Photography | Glyphs of Time :: a blog by jarvis grant

October 30, 2010

Coming Home and PhotoPlus Expo

Filed under: Observations,Photography — Tags: FoundFolio, Ken Hipkins, Lorenzo Wilkins, PDN PhotoPLus Expo, Welton Doby — Jarvo @ 6:00 pm

Leaving Penn Satation on my way to the New Rochelle station.

I came back to New York to take care of some family business and to attend PhotoPlus Expo 2010 on Monday. The train ride from DC was a bit more crowed than normal for a Monday afternoon. I was oblivious to most of it as I slipped in and out of cat naps, while two Swedish ladies sitting next to me had non-stop conversation. I didn’t realize how tired I was from a week finishing up projects and prepping for family meetings with my Mom, daughter, and my Mom’s lawyer. Being back in Westchester to see my family is good, and I’m fortunate that everyone is OK. Looking after your aging parents and adult children, seems to be a missing part from the manual of adulthood people never remember to tell you about. Yet, as a creative professional I seem to be figuring it out well enough.

On a lighter side of my NY trip, there was my annual trip to PhotoPlus Expo, which I think of as Toy-R-Us for photographers. There were no toys on my list this year, but I was looking forward in checking out new technologies with inkjet papers and Print on Demand books. I also attended a couple of seminars, Publish Your Photo Book, with Darius D. Himes and Mary Virginia Swanson, and Affordably Simple Marketing: Best Practices for Marketing Your Creative Business, with Juliette Wolf Robin of FoundFolio. I always like checking out the conference seminars, there’s always something to learn. I was also thinking of checking out John Paul Caponigro’s Book Publishing: From Concept to Bound Book. I ran into Ken Hipkins on the expo floor Friday. He informed me that he wanted to check that one out too, but it had sold out. I was thinking about it, but felt I know as much about design as JP, and I’d save myself $80.00! (No offense JP!). Also ran into Welton Dolby and Lorenzo Wilkins musing over carbon fiber tripods on the expo floor.

At this writing, I’m still in NY, or I should say, Mt. Vernon, NY. Catching up with a couple of my buds, and hanging out with them in the Village. We’ll see what happens with Halloween Eve on Saturday night. Should be pretty interesting. Even though we’re a bit older when we would go to the Fillmore East oh those many years ago. But as Bernstein said, or really Comden and Green, “It’s a Wonderful Town”!

Friday morning on Metro-North, heading to PhotoPlus Expo. Just leaving the 125th Street Station going to Grand Central Station.

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October 10, 2010

John Harrod and Friendship House

Filed under: Education,Inspiration,Observations,Photography — Tags: John Harrod, Southeast Washington DC — Jarvo @ 1:11 pm

This weekend I attended a Life Celebration for one of Washington, DC’s strongest arts and community advocates/activists, John Harrod. I first met, John Harrod when I was a very young photographer, still attending Howard University around 1972. While I’d been a “working” photographer for about a year and a half, I was for the most part, cloistered in the world of University. My photography professor told me about a possible job teaching kids photography in SE Washington, DC. I was excited about the opportunity to do anything related to photography that was off campus, so I went over to Friendship House to meet John Harrod, not knowing what to expect.

As I remember it, Friendship House was a large, grey, three story Victorian house. Inside was a children’s community center, an after-school and weekend place for kids in the neighborhood to get off the streets and “hangout”. Little did those kids realize that they were being tutored and educated on how to be productive and pro-active members of their local, national, and global communities. That was John Harrod’s style. Well I got the job. Little did I know at the time that I was now being tutored on being an arts educator. I really loved the job, and the kids were great. There was, however, a “senior photographer” there, and being a young and quite naive photographer, I was ready to learn all I could from him. Man this guy raked me over the coal at every opportunity! Plus. he love to do this in front of kids.

OK, I figured I could handle this treatment, but I really couldn’t. One day after a pretty grueling day at work in the University Medical Center photography lab (Then Freemans Hospital), I went over to the “House”. There was no Metro back then, so the bus ride from NW to SE Washington during rush hour was long. Oh yeah, and to was summer! When I finally arrived the kids were there ready to go, and so was the elder photographer. Man, he jumped all over me for being late. Well, my head was hot, and my fuse was short, I let them have it, and I stormed out of there vowing never to return. That night I got a call from Mr. Harrod. He told me to please come in the next day so he could talk with me. That was his style too. Always face to face with matters he felt were of importance.

