 |
| ©2012 Tony Novak-Clifford Of all the photographs I returned home with from the east cost trip, I keep coming back to this one. Members of the 6th Grade Class from a school in Troy, Ohio. Bussed into the heart of DC for a field trip and preparing for some sort of presentation during weekend Memorial Day celebrations on the Mall. Is it the awkward, almost apprehensive expressions on their faces? The odd wave from one of the members? The patriotic t-shirts & laminates? Do their expressions speak to my own feelings about the current State of the Union & jingoistic rhetorical assaults by right-leaning media? Maybe they are simply exhausted & hot from the long bus ride from Ohio and waning in enthusiasm for whatever event they are assembled at this moment. Maybe they are mildly annoyed by another guy aiming another a giant lens in their direction? All I can say for certain is that there is a photograph in there somewhere... and a story. I find myself drawn more & more into a journalistic, reportage style photography and it's directness, it's honesty... a major change from the carefully crafted, staged & lit advertising work I have been so accustomed to. Rather than working to build an image from scratch, this new challenge forces me to find the photograph hiding among the visual chaos of my environment... to find the patterns, symbolism and universal reverberations that make for good visual story telling. This simple phrase has become my mantra: "There is a photograph in there somewhere..." |
Monday, June 25, 2012
Telling Stories
Friday, June 22, 2012
The Guardian
For several years now, this noble Agave plant has guarded the entrance to my home. Construction of the new studio space has required that it be dug up and temporarily relocated until building and exterior painting are completed. It's doing fine in a quiet corner of the yard, waiting patiently for it's roots to again be covered in soil...
 |
| Add caption |
If you blinked, you probably missed it. The Kihei gallery formerly formerly known The Maui Art Hale has come and gone in a matter of less than 60 days. A noble effort put forth by curator/operator Kenneth Norris, an attempt to create a different type of art space... unclutterd, contemporary, no whale art...
Alas, the money-guys suddenly pulled the plug just as a buzz was starting. In the battle of art vs. commerce, commerce wins another round.
Framed limited edition prints from the series "Journeys in the Indonesian Archipelago" & other recent work are back in my possession and available for sale sans gallery mark-up.
In other news... wrapped up an assignment for Quebec based Fairmont Magazine, delivering the edit just before boarding the plane to the East Coast. Received a lovely note from the PE, an excerpt below:
"Thanks for everything. You have no idea how much i love them. I was scared that this story will visually look like a boring hotel article, but this is stunning. Thanks so much."
Note to self: Now press heavily upon them to send me to Jakarta for coverage of property there!
This one took place while I was away. The reunion of gypsy jazz artists Gypsy Pacific proved to be a couple of evenings of stellar musical entertainment. Nice to have the chance to dust off old press images shot long ago, with a 4x5 View Camera and film no less, and get it out in front of eyes again. Great work on graphics, as always, by Scott @ Dogtowne Design.
The Maui Arts & Cultural Center will be screening parts of the PBS Documentary Series Art In The 21ST Century beginning Thursday, June 28th in the McCoy Studio Theater. Admission is free. The series is pretty cool.
Found a link to this blog on a German based photography forum this morning, linking to my entry back in January lamenting the final shutting down of my E6 film processing line and the retiring of my trusty Jobo ATL-Plus film processor. Funny. The forum is all in German and I don't understand a word of what's being said. Any german speakers reading this blog... translation, please? You can find the forum HERE.
Adobe announces the launch of Creative Suite6 & Creative Cloud.
Great... just as I was getting competent and comfortable with CS5, a new upgrade to spend money on & learn. Damn you! Find out more about CS6 & Creative Cloud here.
And that concludes today's entry... have a great weekend!
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Reflections From The Capitol & Beyond, Updates, News And Of Course, More Pics...
Now fully back into the swing of things here at home. Travel to the east was refreshing and a reminder of how much I love the city of Washington, DC. The city & surrounds were my home for nearly 10 years back in the mid-70's... a place I remember as exciting & filled with fun. During my tenure in DC we bore witness to the resignation of Nixon, the end of the Vietnam War, the death of disco & the rise of punk.
DC back in those days played host to an amazing group of music venues, most of them now long gone... On any given night, a young man with a thirst for adventure could wander in off the streets to catch fret wizard Danny Gatton burning down the house to a standing room only crowd, while other stellar guitarists like Roy Buchanan & Jeff Beck lurked with envy in the back shadows. Emmy Lou Harris crooned behind the mic at Childe Harold over in DuPont Circle while skinheads thrashed to The Stanglers at The Bayou over on K Street in G-Town, a street now synonymous with corporate greed and Capitol lobbyists.
