considering pictures | sean justice > open journal

Out the door but not quite I'm drawn to an iridescent whisper from the corner. Refraction reflecting my prismatic messenger. My god it's Iris. What color space is this? Below, my friends at the DOT manage the signs of good counsel to insure we pass quietly and don't collide. These are the days of peace and tranquility. The sun wheels across the heavens and brightness reigns, momentarily. Inspired I breathe and take a photograph, and then leave for the ferry to Manhattan. In the basement at ICP we'll dream of rainbows refracting past our screens.

NYSAT this morning: Voice for the future of our city. Before: After: Before: After: Before: Before: After: After each whitewashing we posted a notice of our intent: From the Metropolitan Landscape Control Committee: The MLCC has recently become aware of the fact that NPA City Outdoor is operating over 500 illegal street level billboards in NYC, as well as many illegal wildposting locations. Despite private contracts, and other previous arrangements made between NPA City Outdoor and building owners, the above-mentioned advertising locations have been found to be illegal due to lack of permitting and failure to adhere to New York City zoning regulations. Under the Department of Buildings sign code § 26-256 these advertisements are subject to civil penalties and violations of up to $15,000. The Municipal Landscape Control Committee has organized the whitewashing of all NPA City Outdoor street level advertising locations until further structural removal can be implemented. The continued po...

Please join me in a refreshing, free-form photo-share event. Sign up at the flickr group PhotoGroupFSJ to participate. The idea is to have a casual and inspirational conversation about photography and learning photography. I'm launching this flickr space in the hope that students and teachers can keep an outer-classroom discussion percolating, share random photo favorites, and talk about the experience of being photographers today. There aren't any restrictions! Anyone can join...teachers, students, student-teachers — after all, we're all embedded in the culture of the photo-world. One goal of the group is to mix it up, swap places — we can learn from each other. For instance, I learn a ton by talking with friends, students, other teachers, and even with people who don't even consider themselves 'photographers.' (And vice versa: you learn more about what you do when you gear up to teach about it.) I hope you'll come aboard for a while and share some thought...

Where do ideas come from? This is the question that takes a lifetime. You know how to use the camera; you're learning the computer; and printing just takes time and practice (lots of practice). The hard stuff is more diffuse than that, more difficult to touch: where do you point your camera? what do you want me to see? what are you learning? Here's where we fight with each other. Some of my best friends and most valued colleagues believe it's impossible to teach artists to be artists, that you can't teach curiosity. I don't want to agree: if that's true, then what have I been doing all this time? The model I've proposed in the classroom is pretty simple: pay attention and respond. That's the core, I think. The essays and the photo prompts are all directed at it. So are the emails back-and-forth and the walking tours and the invitations to post on flickr. Then we close the loop with conversations about the pictures and about the process itself. At root is...

Hiroshi gave me new seeds after my lovely persimmon went to sleep. (I'm still watering it, by the way, and keeping my fingers crossed that it will somehow come back to life; Hiroshi says nature is strong and unpredictable!) These are planatus seeds. They are fluffy and spindly, hard and soft simultaneously. The instructions are to mix the seeds with some soil, add some moisture, and then put them in a ziplock bag in the fridge. For two months. After that I'm supposed to dump the whole mixture into a small terracotta pot and keep it watered. And warm. So that'll be December in New York. I hope it'll be warm enough in the sun-room. The heat just came on last night and right now the entire apartment feels like a sauna, so presumably we'll have warmth enough to grow with. I still feel like a failure with the persimmon, but I'm happy to get another chance. The Planatus Orientalis, aka the Oriental Plane, is a fast growing deciduous flowering tree. If th...

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...