OK, so I go to see him, and I get my first lesson in real world diplomacy. Mr. Harrod tells me that he “needs” me for his photo program to grow with new and fresh ideas. He then gives me the history of the other photographer and why he needs him and why the other guy needs the program. The other photographer, who for me at twenty something see him as a elder, help to build the program from the ground up. It is his way of giving back to his community. Remember this is a time not even ten years from the formal end to segregation nationally, and DC was still a city very much segregated. This was his domain. OK, I got it. I see the big picture, that all this really has nothing to do with me. It really doesn’t have anything to do with photography! It all about community building and neighborhood preservation. So, from that moment on, I didn’t need to check my ego at the door because I left it back at my apartment.

Things went very smoothly after that talk. I apologize for my behavior to the photographer in front of the kids, with John Harrod standing in the wings. Man, that was hard to do, but in the end it was well worth it. It wasn’t until some years later when I was giving that very same talk John Harrod gave me, to a young student photographer of mine, that I realized something. Mr. Harrod had also given that talk to the other photographer too! Man he was good. What a diplomat.

John Harrod was in his thirty’s when I first met him. He was still an older adult to me, and I was brought up to call people “Mister”. He wanted me to call him John, which took a little getting use to. Today I think of him as an elder statesman who was working on the front lines. He showed me why education was so very important, and if I could teach, I should teach. During his Life Celebration I thought, “Man, every student I ever had owes a lot to my first education mentor, John Harrod and my experiences at Friendship House.

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September 29, 2010

The Occasional Student

Filed under: Education,Inspiration,Observations,Photography — Tags: Digital Photo Academy, Jarvis Grant — Jarvo @ 3:44 pm

This past week, I had an opportunity to sit in on several Photography Portfolio Reviews with students at the Art Institute of Washington. The Institute has a great photographic imaging program that was built from the ground up, not one refitted onto a traditional photography program. It was odd not smelling fixer as I walked through its hallways. These students have all of the latest hardware and software at their disposal. It was interesting to see that with all this technology and a terrific faculty in place they were still like the students I had at Howard University back in the 1980s & 90s! No comment on my high school art students at the Ellington School of the Arts during the past ten years! So, nothing really changed except the tools they were inundated with learning. Very interesting.

When going over the work of these students and in conversation with them, I thought back on a couple of students I worked with as a freelance instructor for Panasonic’s Digital Photo Academy. These were two guys were my peers in age that loved photography, and just kinda did it “on the side”. I was teaching or instructing an Advance Photography class from 9:00AM to 5:00PM. After a brief introduction at Starbucks, I took them to the National Cathedral here in Washington, DC. We shot for six hours straight, with no break! Six hours without any whining, just non-stop photography.

Mike, going for the shot!

They asked a lot of questions about photography, as well as, telling lots of stories about their photographic and non-photographic lives. As photo enthusiast, that brought all of their photo equipment, so they could be “ready” for anything. The first thing I did was to have them travel light. No more than two lenses and a tripod. They were amazed that the only camera I brought my Panasonic LX3. But I also brought some Lensbaby stuff for them to use and my laptop. We never even used that Lensbaby stuff, no time, they were in The Zone.

Steve, using the Cathedral as the background element.

At the end of the day we were in the Cathedral’s Observation Deck that has a great view of DC, Maryland, and Virginia! I pulled out my laptop and went over their photos, and showed a couple of very quick Photoshop processing tricks. Gave them both a “Goodies Disk”, like I get at Photoshop World, and a little “homework” assignment to make a Blurb book from their photos. Then we all limped off into the sunset. It was a great day of photography.

Those guys, Mike & Steve, were just the kind of Photography students you want. They love photography, and the gadgets and toys that come with it. Most of all they were open, I mean wide open, to the vocabulary of artist vision in hearing and listening to their creative voice. That’s something that the full time student doesn’t do, but the occasional student is actually hungry for. I commented to Mike about this, and his response was, “Hey, here you’re not babysitting! We want to learn.”

Well they’re ready for my Photoshop class, and so am I. I’m looking forward to my next photography classroom, filled with occasional students.

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August 18, 2010

HARMAN Professional Inkjet by Hahnemühle

Filed under: Art History,Digital Tech,Observations,Photography — Jarvo @ 12:53 pm

The New HARMAN inkjet paper from Hahnemuhle

This is very interesting. Two giants in the paper industry have combined their efforts. Hahnemühle, a German fine art paper maker since, that has been operating paper mills since 1584. HARMAN is no new kid either. Alfred Harman, the founder of the company ILFORD in 1879 making dry plates, has been making color photographic materials that go back to the first practical application of color photography with the Lumière brother’s Autochrome process in 1903. So these two companies know what to do with paper and photographic imagery.

