I realize posts have been non-existent for the last few weeks. The main reason is that I started teaching a few weeks ago and I've been busy with that, but I'm also taking a photo class this fall and for the last couple of weeks I've been shooting with a Holga, a cheap medium-format film camera with light leaks and a flimsy plastic lens. I'm excited about using it, but it's also taking some getting used to. Since buying my digital camera, I've grown to love shooting in color, and with the Holga I'm back to shooting black and white. It's a different tool than the digital, and it works better for some shots than others. Right now, I'm in the process of getting comfortable using it and finding out what I want to shoot with it.
Although I've been shooting mostly with the Holga, last weekend Josh and I went down to Hillsville, VA to photograph the Labor Day Gunshow and Flea-Market, and since I didn't have film for the Holga, I used my digital. I've been looking at some of Mark Cohen's photos recently (see the photos at the beginning of this post), and I thought the flea-market, with its vibrant colors and braided currents of people, would be a good place to imitate his style--not concentrating on the people so much as the organization of shapes/colors within the frame. The potential was there, but my skill with the camera wasn't. I saw some interesting things--a poodle licking salt off of a middle-aged man's leathery back (Josh nearly got this shot), a boy holding deer horns around his head, various people with a rifle in one hand and a cell phone in the other--but I didn't get many shots I'm happpy with. The main reason I didn't get anything is that I didn't have the nerve--or perhaps the rudeness--to just click the shutter in people's faces. I also like walking around things and thinking about the perspective I'm taking and what I'm leaving in/out of the frame, and the flux of the flea-market didn't afford me the time for my usual deliberations. In any case, here are some of the results.
My Labor Day shots
(should have waited for a single cloud to float into the frame with this one)
2 comments:
I'm really digging the last photo in this set. It calls to mind the scents and sounds of a fair, which is pretty cool.
Hey I met you guys with my wife at the market. She was taking shots in the middle of the road when we met. You gave us your blogs on a post it note. Great work... I really love what you've done here.
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