Photographic Art

Then to Now Old Portfolios, New Portfolios The Song I Sing

07.03.2016 by Peter J. Crowley // 1 Comment

1971 on the Staten Island Ferry a youthful Artist starts a journey. Eye contact, a gesture with camera a nod of yes an image made a nod of thanks. Respect a path is taken, a moment created between subject and artist.

The Big Apple to the City Bus in Olympia. “In Transit” the road goes on forever. June 29th heading to the market the triangles, back light a greeting, an explanation a moment created.

Youth a world to live in a value to hold Keeping the Child a difficult road to travel as the destination is grow up be serious make money discard your childhood dreams make money. Forget the journey it is the destination MONEY appropriate laughter. It is how you look not who you are. No U-Turns

The lilies come in spring, in youth, gently embrace the flower. The lily will return in spring another childhood, your childhood dream.

peace pjc

Photographic Art Summer Youth in Olympia

Who’s Peter?

06.29.2016 by Peter J. Crowley // 1 Comment

A Life in Photographic Art, my second book.

Peter J. Crowley. Some may know him as a photographic artist, father, grandfather and friend. I have seen him as those things, but also as a dreamer, philosopher, anti-authoritarian hippie, (self-described) four-year-old, and my boss. I intern for him multiple afternoons a week. Some days he leaves a note taped to the front door—written on yellow steno pad. Like this one:

That day, I knocked on the door and when I crossed the threshold, I heard the voice of Mick Jaeger waft through the living room. I found PJC at his desk, chuckling to himself about my formality, writing a new blog post and musing about the state of the world.

PJC’s apartment living room is bursting with boxes of negatives, slides, and prints, every square inch covered, save for a few pictures of his granddaughter hanging on the wall. From the floor and up the walls are a record of 40 years of a life well lived, photographic art, each image with a life and story of its own.

As I work on cataloguing and organizing the negatives, or searching for a specific print among the boxes we launch into various discussions about artistic integrity, photographic philosophies, and even conspiracy theories. He laments to me about the state of today’s photography world, and his insistence of keeping the integrity and art in photography. His default medium is still black and white film. His camera, the same Nikon 1967 F he’s had for over two decades.

Some days, he sees in light and in shadow and that it’s a good day to go outside and “play.” In other words—forget about work for a while and go take pictures. Sometimes he likes to forget about his age, and live life as if a four-year-old, the same age as his granddaughter. Walking around, he is often of dueling perspectives, seeing light and dark both in the world at large and in his photographs. We stop to take a picture on the side of the road—of an abandoned house, down an alleyway, and of obsolete technology with a free sign. We share our ideas for compositions and try to guess the right settings for our cameras before we check the light meter. It is in actually going out and shooting with PJC that I learn the most, both about how he works and how to improve my own photography.

PJC has as many stories to tell as he has negatives. While we work and photograph, he regales me with tales of musical legends: attending Woodstock, Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, and The Grateful Dead just to name a few. Earlier today, he spoke of one Grateful Dead concert in the early 1970’s. There were police barricades and a line a mile long. Everyone had to show tickets to the cops to get in. Except for Peter. He bypassed the line, flashed his press pass, waved his three friends in and said, “they’re with me.” He didn’t even have his camera with him. Peter then danced on the grassy football field for nine hours without having to worry about procuring a ticket.

I have been told about how many of Peter’s photographs came to be. For one picture in particular, he told me that he woke up with an idea and had the image in his head for close to three years before finally photographing it. His vision was of pregnant woman, her body and belly cast in warm light and shadow. PJC chuckled a bit when he told me that for years, he asked every pregnant woman he encountered to model for him. A pregnant woman would walk into the restaurant he frequented and his friend would look at her, then at him and say, “Peter, no. Not again,” and he would continue to ask. Eventually, a woman agreed. The photograph was worth the wait, though—it ended up winning an award.

Peter is the habit of writing down everything, from my coming to work that day, to something he wants to email me, to the settings of his camera for every picture he takes, since he claims his memory is shot. In Peter’s sage words, “morphine will screw the memory, but not as much as a pistol,” referring to an incident when he was at the wrong place at the wrong time and had an unfortunate encounter with the mob. Among that life lesson, he has also taught me a few more, both relating to photography and not. I now know that if the government sends me a check, I shouldn’t ask questions. I should go directly to the bank and cash it (and store the cash under my mattress).

Peter J. Crowley is a character among characters. With the slight twinge of an east coast accent, he engages anyone near him with his stories, as his images engage the eye of anyone who sees. Peter’s extensive body of work often makes me wish I had a time machine. To go back and experience the life he portrays in his photographs, from thrilling dramatic performances, to the enchanting movement of dancers, from encounters with cultural icons, to tranquil moments on a New England farm. I could go on to write a dissertation about Peter and his life, lighting, composition, and mood he evokes in his images. I don’t feel I need to, though. Peter’s work, his talent, and stories speak for themselves and I am so grateful to call him my boss.