This should be a very interesting paper. The paper even smells like wet darkroom paper because of its true Baryta coating. One of the things that wet darkroom photographer have been looking for is a paper that looks and feels like an air dried glossy paper. This may be it. I’m looking forward to trying it out to see just what is what .

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July 25, 2010

Kodachrome, makes all the world a sunny day…

Filed under: Art History,Observations,Photography — Tags: Jarvis Grant, Kodachrome, Michaela Brown, Scans, Steve McCurry — Jarvo @ 2:50 pm

Steve McCurry's "Afghan Girl", 1984, Peshawar, Pakistan, on Kodachrome film

I had stumbled upon an article, thanks to Michaela Brown on Facebook, about Steve McCurry and the Last Roll of Kodachrome on NPR’s photo blog, The Picture Show. McCurry, is the photographer who shot that iconic cover of the Afghan Girl for National Geographic back in the 80’s. Kodak stopped the production of Kodachrome slide film last year, and has given the Mc Curry the last roll of that classic film that came off the assembly line. To get the details and hear a brief interview click on the link above.

When I was in college, I learned my photographic color theory from Pete Turner, Jay Maisel, and Art Kane. Back in the early 70’s there was still the question if photography was “art”. Although color theory is color theory, I was being taught by painters. That’s not a problem, but the practical application of it to my medium was. Instead of bitching & moaning about it, I turned to those three masters of color photography and studied their approach to image making. Well, Kodachrome seemed to be their weapon of choice and I did the same. It was quite different to handle coming from Tri-X with an ASA (sorry!) ISO of 400 usually pushed to 800.

It took a bit getting used to ISO 25! But man the color was deep and rich. Then in the 80’s I switched to Kodachrome 64, a bump of a whole f/stop. Then came Kodachrome 200, but it seemed scurrilous to use it! Yet, the film was gaining in greater popularity and Kodak, who were the only ones processing the film, began to grant the license to a few other independent labs to process the film. That was the beginning of the end of Kodachrome, at least for me.

But with Photoshop & the “new” inkjet technologies seemed to bring back Kodachrome’s glory days! I could now get a high rez scan of an old Kodachrome slide that was once a real pain and expensive to print, and produce a great print. The best part being , I was the one making the print, not an overpriced custom lab.

Well, Kodachrome I’m sorry to see ya go. Maybe it’s time to shoot those last few rolls I have in the back of the fridge before the chemistry is gone too!

The Blue Playground: Kodachrome 64 scan made with Nikon Coolscan ED8000 scanner of my daughter Maya at Hartly Park, Mt. vernon, NY 1983

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July 24, 2010

New York City: Above & Below

Filed under: Gallery,Observations,Photography — Jarvo @ 3:32 pm

Last month I went to visit my Mom and my daughter, Maya in Mt. Vernon, NY. Mt. Vernon is the little town were I grew up. despite the sound of its name, it’s right next to New York City. When I was a kid, I could walk to the #5 IRT train. I had a chance to hang out with my buddies Roger and Stan in the Village Saturday night. Then on Thursday night, Stan and I went to check out Herbie Hancock at Carnegie Hall for Herbie’s 70th birthday celebration.

The day before I left NY to come back to DC, I went to an event sponsored by NAPP, Photoshop CS5 Summit. It was pretty cool, but no Photoshop World! At any rate, when walking back to Penn Station I saw the scene of the monks and the NYC citizen on a bench waiting for a bus. Man there was so much color I could just pass it by. With all the foot traffic I was surprised to get such a clean shot.

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This other shot was on the way back to DC from the New Rochelle Amtrak station. The train makes a brief stop in NYC at Penn Station. This shot was made right before the train picked up its NY passengers

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July 15, 2010

Get ready for PDN PhotoPlus 2010

Filed under: Education,Observations,Photography — Tags: PDN PhotoPLus Expo — Jarvo @ 6:58 pm

Well, the 2010 PDN PhotoPlus Expo is October 28-30, and is once again at the voluminous Jacob Javits Center in New York City. PhotoPLus Expo, also Toys-R-Us for Photographers, is were you’ll see all the lastest stuff you may not really need, but still want to have right there for ya. When you go to the web site, there are a lot of elaborate placeholders with the overall message being, Register Now! There are no official exhibitors nor are there any seminars to register for yet, but if nothing else, you can go ahead and make your hotel reservations. The earlier you book in New York, the better the deal you’ll get. PhotoPlus has their travel site up, but you may want to check out travel sites like Travelocity & Yahoo Travel for a little comparison pricing.

