considering pictures | sean justice > open journal

I'd like to highlight a foundational part of the conversation. I've mentioned this in class several times, but I want to emphasize it again here, in writing: It's important to know where you are in the digital landscape when you use computers to make pictures. In class I've talked about the three domains of computer imaging. A metaphor I've used is the three-legged stool. I've also referred to a map, or schematic, that describes three primary arenas within the world of computer-based picture making. The three basic areas are Capture, Control, and Display. Here again are the basic distinctions in terms of purpose, hardware and software. Capture Snag the image using a camera or scanner (that's the hardware). They're everywhere in our lives: DSLRs, cell phones, snappy digi shooters, and all manner of scan-type (non-camera obscurra) devices. As well, as you know, there's no distinction anymore (or very little) between still and motion capture — each devi...

798 Factory Area, Beijing So we've gotten the ball rolling and bouncing in a dozen ways all at the same time. Classes at NYU, ICP and Parsons are flying now, full speed. Learning photography often seems to require that you know something while simultaneously already knowing something else, in order to learn some other fairly critical fundamental. I'm familiar with the way it begins to feel overwhelming; it seems to be part of the process, though that doesn't make it easier. But I'd like to focus back on something that precedes all of that, at least in my mind. Namely the question: what are we doing when we work in photography? That is, what is the work? And what are you trying to learn? After mulling it over for a while, and after watching a lot of people surf the learning curve, I want to suggest that the pictures you're making are NOT the work. Or, at least, the pictures are not the entirety of the work. Here's the thing, I can "teach" you how to use...

I'm thrilled to report that our visit to the Pingyao International Photography Festival was a huge success. The exhibit "Young Artists Emerging in America" was well received, and many conversations were begun around it. Thanks to all of you who participated — I'm truly honored by your good work. A report of the exhibit has been posted on my flickr site, under the photo set titled PIP2009 Report . There are 193 photographs with captions, some of them extensive. To view the report you can either dip in and out of the photostream as you like, or go to the flickr slideshow function and turn on "Show Info" to read the captions. (Hint: for better viewing of both the pictures and the captions, go to Options and uncheck "embiggen," and check "always show title.") For participating artists: if you'd like copies of any of the installation photographs, either download them directly from flickr or contact me for higher resolution files. For every...

I've arrived home to terrible news. After 12 days in China I didn't expect this. Over the summer I was away for 2 weeks at one point and my persimmon didn't look this bad. I'm very sad and disappointed. I have no idea what to do. Hiroshi wrote: If you water too much, the root can rot, so let's wait till the soil dries and hopefully the sprout can recover. Nature is strong, so let's see what will happen. Watering too much more than needed is always not a good idea. I always make sure to touch the soil before watering, so when it is completely dry, then I water. Sometimes, I dig my finger to see if there is any moisture, if inside of the soil is moist, then you do not need to water for couple of more days. Try this. I cross my fingers, HS Me too.

I'm here. Back from Beijing and the Pingyao photography festival. I've got a ton of stuff to share and show, in the hopes that you'll make the trip for yourself next year. More on all that later. Right now it's been a long day and the weird mental in-between of jet travel is fuzzing up my brain. Can you picture it? Photograph the moment that you're here. See you in class....don't forget to send me the jpgs. The top snap is from the new Beijing airport this morning (they haven't quite got all their signage worked out yet, but it's an amazing and beautiful structure); the second picture on the bottom is of Suzanne Nicholas, Associate Education Director at the International Center of Photography , who traveled with me to Pingyao -- we were at the Song Zhuang Artist Village visiting my friend Ma Yanling ( here too ) when she decided to snap a shot of her home and studio courtyard.

Time to begin again. The moment won't remain but I'm marking it to be remembered later. It's too ephemeral to hold, but the experience is real and now. Classes have begun and I'm thrilled to meet up with so many dreams and enthusiasms. I blathered on and on this week about paying attention to pictures in your life, about how we know what we know, about writing, about drawing, about computers...and there's more of all that to come. The most important part, however, is just doing something. Do it -- take pictures. Please believe me, you can't see it til you start. Maybe it's better to not think about it too much...just pick up the camera and take a walk. You're going to uncover something if you just get started. After class a student asked if anything was off-limits as far as semester projects are concerned. I said no, not at all. She said, anything? I said, pausing now, well...as long as it doesn't get me fired or put in jail. She said, okay. Should ...

In Chelsea with Diana and Connor, walking the Highline, reading and breathing. In the deep shade of the park on 22nd and 10th, friends chatting, small kids running and swinging, this old Abelardo Morell photograph appeared in front of me. He must have left it. I'll give it back to him when I see him. You've seen Morell's pictures in class if you've ever crossed paths with me. I find his way of working endlessly inspirational and intriguing. I had the great good fortune to cross paths with him (in person) back in April at Photolucida in Portland. We only chatted briefly but I laughed when I realized that the stuff I say about his work (stuff that I make up in class to illustrate ideas about light and material and the universe)is the same stuff he says when he talks about it. Some kind of synchronicity. Very fun.