Do you have any stories about Peter? Comment below, email him or share on Facebook, we would love to hear them! Many will be used through out the book.

Molly Walsh Artist

Film, Digital, Composition, Negative Space, Simplicity

05.26.2016 by Peter J. Crowley // Leave a Comment

A life in Photographic Art my second book

A Life in Photographic Art will have some thoughts on composition, technique but more words on emotion and seeing. Composing with and sharing you soul. A few poems, essays sarcasm and humor it is after all my life.

Subject Photography sure it is important to get your subject correctly but does that mean in the center of the frame? What about the rest of the image? Now you have your subject where you want them beautiful smiling face legs cut off by the bottom of the

frame a few inches of nothing above. But she looks great. What surrounds the subject is at least 50% of the images importance. The negative space directs the viewers eye creating eye motion resulting in a longer look.

Motion the image may be still but by implying motion and understanding eye movement your images will speak with a more compelling voice.

Where to crop when composing Never at wrists or ankles, an arm cut at the wrist leading out of the frame will take the viewers eyes with it, same with ankles.

When the subject is moving…..

Like here walking down North St. Digital camera and 85mm F1.8 Nikkor lens. Manual Glass. A test for my eyes and Technique see the light on hair frame focus expose. I miss the shot, lens is sharp and my quickness is good BUT where do the runners step next? When subject is moving there must be landing space.

CDT Conn. Dance Theater The Web Mary M. Giannone Choreographer 1978

Here she has a space to land and the feel is much better. The runners neg space is also interrupted by the arrow sigh growing from the head of one of them. Yes I could take it out but that is not me. I see and shoot full frame what is in the image I put there. It is a way of seeing the way I see. The dancers negative space the web carries the same motion as the leg holding the viewers eye in the frame. A series of triangles moves your eye around the photo blocking you from moving to the next page.

More triangles and DOF hold the attention. I have been seeing lots of soft focus lately Bokeh catchy new term DOF. Many images are just out of focus but online never say anything except wow great Bokeh yes a missed focus still impresses your FB Friend. I think some company is now selling not sharp lenses to create an “effect.” In the 70’s when soft focus was popular you could buy filters. I used to compose by breathing on my skylight filter and shoot as the moisture dried. If I wanted center focus I would put a dime on the filter then breath. Thought problem solving but there is an App for that.

An early digital conversion to B+W muddy gray and gray with a slight color cast. The first post of this was quite black and blue as the whites went to blue. Still when posted it was the most popular post in a long time. Better now but still with a magenta cast to whites and still muddy. I asked for guidance to improve my B+W. The consensus was $$$$ buy a program or two get an app. I pondered and thought read and some blogs and viewed a few tutorials most telling me to buy $$$.

**Deschutes River at Tumwater Falls 6/16/15**

The River here is Digital the figure above is film both printed warm tone as I would in the darkroom it is close but it isn’t art till it is on paper. This is how I prep B+W images for the web. Be it a film scan, a digital shot in color or in B+W I open the image in PS Elements 10 and convert to B+W, open enhance click on adjust color and color variations move slider to left the smallest adjustment. Then take out 2-4 Blues why cause they are there despite what the scan being B+W or image created in Mono mode it is still color. Take a sheet of white paper and hold it next to the highlight of your image. If my wandering around the internet reviewing photos can be believed that highlight will be light blue in 80% or a few % magenta. Contrast and tonal range to get a black and a white and 5-7 tones in between. I use the modified Zone system for 35mm. Adams set the zone for 10 grades using an 8×10 negative. Thirty Five mm film will most likely hold 7 zones. Is your monitor calibrated? Not cause the kid at Best Buy said so but is it? Of course you can buy software to do this I was lucky to have a friend with a spider. So a few years back my desktop was done. I know it is still good because I have this to compare a gray scale from Gerald at the Black and white forum http://www.bwphotographyforum.com/index.htm see bottom of page. On my laptop I have a portrait of me down on 8×10 film I measure from the top of the screen to the J on the keyboard which is the correct angle of view to see a calibrated image. This angle is critical so your process is repeatable and reliable. As in film process exact repetition creates consistent results.

The Zone System is about controlling correct exposure. Recently I saw a program being touted as the Zone System for light room? I laughed another program BANDAID, for photographers too busy to get exposure right. I’m waiting for the cell phone app.

Auto photography and zoom lenses causing faulty technique. At first I thought it was digital and auto everything that was the starting point for this problem but the more I ponder the more I see blame spread out. Example you are photographing a portrait with a 28-105 zoom you stand in one place and focus on subject full length just zoom out just face zoom in never moving hence never looking beyond the subject. Not realizing the prospective and DOF change and when focal length changes or the changes in the negative space keeping your sights locked on the eyes. Failing to experience 50% of the image. By using prime lenses you are forced to see the surroundings as you walk closer. Here you are forced to see the interaction between the subject and the environment/negative space. You create this relationship you make an image.

Photographic Art More thoughts on composing

enjoy pjc