Over in the 'burbs, The Muffins were collaborating with British experimental composer Fred Frith, fresh out of Henry Cow and crossing the Atlantic to check out the truly weird shit that was going down musically in our nation's Capitol. Progressive band Happy The Man had just inked a two-record deal with Clive Davis & Arista Records, while rehearsing with Peter Gabriel, immediately post-departure from Genesis. Punk/New Wave impresarios, Urban Verbs, (front man, Roddy Franz, had a brother who drummed for New York based Talking Heads) were rehearsing in a loft downtown on F Street in the old Atlantis Building, original site of what was to become the world famous 9:30 Club. The "Verbs" were also on the brink of signing their landmark two-record deal with Warner Bros. Records.
The scene in those days was as active as it was diverse, a launching pad for many acts that would go on to gain national acclaim. With the end of a war and the ouster of a corrupt president, the youth, music & arts activities were in overdrive and there was a sense of collective possibility all held together by a couple of radio stations (WGTB & WHFS) and one alternative newspaper (The Unicorn Times).
Things have changed since then, mostly for the better from what I could tell from my brief visits to the city last month. While most of the aforementioned music venues are now long gone but not forgotten, there is an obvious effort being made to gentrify areas of the city once considered too dangerous to venture at night (though I always did and never experienced any problems). Within walking distance of the the Washington Monument are a host of fabulous eateries and watering holes now. We sampled a couple and came away really wowed by one called Jaleo, operated by a chef of some reknown, we later learned. Jose Andres' Jaleo, on 7th Street, is a smart Spanish Tapas place, clean & modern on the inside, a limited number of outdoor tables along the sidewalk for dining al frecco and perhaps the most extensive menu I have ever encountered. The staff were extremely knowledgeable, helpful & professional while the food was out of this world! Highly recommended!
My timing for patriotic color could not have been better for the jaunts into the city. Memorial Day Weekend preparations were underway and the Mall monuments were swathed in red, white & blue bunting as far as the eye could see. A second evening down in the city found us dining, at the invitation of a friend, in a quaint neighborhood restaurant called Saint-Ex located in a re-gentrified section of 14th Street.
Then, it was across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and into the heart of the tidewater region of Maryland's Eastern Shore, my childhood home, for the primary mission of the 6ooo mile journey. My father was celebrating his 80th circle 'round the sun. Siblings & old family friends were arriving from all over for the surprise party that had been planned for months in advance. The surprise was a success and I had the opportunity to re-connect, if only briefly, with some people that I hadn't seen in 40 years or more.
A couple of trips to the Atlantic beach resort town of Ocean City, Maryland were also on the itinerary... to feast of fresh crab & crabcakes, morning bike rides on the boardwalk where I first met my better-half well over 30 years ago and fill-up on boardwalk caramel popcorn & the best french fries to ever be cut from a potato.
But now I'm back in the islands, vacation has come to an end... Happy Birthday, Dad! It was a great two-week hang!
UPDATES
The Blogroll found on the left side of this page has been recently updated and features some of what I consider to be the best in current editorial, commercial & fine-art photography blogging. Look around... you're bound to find some inspiration & information.
New studio construction continued unabated during my absence. I returned to find that exterior windows, doors, siding and battens had been installed... the roof went on a couple of days after my return. Electrical has now been roughed-in along with the big storage closet. Yesterday we had electrical & final framing inspections all approved, though we still wait for a permit for the new screen porch that will front the new construction. I'm told by the bureaucracy that we should have that permit in hand any day now. Today they are removing what was once an exterior window and breaking thru a wall that will be the connecting walk-thru from a new library into the new studio space. Life will be noisy & dusty for a few more weeks as drywall is scheduled to begin early next week. By the beginning of August, however, I should be able to start clearing out the current studio and moving into the new.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Friday, May 18, 2012
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Raising Cane - Afterburn
Sugar cane... a crop once ubiquitous to the islands now on the wane. On the island of Maui, sugar planting is now largely limited to the the central plains, north shore and lower elevation plateaus & slopes of Haleakala. There was a time when a patchwork of verdant green once quilted the mauka ("towards the mountains") areas of West Maui from Ukumehane to Kahana.