The persimmon sprout in my window is starting to unravel a long woody structure that has, until now, been curled and hidden beneath the leaves. For quite a while I haven't understood this twisty structure, why it had no leaves, why it was so convoluted, but now its purpose is emerging: I think it's going to be the trunk of the persimmon tree. Even though the sprout barely reaches above the tiny terracotta lip, I can see a tree taking shape. If you've been following Hiroshi Sunairi's Tree Project , either on his site or via my multiple posts about it (catch up by clicking the key word label "tree project"), then you'll applaud this development with me. If you're not up to speed yet, please take a look at Hiroshi's site to learn about this amazing, fun, and highly interactive project. My own involvement has brought me forward and taken me backward: I'm stretching my concept of the uses and possibilities of photography and, at the same time, conne...

Clear Comfort, Alice Austen house and museum, Staten Island At the edge of the harbor, up nearly against the Verrazano bridge, there's a memorial and small museum in the Victorian cottage where Alice Austen lived. Here's a photographer who really did it — from the age of 11 she dedicated her time and energy to making pictures of her life, her friends, and eventually, her city. Alice and her sea captain uncle who gave her a camera at age 11 From A History of Women Photographers , by Naomi Rosenblum: ...in the late 1880s she took advantage of the newly opened ferry line across New York Bay to travel to lower Manhattan and work in the streets around the Battery, Park Row, and the Lower East Side - an area housing large numbers of European immigrants. ... her pictures are remarkable for their specificity, their compelling visual organization, and their overall sharp focus. Austen left no written record of her thoughts about photography, but one imagines that using a camera made it...

from "On Visibility," in The Sense of Sight: Look: White transparent curtains across the window. Light coming from the right. Shadows of folds, hanging folds, darker than clouds. Suddenly sunlight. The window frames now cast shadows across the curtains. The shadows are convoluted following the folds: the window frames are straight and rectangular. In Maine this summer with my father I wasn't thinking of Berger when I took this photograph. But I'm reading these essays again lately, and unearthing inspiration from folded memories. This is where ideas come from. Even after the fact of picturing it, understanding returns slowly: then suddenly I'm paying attention to some subtle movement across the creases of my brain and simply responding. I want you to read this essay too. I'm wondering how you'll picture it.

On the ferry everyone snaps the Statue as she slides past. So many people jam the rails the boat lists toward New Jersey. I've done this too. Now I watch the frenzy and think about the urge to hold tight to fleeting moments, as if we could. The weight of this-was-when around future dinner tables flickers through my mind, and I catch glimpses of iconic slivers captured by strangers before they lower their cameras. New York City is crowded with tourists and kids coming to college. The grid is jammed. A couple on the corner hunches over their guidebook, oblivious to the stream of pedestrians that bumps and adjusts to pass them. These temporary eddies swirl through all our lives, unpredictable obstacles that might give us an excuse to pause and breathe. But the thrill of a new anxiety often keeps us snapping along in pursuit of yet another quickly manufactured future memory. On the harbor the grid gives out to flat possibility. This is a fantasy, of course. At the end of the day I'...

It's the last week of August and I'm neck deep in the monitor, rewriting the syllabus, calculating dates, arranging guest speakers...and dreaming about Tucson and the Center for Creative Photography . Last week on vacation we stopped by to look at pictures in the flesh. During class I'm going to talk a lot about the experience of photography, about paying attention, about getting your feet on the ground and breathing through the shutter release. In our internet lives we often forget about the materiality of what we do. At the CCP there's a viewing room and a print study program that will wake you up and shake you from your doldrums. Far from the glow of yet another screen, Cass Fey, director of education , will get you face-to-face with the physical objects themselves. Of all the amazing resources at the CCP, looking at the pictures up close is the most luxurious, and it's open to anyone. Last Monday we chuckled at Tress' Fish Tank Sonata and riddled the messa...

The past month feels like a blur. Moving from Brooklyn to Staten Island erased a week, and teaching daily from 9 to 6 obliterated a couple more. Then six days in Maine, totally off the grid, removed me from the known world entirely. Today I'm working my way back onto the map. Last week on the way to Maine with my sons I stopped at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. In the several years since I last visited the place has expanded and modernized, adding state of the art galleries and completing the installation of the Yin Yu Tang house, a merchant's family home from Southeast China that has been transported to Salem and reassembled brick by brick. By itself the Yin Yu Tang is worth a visit to Salem. Walking through the courtyard put me back in China, directly. It's an amazing achievement and feels like a significant cross-cultural collaboration. The more immediate motivation for my our visit to PEM, however, was to see the work of my friend Joni Sternbach . H...

Yes, it's been a month-long absence. This photo tells the story to some extent. I've been moving boxes around. My back hurts. Tonight at ICP we begin another round of learning how to move pixels around using Photoshop and other digital imaging tools. I don't know which kind of moving I prefer; my back hurts with both, though in different ways. The mornings begin with water and the evenings end with it. After living in Brooklyn for what feels like a very long time (I first moved there in 1983), I'm now in Staten Island, the harbor borough, the forested borough, the quiet borough. From my porch I'm looking at roof tops and trees, and listening to birds. It's going to be an adjustment, but I think I like it already. Let's get the pictures going again. There's lots of new stuff to pay attention to now.