The first time I attended PhotoPlus Expo, it was in 1983 at the old New York Convention Center. To paraphrase Paul Simon’s Kodachrome, “When I think back on all the crap in learned in art school!” None of it was how to make a living. PhotoExpo East as it was then called, really opened up the door, and shed some real light on the whole industry of photography. For example, at one seminar call, How Art Buyers Choose Photographers, there were three agencies from New York City there that billed $600,000,000 in creative talent between them! $600,000,000 between three agencies! Man, all that poor artist stuff I was fed in college was a load of crap in deed.

There was another seminar at that fateful PhotoExpo, about marketing that laid out a roadmap for getting my share of that $600,000,000 plus in potential income from the creative industry. It all seemed so clear for the very first time. Now during the 1980s, the cash was flowing like rivers, and alas, those days are over. While the money may not be busting out of advertising agencies like in the “good old days”, the money is still there for us to get. The lesson of all this, is that, one needs to stay sharp and competative on how the big guys & girls stay big and a head of the pack! So, if you have never gone to NYC for the PhotoPlus Expo experience, it’s definitely worth a trip. Even if it’s just a day trip.

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June 16, 2010

The Life of a Photograph…

Filed under: Art History,Museum,Observations,Photography,Video — Tags: Sam Abell — Jarvo @ 1:14 am

The Cowboy by Sam Abell

There was once a time when photographers thought of themselves as members of a Brotherhood/Sisterhood. As a photographer, you were one with all other photographers. Whether you liked a photographer’s work or not, you respected that person for the energy they brought to it. Well in these days were “artists” (usually painters) now call themselves photographers.They know little to nothing about that brotherhood/sisterhood of like spirited folk feel. Yet, in an Andy Warholed way, they can appropriate the images of others. Not only appropriate/steal an image, but actually call it they own! When artists and Big Time arts institutions feel comfortable with this type of behavior, there’s a problem.

A few years ago I read about the artist, Richard Prince. He had put together a series of works at the Guggenheim Museum about the New Americana and some blah, blah, blah. In his exhibit, he used an image of photographer, Sam Abell. So here’s an interview with Sam Abell about what he thinks about this guy stealing one of his images and is making crazy amounts of money from it. Sam is a class act, but there ought to be a law about things like this. I think they should call it Copyright Infringement! Yet it seems to be legal. Kinda like bringing the financial markets to their knees in 2008. It’s legal, but is it right or ethical?

But wait, there’s more! Well now it seems that someone else inspired by Prince, is selling the Abell image as micro stock for pennies in comparison in a project called 20×200! Photography, it’s a crazy business

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June 7, 2010

Creating a Black & White Photograph

Filed under: Digital Tech,Education,How-To,Photography,Photoshop — Jarvo @ 5:07 pm

Now, this doesn’t sound like rocket science, and it isn’t, but care should be taken when making a black & white conversion from your image files. Today, many cameras have a built-in function which allows the photographer yo make a black & white image from the original color scene. While this feature is handy, you give up control of your image to an algorithm. Plus, if you’re a control freak like me, I may want that color image later. Now you may say, “Hey Jarvis, you can always flip the switch back from B&W to full color and shoot both!” And I say, “But why?” Why stand there playing with the camera instead of making wonderful photographs?

Well, in this video, I give you a Quick & Dirty overview of how to handle B&W conversion in Photoshop. You’ll see how to give yourself maximum control over many aspects of the conversion process and end up with a beautiful image that no camera algorithm or One-Click-Wow in Photoshop or Lightroom can give you. Check it out.

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May 19, 2010

A Few New Botanical Image Ideas

Filed under: Folio,Gallery,Observations,Photography — Tags: Botanicals, Flickr, Scans — Jarvo @ 2:34 pm

I’ve been working on some new work from scans,. Mostly from dried flowers that I’ve had laying around. Photographing them has allowed me to at least throw them away! For the past month I’ve also been using my scanner as a macro camera. I amazed at how much detail there is to objects. I’m looking froward to doing more this summer on this idea.

I wasn’t thinking about Dreams, when I was taking those photographs. That idea came later, and was in the moment.

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Click on an images to view it in Flickr, or view as a slideshow here.

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