Sugar is controversial. Which side of the controversy you stand is largely dependent on several factors.
If you were born here... or come from family that was brought here decades ago from foreign lands to work in the plantations, your view is most likely that cane is a benevolent crop, providing employment for members of & ethnic diversity to your community for generations. Many of the small towns in the islands developed essentially from the plantation camps... sugar (together with pineapple) was the central point of focus that held these communities together and around which these communities eventually grew into the residential and resort areas that exist on the island today. It was within these small camp communities that the foundations of what we now call Island Cuisine first developed as approx. 337,000 new immigrants were imported from China, Japan, The Phillipines, Puerto Rico & Korea to work the plantations in the course of a century. With them came the cooking styles & foods of their homelands, contributing to what we all now enjoy as a diverse and vibrant mix of ethnic flavors employed in the humblest of Hawaiian Plate Lunches to extravagantly priced Asia Fusion offerings in dining venues boasting a galaxy of rating stars.
If you're malahini (newcomer) or kama'aina (long-time resident transplant), it's quite likely your view of sugar is the opposite... it's dirty, consumes too much water (a somewhat limited resource in the islands). The burning of fields prior to harvest creates large amounts of smoke & ash (first plumes of smoke during the first stage of a burn resemble the mushroom cloud of an atomic explosion), in turn, contributing to increased reports of asthma & other respiratory illnesses, air pollution, toxic gasses released from plastic drip irrigation lines also burned along with the crop, increased air born dust & dirt, filthy ash (island snow) falling on our newly washed cars or filling our swimming pools. Fields, once burned & prior to replanting, are extra prone to wind & rain erosion, which contributes in the long run to the burying and degradation of protective barrier coral reefs that ring the islands. Opponents of sugar production will also point out that the crop sucks up tax dollars with government subsidies aimed at supporting domestic production over cheap imported sugar.
My thoughts on sugar are decidedly mixed. On one hand, I sympathize with sugar's opponents. I agree with the health and environmental concerns they hold while at the same time enjoying the expansive greenbelts the crop provides. One only needs to drive along the coast of the island's west side to see large expanses of land, once green with cane & undeveloped, now a dry brown brush fire hazard or yielding to the unquenchable lust of gated-community developers. The smells issuing from the island's last remaining sugar mill are of the nausea innducing, sickly-sweet, rotting variety during peak production seasons. Yet, fields in cultivation are temporary ecosystems in themselves, providing shelter, food and homes to a variety of fauna, from insects, mongooses, rats & mice to several species of birds. Vast fields of cane provide paths (illegal... you will be trespassing) for outdoor activities like biking, dirt biking, walking, hiking, running and other outdoor activities... their network of irrigation ditches & streams bringing much needed water to arid parts of the terrain and opportunities to recreational fish for Tilapia and other introduced fresh water species.
No matter which side of the issue you take, sugar has been grown in the islands for centuries, most likely arriving somewhere around 600 AD with the first voyagers from Polynesia. Sugar cultivation was observed by Capt. Cook when he first ventured to Hawaii in 1778. Sugar eventually became big agribusiness and one of, if not the dominant island industries with the advent of reliable steamship transportation to the island's sometime during the 1840's.
Love it or hate it, sugar remains a large agricultural and economic force in Hawaii for the foreseeable future. As we approach the summer months, harvest is in full swing soon to be followed by replanting and cultivation. My goal is to document the process & some of the people involved with photographs and the occasional word through the season, to serve as a visual document of an island way of life that will not be with us forever, with neither a point of view of condemnation nor praise, but simply as an island way of life that has permeated & contributed much to the current culture.
Spending time in the fields recently to photograph a harvest, I quickly became aware of the skill & precision... a choreography of competence, with which each field team operates. Like clockwork once the burn is completed, heavy machinery moving in & out... cranes, haul trucks. There is noise, danger and the harsh conditions of heat, brutal sun & unrelenting dust in the workplace of these men & women working the fields. During harvest season, they work 'round the clock... morning, noon & night... first leveling the fields once burning is completed, moving the charred remains into massive piles and then scurrying load the scorched "cane" into huge haul trucks before it rots, transporting their cargo to the mill for processing into raw sugar & molasses to be pumped into tanks for eventual sea transport for further refining at mainland mills.
The following photographs comprise the first early efforts of a series I call: "Raising Cane". Stay tuned for further installments throughout the summer harvest & replanting season.
