capture" it, whatever that means. Part of the problem was that we didn't actually stay in the city (we were in a similar situation in Venice). Although the food at the hotel was great (it was connected to the Vienna airport), it was a 30 min/1.70 euro train ride just to get into the city, and another U-Bahn ride to get anywhere once inside. With lectures everyday at 8:00 in the morning, there was no way to go out shooting in the morning before dawn and make it back in time. That's by far the best time to shoot: amazing light and no tourists. After an 8:00 lecture and a 10:00 museum, that put my first batch of free time right at noon, the absolute worst time of day to take pictures. So I didn't. In the evenings the light was better, but the whole place is still tourist-laden, and it's much harder to separate from the group. I took pictures, but they are mostly uninteresting.
So that's one excuse, outside my control, for the bad pictures. The second reason is completely within my control. I feel like I have no driving force for photography, as if I'm just shooting what "looks cool" as opposed to having a definite purpose or statement. I've said in previous posts that I want to take more portraits, and that still stands, but I want something else, something that can show "Vienna" (or "Prague" or "Berlin") interestingly--something pleasant to look at, something worth exploring visually. Anyone can (and I certainly do) take pictures of a random city street in Vienna, but what makes that Cartier-Bresson image of a Parisian street special, more visually interesting? In trying to figure it out, I realized where I've lost focus--the very basics, the whole point and title of this blog: Point and Frame. That is to say, graphics: point, line, shape, form, pattern, texture, color. Forget color and shoot in black and white, and I'm left with six graphic elements to exploit in every photograph. No more random shots. I've been using the camera every day, and am now much more comfortable getting an accurate exposure with little effort. I understand my dynamic range capabilities much more, and as a result am worrying less and less about getting the photograph technically "right." This leaves room for me to explore the photograph more creatively, exploring those graphic elements. I should exploit this new freedom as much as possible. There are graphic elements everywhere, and it is left to me to edit out that which does not contribute. If I can let that be my focus within these foreign cities hopefully my photographs will both document the space and be interesting to look at. That's all I really want, now that I think about it. Interesting documentation.
This picture was taken just inside the doorway of some theater as we tried to escape the rain on our way to an orchestra performance of Mozart, Brahms, and Ravel (which was excellent, by the way). Umbrellas have always fascinated me, these little domes people carry around with them for shelter; a street full of people in the rain looks like a pile of marbles or something. I've always wanted to photograph them, but they present an extra challenge because digital cameras and rain don't get along too well. Although I think the composition here is quite distracting, not very balanced, and in general could be much better, I do like the repetition in the dome of the church and the dome of the lady. That may be something to look into for future projects.
Onward to Prague, where I'll be able to pronounce nothing and I'll have no idea what anything costs (I think it's 20 crowns to the dollar?). My focus should be point, line, shape, form, pattern, texture, color. And portraits.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
En Route to Wien
I'm writing this post from a hotel in Klagenfurt, Austria, where we are staying for the night as we make our way from Venice to Vienna. Venice was a town certainly unlike any other on earth--a city that by all logic shouldn't even exist, yet has flourished as a center of culture and art for hundreds of years. A port city, you can find architectural influences from the east and the Byzantine empire, as well as the Romanesce influences found throughout Italy. We stayed at a smaller city named Padua (Padova), about a half hour's train ride outside Venice. The first time I walked out of the Venician train station and down the steps, it was like stepping into a whole new world. It feels like you are standing at the edge of a street, yet there is no street, only water. And there are no cars, only boats. No crosswalks, but bridges. It is unreal. I watched a construction crew operate heavy machinery from their boat. I watched a postman zip down the canal in his motorboat. I watched a blue police boat speed by with sirens blaring. Although interesting to watch it was almost unsettling how foreign it all was. In addition, the city is an absolute maze to get around in--nearly impossible to navigate. I wished we had spent a little more time there to get a better feel for the place.
On our last day in Venice we went to the glass-making island of Murano and the lace-making island of Burano. Murano was nice; the glass there was absolutely beautiful (though quite expensive for the larger stuff) and we got to see a demonstration of the glass blowing, which was interesting. Burano, though, was a photographer's dream. Every building on that small island was painted a deep, saturated, solid color. A bright red house next to a deep blue house with red flowers in the middle, next to a dark green store with yellow shutters on the windows. It was wonderful. By the time this gets posted, some pictures of Burano will hopefully be on my Flickr page. The picture I'm posting here was taken in San Marco Square, the social hub of all Venice. With the San Marco Cathedral in the background and Doge's Palace to the left, the square is constantly full of people (Venicians and tourists alike), and there are usually at least two pigeons for every human out there. If you have any bread or seed they will surround you and eat directly from your hand. This young boy was having a great time with the birds; I snapped off a few frames, and was satisfied with this one.
As I said in the last post, I wanted to take more portraits. In Venice, I was able to get some shots of a street clown (who posed quite dramatically for me when I asked if I could take his portrait), a street musician, a lace maker on Burano, and waitress/owner of a wonderful restaurant I ate at on my last night (I had spaghetti with clams, cuttlefish in ink with polenta, fried potatoes, and red wine). I haven't look real hard a post-processing them yet, but I have a feeling none were terribly successful. Still, I know that's what I'd like to do more of; it would take my summer portfolio to an entirely new level.
Tomorrow we head into Vienna, the home of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. I hope to get my fill of sausage, beer, and classical music.