Blue Encounter

The setting was perfect, perfect for a photographer who's having trouble making images of real, live people. I hesitate to engage them -- but I'm getting there. 

Still, a dark, narrow gallery crammed with exquisitely dressed mannequins was ideal -- people, sort of, that I didn't have to talk to, plus they stood still.

The show at the Keni Valenti Gallery in Wynwood featured classic gowns from the '30s, '40s, '50s and '60s along with Haitian flags on the walls. Very dynamic -- sequins sparkled everywhere.

The mannequins were an otherworldly blue, and the exact same color was on the walls.

The light was awful, a challenge. Luckily, Carl had introduced me to "white balance" a few days before.

I was able to get up close and personal with these inanimate "people," in their faces. The constancy of the blue amid the swirl of all the colors of the fabrics was odd but calming, something to focus on.

But then, another face appeared, human, exotically adorned, and I suddenly realized just how lifeless those previously exciting mannequins were. I needed to capture the warmth, the expressiveness, the eyes of a human being. I forced myself to ask her if I could make an image. Turns out, she forced herself to say yes. I snapped her, and she fled. We talked a little while later. Bridget confessed that people have been taking her image all night and she was tired of it all. I confessed that I don't like to ask people if I can make an image. I congratulated the two of us for going beyond ourselves.

                                        Nancy Ancrum

Visual Perspective

IPC Visual Lab has a new feature, "Visual Perspective", which features the ideas, concepts,
and opinions that generate thought-provoking viewpoints through the eye of the lens.  Feel free to share your thoughts as IPC Visual Lab students engage the world through the power of their own visual voices.

Apocalypse Now

I shot some pictures at the July 4 fireworks on South Beach. I went to the fireworks with this Mike Sinclair image in mind: 

http://www.20x200.com/artworks/1479-mike-sinclair-fourth-of-july-2-independence

I just like how the haze of the smoke and the light freezes the action on the hill. All the spectators look like they're frozen in some kind of post-apocalyptic reckoning, but a reckoning they willingly awaited. It's the light reflected in the grass, not the lights in the sky, that is the focus of this spectacle.

I was surprised of a post-apocalyptic scene of sorts on South Beach, too.  The much-maligned police watch towers and paddy wagons that had been deployed during Urban Beach Week over the Memorial Day weekend were set up for the Fourth of July crowd, too, even though the holiday was on a Wednesday. I found my view of the fireworks obstructed by one of the police watch towers, and another tower was in view just a block up the beach. It was like, "Happy Independence Day, you're under surveillance!"

I set my camera on a tripod and tried to make the best of the obstruction.  After the main show in the sky over the beach, I turned toward the impromptu fireworks display set off in the sand by people on the beach. Their figures became silhouettes outlined by the smoke hanging low in the humid night air.


                                                                                                                      JKAY

Project Memorial

What started out as another public gathering I had assigned myself to document has turned into an ongoing project at the Holocaust Memorial on Miami Beach.

I had planned to shoot a Holocaust Remembrance Day event April 15 at the monument just off Lincoln Road on South Beach. I was working that day, though, so by the time I showed up, the event had already started. I was faced with rows of people sitting in chairs and listening to a program of speakers at a podium, with the monument's signature giant metal hand rising in the background.

This wasn't what I had expected, and I didn't really feel like I could freely roam through the seated crowd, and without a long lens, I couldn't create individual portraits. From the back, I tried to get at least one shot that conveyed some information about the event taking place. I thought about Seamus Murphy's image, taken from the back, of men wearing top hats at a horse race, and I framed two men wearing yarmulkes with the monument's giant hand looming before them.

Since I wasn't going to be able to shoot the crowd pictures I had planned, I walked through the monument. It was my first visit, even though I've lived on South Beach for years. The monument centers around a giant metal hand that seems to rise from stone and water. It's only when you get closer that you realize the stricken, traumatized figures that are clinging to the metal arm supporting the giant hand. The curved path that leads you to these figures is hidden from the road, and it's not until you start walking the path do you realize that the curve is leading you down to these figures that representing the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.

In lieu of photographs of the living people holding a memorial service, I tried to find lifelike elements in the monument to highlight. At certain angles, the main, central hand is clearly defined amid the lily pads in the monument's reflecting pool. As you follow the path around the pool, the hand becomes framed by green vines and blooming bougainvillea. At the heart of the monument, the tragic figures that climb up the central arm make eye contact with visitors.

On a second visit to the monument, I started exploring its scale. The anguished, distorted figures are roughly life-sized, and they reach out toward living visitors. At various angles, the figures frame the names of Holocaust victims etched into reflective marble walls.

I'll be repeating this assignment to explore the monument's scale, the materials used, the artist's intention, the monument's mood and symbolism, the way the figures' shadows show the passage of time, and other details sculpted into the memorial.
                                                                                                         JKay