New section and an update on the Getty Master Class

Hey everyone, I've added a new section to my website under Projects -> A Polaroid World 

It's a section of instant film photos and although all of the photos on there are Fuji instant film, it's not technically Polaroid but eventually I'll start adding some Impossible Project work to that project gallery.

In other news, I've received word regarding the Getty Master Class inspired by the photographic work of Japanese photographer Mikiko Hara. Apparently the show will happen around January/February of 2015 at the Japanese American National Museum which is across the street from LACMA and the show would be entitled "Floating after Mikiko" or something along those lines so I'm excited about that. The cut off date where judges would be voting on our photos is December so I have until the end of this month to complete whatever photography I intend to submit for consideration. I have new rolls of film that have been developed coming in so as soon as my lab gives me the results, I'll make sure to post them.

-Q

Thoughts: Mikiko Hara and the Getty Master Class

I've spent my past two weekends working on these photos for the Getty Master Class inspired by the works of Japanese photographer Mikiko Hara as noted by my last entry. I've gone through 4 rolls of film already and working on my next 2 rolls this weekend. My advisors will be meeting with representatives from the museum so I, along with my fellow colleagues, should be getting more news in the next coming days and I'll be able to detail some more stuff in another update. 

One of my favorite styles of photography has always been street photography. I loved the chaos of it all. Having no control of the situation and or (arguably) the subject. The simple act of documenting (city) life is what has lead to me in joining Los Angeles Pierce College's newspaper publication and seeking a career in photojournalism. It was only natural for me. Other than simply documenting, there was no other reason for me do go out and shoot some street work; that when I do go, I went out with little purpose. 

Having dedicated much of my free time to produce work for this class made me reconsider my approach to street photography. I used to go out and shoot whatever caught my eye at that very moment but I find myself waiting for my shot more now. Stalking my subjects and waiting for that peak and decisive moment even though I'm trying to emulate Mikiko by not looking through my viewfinder. Working with and on film has made me more patient and careful how I shoot off my frames. I had the same rational with my digital work because I cut my teeth in film first but I no longer feel pressured or hurried to get a photo that's forced. 

With some of the photos that I've taken for this class, I'm quite pleased at the results I'm getting. How the photographs seem to flow more; that everything works.  

I turned in two more rolls to my lab today and I can't wait to see the results from those. They're black and white this time. Different than Mikiko as she works on color negative so it'll be interesting. I also got my hands on some new color negative film and I plan on going out again this weekend to shoot more for the class with this film.  

Mikiko Hara

As part of the Getty Master Class, students are supposed to produce photographs inspired by the works of Japanese photographer Mikiko Hara who currently has her work on display at the Getty as a part of the In Focus: Tokyo exhibit. 

Hara's approach to street photography is very simple. She shoots from the hip, skipping the process of framing her photographs by looking through the viewfinder of her camera. During the initial class meeting, it was reasonable to photograph in this style. She shoots on a vintage Zeiss Ikon 6x6 medium format camera and the viewfinder on that camera is a basic square, not much different than the sight of a gun just in square format. Really rudimentary with little function as parallax is a big problem with such cameras. Shooting from the hip is just a natural approach and she pre-focuses the photo, or rather, she knows the focal length prior to shooting her subject.

I decided to approach this project the same way so I'm shooting film on a Mamiya which is much newer than the camera that Hara uses but the functions are the same. I pre-focused the camera to about 3-5 feet away which I think is a good focal length to capture a great photo. It seems easy in concept but it's much harder in practice. Hara has shot more photos in this style than I have and if I remember correctly, she'll go through multiple rolls of film and her success rate is very low as she has said. I've shot in this style plenty of times before and for this, I've gone through one roll of 220 film (which is a bigger roll of 120) so of the 24 photos that I'm able to take, I think only 6 came out in focus and the most was heavily out of focus. I was disappointed after I received the roll because I thought more of the photos would be in focus since I pre-focused but apparently that wasn't the case.

