10-28.2

Went down to Houston this last weekend, to visit an old friend from high school. We went and saw several museums, which I found highly inspiring. On the drive down I took major highways, but on the way back, I wandered through country roads in Texas all day. Mostly around Texas 19 North, but getting lost often enough. I begun experimenting with several different ways of documenting the houses I found, different ways of looking at the process. Came up with many new ideas through the trip.

In the main museum, cant remember the name, but the big one in Houston, I could give a damn about names lately, but I saw the Cy Twombley Museum and I still dont know how to feel about it. But I saw a pai ting by Max Ernst that really spoke to me. Day and Night. 1941/1942

Terrible reproduction, but it gave me many ideas for shooting processes. Sort of like an HDR but taken of a huge span of time, day and night, and then why not really play with that process and utilize the digital multiple layer portrait technique, as I call it.

It might get a little abstract, but I imagine thats what Max Ernst said too. It could be honed to a subtlety, just lighting a repeating figure in very different ways. I like the complete lack of lighting in this one, but it would be interesting to really create a unique and impossible lighting situation with multiple exposures of differing value and lighting ratios. Looking at LINE SHAPE FORM TEXTURE and CONTRAST. And typed, double spaced essays on Ansel Adams. Sounds like a good idea. Documentary photography.

10-28.1

I took a bunch of pictures at the pep rally today, mostly got nothing, but I thought this was an interesting composition, how the girl looks over the crowd like a hawk, vision, really. Thats what its about. Something powerful in moments like this, which I am not usually used to seeing in houses of the dead. A good chance to play with composition outside in an uncontroled atmosphere. Felt much more like searching than creating to capture than I am used to. Weve been looking at a lot of documentary phtographers in class lately, Larry Clark, Dijkstra, Ballen, Curtis... A good aesthetic, documentary; clean, removed, almost sterile. But then you have moments like this. Full of color and timing, awkwardness and envy, form and repetition. I am reminded of Tim Robins, my advanced art history teacher constantly saying, "The Gaze"; emphatically.

10-20-2010

Noumena
There are numerous reflections of myself in this photograph. First, and most obvious is my shadow, cast upon my friend Shawn. Secondly is the main reflection on the surface of his lens which is backlit by the sun. There are some three other reflections of my silhouette within the interior of the lens echoed about within the circle at smaller size. Those are the literal, evident reflections of myself. Within the latent image on his film there is a theorhetical image, which might or might not have ever been developed. And finally there is the reflection of myself that I leave on many of the more advanced students who pass through my classes. But, uet, as I realize this, the visual metaphor would imply here that while my student here is pointing right at the light, I am but a filter, or maybe an obstacle around which the true light of photography might bend. Or rather, maybe I too am just a reflection of the darkness which is used to control light itself. 

10-16-10

Walking_

Thus is the surface of life, pocked, so many textured, some times white, and sometimes very dark.

Cantor through the shadows, walking on broken glass and feathers, close to dark. One only hears

the surface and let loose the whiperwils.  On bended and broken, one clean walk, away with the 

Shadows breathe, slowly, among us. But most finally, should the wind blow, not a fiber might stir. 

10-11-10

So I was inspired to try some HDR's the other day by an old friend of mine, Roy so I did a bunch of bracketing when took my long drive this weekend. The camera moved for so many of them, I am going to have to start using a better tripod, mine isnt the most stable. I had been trying to use the Photoshop Merge To HDR function, but never really liked what I got from that, so tonight I started just taking two or three of the shots and layering them manually and just experimenting on which blend modes worked best for each image, and I think it yielded some good results...

Some of these got to be much more abstract than I had originally intended with the process, but I just wanted to see what the process yielded for several different kinds of shot. I found it gave me a greater amount of color range control, as well as uielding some very interesting histograms. I was talking today about having a conceptual photography show of just latent images, and its basically undeveloped prints in black photo bags.
Reminds me of how Stephen Shore started showing his prints in 4x6 glossies in postcard racks in Amarillo, by the side of the Highway. He knew what he was doing. Might be interesting to have a show of just histograms. Just ask hundredrs of people to submit histograms, make it into a book. Weird. The show would have to be huge prints, entire walls, a billboard, and then really small, like contact prints of 35mm shots of Histograms on screens.
Ive been getting back into thinking about Noumena again. Helped a student make a series on Noumena afer school today. Really gets you back in it. Dreams.

10-10-2010.2

Well the goal of this blog is to be a venue for me to discuss some of my images, and possibly get feedback on some of the ideas and processes I am working with. So I will get into it...

This is an image I shot yesterday afternoon while taking along drive alone outside of Sand Springs out West of Tulsa. This is something I do quite often, take long drives, searching for abandon houses, churches, whatever, sometimes just driving to find peace, calm down, get out of town for a while. I usually stay within about 50 miles of Tulsa, but really most of the time I take a long drive I get lost and really dont know where I am. Its a good way to clear my mind, just feling the breeze through the window, trying not to go anywhere specific really, just thinking about being on the road as opposed to trying to arrive at a destination. Its a notion I try to carry with me, to try to enjoy just being on the road and not always looking for the destination.

I think this image really appealed to me for a number of reasons. Mostly the light coming through the doorway was nicely diffused, so it spread out into the house in a uniform way as opposed to being to strong and creating harsh contrast. This house really felt like it had been left alone for a while. Thats one of my favorite things about being in these old houses, trying to get a feel for how long they have been abandoned. Picking up on sometimes very subtle clues about other people who had come and gone in these houses since they were lived in. Its interesting how you so often find the same objects in these houses. I quite often find the usual emptry beer bottles, left behind clothes and shoes, couches etc, but you so often find large collections of stuffed animals, Polaroid photographs, and a couple other objects I find alot. Anyway, I felt this was a good image to start this blog with writting about, as it is very indicative of the style of work I have been doing when i can lately. I am very much a wandering photographer; I have probably 10-20 running series at any time, but I find its good to explore in the process of image making in order to keep yourself fresh.

10-10-2010

This being my first post to my blog, I would like to introduce myself. My name is RAWakeley and I am a High School Photography Teacher. I have been professional photographer for several years now and a fine art photographer for many before that. I have a BFA in Photography and Art History from the College of Santa Fe, New Mexico and am fully certified to in Technology Education in the state of Oklahoma. My full resume is at my website. http://www.robertwakeley.com/
I intend to use this blog to chart my course through the coming years of photography; the delicate and sometimes painstaking process of making images. I will post here only what images and notions I consider relevant to my path, if you wish to view a broader scope of my photography, feel free to view my flickr.com page. http://www.flickr.com/photos.rawakeley3
As for now, i leave with inspiration. A line from the great Kinnell;
Stop.
As you approach an echoing
cliffside, you sense the line
where the voice calling from stone
no longer answers,
turns into stone, and nothing comes back.
-Galway Kinnell