Sugar is controversial. Which side of the controversy you stand is largely dependent on several factors.
If you were born here... or come from family that was brought here decades ago from foreign lands to work in the plantations, your view is most likely that cane is a benevolent crop, providing employment for members of & ethnic diversity to your community for generations. Many of the small towns in the islands developed essentially from the plantation camps... sugar (together with pineapple) was the central point of focus that held these communities together and around which these communities eventually grew into the residential and resort areas that exist on the island today. It was within these small camp communities that the foundations of what we now call Island Cuisine first developed as approx. 337,000 new immigrants were imported from China, Japan, The Phillipines, Puerto Rico & Korea to work the plantations in the course of a century. With them came the cooking styles & foods of their homelands, contributing to what we all now enjoy as a diverse and vibrant mix of ethnic flavors employed in the humblest of Hawaiian Plate Lunches to extravagantly priced Asia Fusion offerings in dining venues boasting a galaxy of rating stars.
If you're malahini (newcomer) or kama'aina (long-time resident transplant), it's quite likely your view of sugar is the opposite... it's dirty, consumes too much water (a somewhat limited resource in the islands). The burning of fields prior to harvest creates large amounts of smoke & ash (first plumes of smoke during the first stage of a burn resemble the mushroom cloud of an atomic explosion), in turn, contributing to increased reports of asthma & other respiratory illnesses, air pollution, toxic gasses released from plastic drip irrigation lines also burned along with the crop, increased air born dust & dirt, filthy ash (island snow) falling on our newly washed cars or filling our swimming pools. Fields, once burned & prior to replanting, are extra prone to wind & rain erosion, which contributes in the long run to the burying and degradation of protective barrier coral reefs that ring the islands. Opponents of sugar production will also point out that the crop sucks up tax dollars with government subsidies aimed at supporting domestic production over cheap imported sugar.
My thoughts on sugar are decidedly mixed. On one hand, I sympathize with sugar's opponents. I agree with the health and environmental concerns they hold while at the same time enjoying the expansive greenbelts the crop provides. One only needs to drive along the coast of the island's west side to see large expanses of land, once green with cane & undeveloped, now a dry brown brush fire hazard or yielding to the unquenchable lust of gated-community developers. The smells issuing from the island's last remaining sugar mill are of the nausea innducing, sickly-sweet, rotting variety during peak production seasons. Yet, fields in cultivation are temporary ecosystems in themselves, providing shelter, food and homes to a variety of fauna, from insects, mongooses, rats & mice to several species of birds. Vast fields of cane provide paths (illegal... you will be trespassing) for outdoor activities like biking, dirt biking, walking, hiking, running and other outdoor activities... their network of irrigation ditches & streams bringing much needed water to arid parts of the terrain and opportunities to recreational fish for Tilapia and other introduced fresh water species.
No matter which side of the issue you take, sugar has been grown in the islands for centuries, most likely arriving somewhere around 600 AD with the first voyagers from Polynesia. Sugar cultivation was observed by Capt. Cook when he first ventured to Hawaii in 1778. Sugar eventually became big agribusiness and one of, if not the dominant island industries with the advent of reliable steamship transportation to the island's sometime during the 1840's.
Love it or hate it, sugar remains a large agricultural and economic force in Hawaii for the foreseeable future. As we approach the summer months, harvest is in full swing soon to be followed by replanting and cultivation. My goal is to document the process & some of the people involved with photographs and the occasional word through the season, to serve as a visual document of an island way of life that will not be with us forever, with neither a point of view of condemnation nor praise, but simply as an island way of life that has permeated & contributed much to the current culture.
Spending time in the fields recently to photograph a harvest, I quickly became aware of the skill & precision... a choreography of competence, with which each field team operates. Like clockwork once the burn is completed, heavy machinery moving in & out... cranes, haul trucks. There is noise, danger and the harsh conditions of heat, brutal sun & unrelenting dust in the workplace of these men & women working the fields. During harvest season, they work 'round the clock... morning, noon & night... first leveling the fields once burning is completed, moving the charred remains into massive piles and then scurrying load the scorched "cane" into huge haul trucks before it rots, transporting their cargo to the mill for processing into raw sugar & molasses to be pumped into tanks for eventual sea transport for further refining at mainland mills.
The following photographs comprise the first early efforts of a series I call: "Raising Cane". Stay tuned for further installments throughout the summer harvest & replanting season.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)