Out of focus photo shot at the Universal City Redline station

Out of focus people jogging during the Walk for Life event in Northridge.

As you can see from the two images, when I started through the first couple of frames, the photos are REALLY out of focus. If these images were more in focus, I'd have more to work with as far as submitting work for the Master Class. Speaking of which, students that are a part of this class will have the chance to have their photographs on display. Still don't know when the deadline for submissions are as of this entry.

A man attending an art festival at Gladys Park in Skid Row.

As the day progressed, I became more used to shooting from the hip and the photos were more focused than the ones I started the day with. I'd post more in focus photos but I don't want to give away what I may be submitting.

Although Mikiko's photos are shot on color negative film, I have a new roll of black and white in the camera so I'll probably go forward with the next set of photos for the class in black and white so that'd be interesting to see. For the next couple of weekends until I find out the deadline, I plan on dedicating my free time to producing more content for this project so I'm really excited to see what I'm capable of producing.

 

-Q

Getty Master Class

A couple of weeks ago I attended at lecture at the Getty museum to become a part of its Master Class program. I'm not all too sure what the class or program is about but from what I do know, several colleges, some community and some university, take part in this program and of those schools, a couple of photographers from those schools are invited to become representatives of said school and submit work that is inspired by whatever theme or photographer is being showcased. 

Last semester, Pierce College and some of its students were a part of the architectural program within the class. I was not a part of that one but their work went on display at both the Getty and the Museum of Architecture + Design. 

This time around, I was invited to take part in the program and we are to submit photographs inspired by the work of Japanese street photographer Mikiko Hara. I won't go into detail as to what kind of style she produces her street work as I'll go into that in my next entry and if you're not lazy to do so, you're probably already Googling her work. 

Anyway, I submitted a roll of film based off her style and I'm quite excited to see what I've shot. The only thing I will say is that her style of shooting isn't text book. A lot of it is from the hip but not necessarily from that region alone.  

I'm expecting less than stellar shots with this roll. I'll probably be disappointed by them but I have until "sometime by the end of the semester" before I have to turn something in as one advisor told me so I have time to get better at it.  

I'm expecting the lab to hand over my photos on Monday so when I get those, I'll post some of photos with more detail on Mikiko, my thoughts on the class and the process in which I'm going about it all.  

 -Q

Updates

I've updated the site with some new photos and splash images on the front page. Portrait, Travel, Analog Moments and Multimedia sections have some new content with more coming on the way in the weeks to come.

I've been terribly busy working with the newspaper and magazine so these updates will come as I find the little free time I have these days to make these updates but other than that, I've been learning a lot and have been getting better and better with my craft. Things are good.

-Q

Update

I was able to find some time to update the Analog Moments section of my website today with more film work. As updates are an easy concept and task to handle, I'm finding it rather difficult to be consistent with my updates. Nothing really "new" as they're taken from a couple of years ago so they're towards the end of the gallery. I had intended to update my Journalism section today as well, but I made the rookie mistake and left my memory card at home. 

Maybe the next time I find time I'll update more sections.

-Q

The Mindset of Covering Breaking News

Today started off normally like every other day. I woke up, took a shower and headed off to class. The only thing I did differently this morning was that I rode the bike to campus along with the bus rather than taking the bus solely. Prices went up so I'm trying to stop unnecessary spending. 

It's Wednesday so I enter the newsroom at 8:30am for the editorial board meeting that happens every Monday and Wednesday. Talked about the upcoming print issue, which story is going where, discussed what next issue would look like. Normal editorial fare. Immediately following this class is what we call "Hell Sheet" where reporters and photographers all meet with the editors of The Roundup along with our advisors, and critique the latest print issue (which we haven't done yet as our first print issue is next week) and dish out assignments.

