Sep 22, 2009

Exquisite Color


This is a bit of an older image from "Exquisite Color." This project has been in the works for five years now and I thought I would share a few of my thoughts about this ever-evolving body of work. It is hard to finish this project because everywhere I go I see new things to shoot, but they rarely fit with the others. A lot of the early images were made in 2004 in New York City. Since then there are images in here from New Orleans, Las Vegas, and Colorado. People are always asking me how to make cohesive photographic projects and I always tell people that it is far from easy to make an original body of work. I struggle with this just like every other photographic artist. The key is to shoot often and then see what comes together. And you have to recognize that some projects come together easily while others like this color project, take a lot of time and patience. And what I have learned is that you have to stay open to where a project might lead you. Often it is not where you thought you would be, but that is the beauty of it all! I love making new images for this project and then seeing what is really strong and what really doesn't work. Of course it is hard to "let go", but in order to grow, you really must forget about what you already know and then see what you respond to, what appeals to you as a photographic artist. I am excited to go to New York in late October to continue shooting this project. I will see how that informs me. It is also cool because I have shot this project by now with three different cameras: The Canon G7, The Canon 5D, and as of late with the Canon 5D Mark 2. These all have varying resolutions so that keeps things interesting as well.