Who's Online

Long Island Art Directory

<< Root
Long Island Art Directory

In the mid-eighties, after borrowing a friend's camera, I began to use black & white infrared film to chronicle the people and times of New York City. Up until that time I hadn't considered myself an artist in the visual sense having instead been involved in the East Village music scene. I found that the city and its inhabitants made their own compelling landscapes and, like John Ford in Monument Valley, I would let this scenery do most of the work for me. My early black and white images were candid street shots imbued with ethereal highlights and shadows I wanted from the infrared effect in hopes of the work my own signature. In those days, in downtown New York City, anywhere you looked were fascinating looking people just begging to be photographed. It was almost as if I couldn't take a bad picture.

It was about this time that I seriously started to research the history of my new pastime while keeping tabs on the art world markets, Christie's/Sotheby's, media critiques and publishing trends, I couldn't help noticing a curious discrepancy peculiar to the photography medium; black and white work was automatically designated noteworthy and / or serious art, whereas color was dismissed as some Johnny-come-lately bastard child. Vulgar and untrustworthy. Right about then, in '85 or '86 I switched over to color infrared.
To go into the problematics of shooting people in action using infrared would fill a small book, so to be concise, I spent a few years experimenting with filter combinations until I got the one that seemed to work for me. Filter combinations not endorsed by the Kodak book of rules that soon discarded. Then my camera and I took to the streets much as before.

Every once in a while, if you are lucky, someone comes along and tosses a brand new road map in your lap for a brand new direction you hadn't thought possible. I don't remember the name of Nan Goldin's early book of color photos that I picked up in a bookstore, but I couldn't put it down and I wanted to know why. After scanning several times through her volume of intimate, snapshotty color work, I realized that her subjects were all friends and acquaintances. People she knew. Involvement. Right then I knew that I couldn’t rely on the objective approach I had used so far.


Listing Information
Average Visitor Rating: 0.00 (Out of 5)
Number of ratings: 0
Hits: 2326
Added: 2009-03-09 21:29:03
Last updated: 2009-05-05 18:46:31

Making Encaustic Medium
I fell in love with encaustic paintings the first time I saw one hanging. There was just something about the work... The luminosity, the transparency, the brilliance. It was unlike anything that I had ever seen before. I knew I had to try it and once I did, I was hooked.
Read more...
 
Using Color to Express Your Creativity
Colors have an amazing impact on our lives. From the red of our stop signs and traffic lights, to the ever important green of a dollar bill, color is integrated into every facet of our daily adventures. No where is this more clear, than in our art and in our artistic creativity.
Read more...
 
How to make your own oil paints
How to make your own oil paintsOil paints are made basically by mixing cold-pressed Linsed oil with pigment or color until a smooth buttery paint is produced. When the oil paint is used and applied to a surface the oil oxidizes or absorbs air and then forms a solid film that binds the pigment to the surface of the painting.
Read more...
 
long island artists artists long island ny long island ny artists artist art arts ny long island art li artists