Shortly after the beginning of class, the Editor-In-Chief receives a call saying the sheriffs have blocked off one of the entrances to the campus so he tells one of our photo editors, one other photographer and a reporter to go check it out. I was sitting right beside him when the call was taken so I ask him what's going on to which he replied a possible armed suspect. No questions, I jump to the back area, grab a camera and out the door I ran to the closed off entrance gate, not caring much for anything other than getting the shot and getting the story.

Two sheriff squad cars block the Winnetka entrance to Pierce College after a suspected gunman was seen driving through campus according to an email alert that was sent out to students and faculty on Wednesday Sept. 17. Woodland Hills, Calif. Photo: Mohammad Djauhari/Roundup News

It's REALLY important to approach breaking news in that way especially coming from a student run publication because first it starts off with a call which leads to a closing of one gate and as time passes by, more police units arrive on scene and what started off as a closed gate, quickly becomes into a school lockdown and once the school gets locked down, no one leaves and no one enters. Not even the media can get onto campus unless administration sets up a mobile media area. Knowing how a lockdown works, it becomes important that because you are the school's news/media, everyone else will be looking towards the publication for updates and information. Worried parents and loved ones would want to know what's going on. People in the community would like to know what's going on. 

When you hear certain key words such as lockdown, as a journalist, you should be on auto-pilot; it's automatic. Screw everything else. At least in my humble opinion. You hope for the best but be prepared for the worst. 

So there I am, along with my fellow student journalists at the closed off gate, trying to get the shot and get the story. Sheriff deputies had set up a mobile command post one block away. Sheriff helicopters hovering overhead. The school was on lockdown and the block was shutdown from local traffic. Really exciting stuff as my heart pounds running to and fro from one location to another as we get news updates as to what the sheriff were doing. We had photographers and reporters on both ends of the street, spanning 3 blocks covering this thing. The Roundup News had this story well covered.

In the end, the suspected person was never found and no one knows who made the call. It's great nothing terrible happened. I've covered 2 campus lockdown situations this year and I treated each one the same regardless of the outcome. Grab your gear and go. The story needs to be told because people want to know.

If you'd like to know what happened today, click this link where you can find out how this story transpired along with some of my photographs.


-Q

Added a New Section

I've decided to add a new section to my website called Projects. Basically just a section of personal projects I'm working on at the moment. Right now there's a sub-gallery called Analog Moments which really isn't a project per se as there is no method to the photographs. It's a set of my film photos capturing candid moments.

 

Waking up from nap time

Behind the scenes of a photoshoot

Newer photos will always be the first couple of images. In the coming weeks, at the very least but definitely in the near future, I'll start adding new sub-galleries within the Projects section when those projects get finished but in the meantime, expect a lot of updates within the Analog Moments as I have a ton of film photos to go through and I'm currently juggling many other obligations with the publications I'm working with.

-Q

Five at a time

So I've finally figured out how to embed images into blog entries! That was a mission and a half considering my rusty HTML skills. I'm glad that's out of the way. 

I did a minor resupply of film yesterday when I stopped by Freestyle Photographic Supply in Hollywood. I bought some Arista Edu Ultra 400 medium format film. I did some research online on this film and although I haven't shot this brand film, it's basically rebranded Fomapan film which I have a great deal of history with.  

Of the research that I've done, many have said the Arista branded film is 50/50 which is weird to me. Because it is rebranded Fomapan, results should be expected as Fomapan right? Apparently that isn't the case it seems... 

I really love the way Fomapan looks and feels. Pretty much all the B&W film coming out of the Czech Republic has this high contrast, fine grain character to them and I'm all about that high contrast look.  

I hope that all the 50/50 reviews on this brand film isn't true. It's about a dolla cheaper than the Foma brand and if it all pans out, it's a great deal since I buy film in fives, I can buy more of Arista than I can of the same Foma film. If it turns out to be 50/50, I'll utilize this film to experiment with different shooting styles and it won't break the proverbial bank.  

-Q