Good morning everyone! Reporting to you live from the top of Guanajuato, Mexico! (Cell phone shot by my buddy Alex). Things are in full swing here for me and that Canon “From Light to Ink” show happening on June 12-13 at the Joshua Liner gallery in New York. I figured this would be a good time to talk a little bit about “Embrace” and how the theme has formed the images that I am submitting to the gallery.
Photographically speaking – “Embrace” to me feels like a call for a viewer to become immersed with the image that I’m trying to make. When a viewer sees my image printed as big as it will be, I want the work to feel like it wraps them in the experience. I’d love the user to feel that the scale brings them in – the environment surrounds them and makes them feel like they’ve walked into the scene rather than staring right at it. I think that’s the one thing that appeals to me when I’m using the Canon imagePROGRAF printers – the overall scale of the print and the attention to the detail in the picture.
Let me share some thoughts of what I’m trying to shoot here:
Old City – Guanajuato Mexico
So. When you need an epic shot of something – you need to travel somewhere epic. I can’t think of a better place than Guanajuato Mexico. – right here in our own backyard!
Whenever we think of old world cities – but little do we know that there is a gorgeous palate of color and texture right here in North America. I once heard Guanajuato Mexico referred to as a ‘tiny Italian hillside village in America’ – and staring at the vista from afar it’s very easy to see why.
The problem with this shot is that you don’t really get a full scale of what you stare at with your eyes with a smaller lens choice. This image screams to be shot wide – but a wide lens would really not do it justice. To best capture this, we want to eek out as much detail as possible by shooting multiple shots and having them set to a panorama. In doing so, we get a great amount of detail and the opportunity to go large. Very large. This print can be made easily over 3 feet high!
Communion:
There’s something to be said about sitting in a structure that was made hundreds of years ago that just speaks to me. Whenever I walk into a house of worship, I feel like you are stepping through time – the hundreds of years of visitors that have come through it generates this historical energy that just surrounds you. Physically speaking – it’s also impossible not to feel like history envelops you when every space you turn has a great amount of texture and detail – and that can be something that can be a little daunting to experience.
Black Hat
Not too long ago I went to check out some locations in the area and ran into an abandoned mansion from the 1920’s. There was this one room in the house that was a half circle – old trees circling and creeping into the windows. I saw the color and the room to be almost a little haunting – as if someone was there to meet with you. I figured this would be a great location to make a haunting portrait with an unknown man. You’ve stepped into this office – and you don’t know why – but the colors and textures appear to wrap themselves around you.
There are some other shots that I am going to include in this “Embrace” campaign that I think really get into the spirit of enveloping you in the picture, but we can talk about these more later.
Have you Submitted Your Picture?
I’m even MORE interested in how you guys are doing? Did you want a chance to have your shot in the Gallery in NYC with me? What kinds of pictures would YOU want to include in the gallery. Remember, I’ll be picking TWO images from the ones that are submitted to fit in the campaign. To do so, make sure you go here: http://bit.ly/rcFromLightToInk1 . Thats the original post that I made talking about the contest. If you want go straight to submitting a picture, you can do it one of two ways:
- Click on this link to go to my MailChimp Form . This should let you put in a URL for a picture.
- You can also email me your images to rc -at- aboutrc.com (not linking here cause of spam)
I’m so excited to see what you come up with! #FromLightToInk
