Up to date!

I've been slacking on my blog. Busy busy life, and more importantly, busy busy art making. I recently completed a project which I'd been teasing on here. I've been loosely referring to them as abstract narratives.  Conceptually it is the result of two basic interests.  The first is an idea I read about in a Zen Buddhist book about intuitive understanding with no intellectual basis.  I became curious how this could be translated to juxtaposition of images.  This interest was compounded by my discovery of the graphic novel.  In particular, juxtaposed, sequential images conveying a narrative.  A central element of the comic is the "gutter" - that space in between panels where, as a reader, we fill in expectations.  In Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics he discusses the different types of transitions between panels, one being the non-sequitor.  As one would imagine this involves the juxtaposition of an unexpected panel.  This quickly brings us to the question of whether this can actually exist or not, given that the human mind has a tendency to fill in gaps and force connections.

From these ideas I came up with the concept of abstract narratives.  I chose triptychs as my method of delivery.  Images with loosely related (non-sequitor) imagery are juxtaposed and presented to the viewer as narratives.  I chose to keep the images themselves largely square/rectangular in order to force limits and define parameters which I could experiment within.  I opted to weight images in many instances in order create a sense of hierarchy within the narrative.  Sequence itself is largely inconsequential and my gift to the viewer.

I could talk at length about these but for now I hope everyone is happy I finally posted a few of them. I intend to update my main pages with a small gallery of them soon. Enjoy!

UPDATE: More images up in a gallery on my main page StevenJoshlin.com

A bit slow lately.

I've had a ton of personal things in my life recently (including getting married!) so work has been on the slow side. I have been snapping some here and there when I have the chance. I've also been working on a very big project in secret, but I'm not ready to talk about it much yet. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, some recent shots:

Hope you enjoy them!

I woke up today

Today, I did something I haven't done in a long time: I shot film. 220 color film to be exact, on this bad boy:

It's a Yashica Mat-124G. I bought it on eBay because my advance darkroom class required shooting medium format and I hated the Holgas that came with the lab fee. It's a pretty nifty little camera, it takes great photographs and even has a working light meter. Unfortunately the winding mechanism/film counter is a little... off and I'm not sure how to go about repairing it.

Regardless I love shooting with this camera- way more than with any of my digital cameras, but just a bit more than my F100. I'm mulling using this or one like it to create my thesis work.

I'm looking for a place to get the color film processed, will scan and post once I have that sorted out!

BONUS: Few images from this weeks photo'ing session...

I first visited this location a couple of weeks ago. I went right after having blood taken and was a bit woozy. I felt like I was preforming fine but when I uploaded the images they were pretty... terrible. Lots of blurriness and leaning horizon lines.

Stay tuned for a post on my most recent project...

Just a few images from the weekend shoots.

I'm feeling a little uninspired lately. I think I might be spinning my wheels. I'm getting good images but how they fit in or what I'm using them for is a little uncertain. I've been mulling a joint project, it may be time to find a partner and execute. More on that later...

Surprise! For fun.

I can't help but steal a shot when they start ignoring me while I have my camera nearby.

The things I see.

It has not been the most productive few days but I've been working some. I'm planning on taking a large volume of photographs tomorrow evening, I'll have a few up by Sunday hopefully.

Also I am currently hopeless fawning over my friend Caroline's diptychs. Go, LOOK NOW!

Downtown Columbus, MS

I went to Columbus on Saturday to take some photographs. It was a slightly more fruitful day than the previous shoot.

Sometimes I just need to find surroundings that inspire me a bit more.