My exhibition has been extended for another week or so, so if you haven't made it in to mikorin's yet, you still have a wee chance to catch the show. If you are unable to see the exhibition in the flesh due to geographical locale, I have uploaded the entire Holga collection on display at the exhibition to the mOnOchrOmic album at flickr. Those who purchased prints can expect delivery in the next week or so. Thanks to you all for your kind support! Can't quite believe that I've sold 15 prints so far! The exhibition has paid for itself and will actually contribute to the next exhibition budget quite nicely.
I *finally* took my Canon 300D in to Fujiya (the great second hand camera store in Nakano) for repair and service. While in there yesterday I looked around the shelves and found myself dribbling over a nice Contax T3 they have in there at the moment. It's an old-ish point and shoot film camera and it takes gorgeous, sharp photos with a nice Zeiss lens. I've been wanting to buy one for a couple of years, and am considering going back to get it. They also had some great lenses in there at typically reasonable prices. I love Fujiya.
Had a strange time this week. Nothing all that serious (erm, apart from being kicked unceremoniously out of my gym for having [well-hidden] tattoos and then not being able to get a refund on my 2 months pre-paid membership because I lied about it on my membership contract. FUCK! Damn those yakuza for giving tattoos a bad name), but sometimes Japan is just too hard.
Desperately need to get the hell outta town for a bit, go somewhere vast and blue and green and not Japanese for some mental health. Off to dinner with Kat in a bit. She's had a similar time of late so we can have a nice healthy grumble about everything we hate about winter (and yes, I know it's been a kind winter, but damn it, it's still winter!) and Japan (yes, sometimes living in Japan SUCKS SERIOUS DINOSAUR BOLLOCKS). Roll on spring. OK, childish tantrum over.
thank you for the nice post.
is it okay to be a little bit critical?
i dont feel the photography is very great.. id say for me 90% of the shots did not struck my heart. that is, however, purely based on feeling and not interesting "critique".
what the photos seem to be lacking technically is a lack of contrast. given that they are black and white its the thing i personally appreciate most.
second, due to the fact that you are shooting with a holga, and that you scanned the photos / negatives afterwards before printing them (how did you do it?), some shots are not of very high quality.
next, given that you have them in your computer you could have post-processed them to make them better photos. take, for example, the one called "elephantbum". the white fabric on the left works distracting. edit it out. in photoshop or even when you print your photos manually, before scanning them into the computer. (out of principle against editing you could choose not to do so; but then again, photography is all about optimizing your view on reality)
finally, probably the worst critique for me, a lot of the photos are the same. you might have chosen little series but just do one big series next time instead. or leave more photos out. 8 times a lady in a bath and four times an elephant is a little much, it somehow does not make sense. leaving out will definetely maximize your results!
i feel you could have done much better, because a lot of the photos you posted here before are better than the ones that you put now online from the exhibition!
that said, very cool you found a venue to put your work up!!
Thanks for taking the time to make such a long thoughtful comment. I appreciate hearing this kind of constructive criticism.
I wonder if the internet (and digital files) is a poor place to exhibit photos as I got a lot of comments to the opposite of yours (regarding striking the heart) from people seeing the prints. But then again, I guess they could have been just kissing my ass. The prints are definitely more contrasty, actually, and to be honest I hadn't noticed the difference so much until you mentioned it. I think they (the prints) look lovely.
In terms of photoshop, I am something of a neanderthal when it comes to post production and I would love to get some training in that department. I can see that most of the best digital photography is made so by its photoshop elements. I have a long way to go in this area.
I also don't know much about scanning (they were all scanned by a friend on his negative scanner) so that's another department I could learn more about. I did re-size and downgrade the resolution of the digital files so they are quite small - and set to medium resolution but the prints were printed using huge files. Maybe that's what you're seeing with regards to the quality of the images? It's a habit I got into with my own website because big files chew up so much bandwidth.
The bath series was actually a "set" concept, and grouped in a block of 9 in the exhibition - and they looked great with their thick black frames with white flower petals scattered inside the inner frame. Something you can't see on flickr. Anyway, that's why there are so many of them.
Overall, it is my first foray into exhibiting and Holga's and so on and it was an amazing learning experience. I really value real comments like yours because I am aware a lot of people just give nice (but dishonest) feedback coz that's what happens in Japan...
Thanks for softening the blow with your last few sentences ;). I'll try harder next time. While I did take this exhibition very seriously, I make no claims at being anything more than an amateur, with an earnest wish to improve and learn, while being challenged with a busy "real life" schedule to work around.
I'm quite proud of my efforts, and thanks again for taking them seriously enough to comment so honestly.
Hey. Shit about the Gym. What's all that about then? Mafia Marty! In my neck of the woods we say 'sucks donkey dick' not 'dinosaur bollox'. I have sucked neither. For the record.
On March 3, 2007 12:40 AM,
innocentgirl said:
Dear Aunty Marty,
Had my opening on Thurs night and sold about 9 works on the night... still have a few more to go before I actually make any money!! But there are four weeks to go and lots of press kits to send out so we'll see. Those comments you get regarding your work... it's not just Japan believe me. Lets face it most people know how close the art of an artist is to them and not many are willing to even bother constructing a critique let alone tell you your work sucks even if that is truly what they believe. It's great to get comments such as Daniel's as suddenly you start thinking of your work in a new way and think on what improvements can and should be made. I don't believe however, that you can make an accurate comment regarding your prints when viewing them online as they are two totally different images. Screens are backlit for a start where as paper reflects the light. And files sizes and resolutions are different. It is a psychologically different experience too. Like reading a book to watching a movie. Thus I will leave the rest of my comments for a 'real' viewing instead.
So glad to hear it was a success and can't wait to see your next move.
Huge congrats on the successful opening! I'm so proud of you, honey!
As for Daniel's comment, I agree with you that there can be no comparison between viewing prints and digital files. The prints were good enough for people to want to buy them - and not just friends, either. The digital files could probably do with a bit of work to make them stand out better on screen but hey, I don't get much time to play.
Good luck with the rest of your exhibition, let me know how it goes!
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