The Art of Photography: Exploring the Creative Process

As we move into the fall season, I'm excited to share with you some upcoming projects and ideas that will take us on a journey of creative exploration. One project that's been on my mind for quite some time now is a celebration of the studio where I do all these shows in. The building that I've had the privilege of working in for about 10 years is turning 100 this year, and I think it's only fitting to mark this milestone with a special event.

The studio is home to a large Art Gallery in the lobby, and I'm planning to showcase some of the talented residents who live here and are also artists. The idea is to create an art show that celebrates the history of the building and its current state as we look towards the future. As someone who's always been fascinated by history, I see this event as a unique opportunity to explore the connection between past and present.

One aspect of this project that I'm particularly excited about is the idea of capturing portraits of people who live in the building. I'd like to find ways to incorporate these portraits into the history of the building, exploring what it means to be part of this lineage and where we are in terms of our place within it. This is just a rough concept at this point, but I think it has the potential to become something truly special.

In addition to this project, I've also been thinking about artist statements as a way to share my creative process with all of you. As someone who works in various styles and mediums, I find that writing an artist statement based on a body of work is a great way for me to articulate my vision and intentions. However, I know that writing a good artist statement can be a daunting task, especially when it comes to avoiding clichés and making sure it sounds authentic.

That's why I plan to take you through the process of writing an artist statement, from the initial brainstorming stage to the final draft. We'll explore how to distill my creative vision into a concise and meaningful statement, and discuss the importance of this exercise in sharing my work with others. I'm also excited to delve into the world of biographies and how they differ from artist statements, as well as the challenges of writing a compelling biography.

Of course, no project would be complete without the actual creative process. In this case, I'll be working with film to capture portraits of the residents who live in the building. I've always been drawn to the idea of shooting with film because it allows me to create unique and timeless prints that are imbued with a sense of character and history. By shooting on film, I hope to create images that feel more intimate and personal, and that capture the essence of the people I'm photographing.

One of the aspects of this project that I'm particularly excited about is the process of creating my own darkroom prints. For me, this will be a labor of love that comes from within, a way of connecting with the physicality of photography and the creative process. I'll be using traditional techniques to develop my film, and then printing it in black and white to create images that are both timeless and modern.

As we move forward with this project, I'm also planning to document every step of the way, from pre-production to post-production. We'll be filming the entire process, from scouting locations to setting up equipment, and then capturing the final portraits and prints. By doing so, we'll get a behind-the-scenes look at how the show comes together, and what goes into creating each image.

The final product will be a beautiful celebration of the building's 100th anniversary, with portraits of the residents who live here, alongside images that capture the history and spirit of this special place. I'm excited to share this project with all of you, and hope that it inspires you to think about your own creative process and how you can bring your vision to life.

As we wrap up this episode, I want to thank everyone for watching The Art of Photography. We'll be back with more shows in the fall, and I promise that we'll get back to our regular schedule soon. But for now, I'm excited to embark on this new project and see where it takes us. Until next time, stay creative!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everybody welcome back to another episode of The Art of Photography my name is Ted Forbes and today I just got back from vacation and I was trying to plan my episode and I was particularly inspired by a few things that I want to share with you today and I want to talk ironically the art the show is called The Art of Photography we're going to talk about the art side of Photography going into this um a couple things that inspired me um I just went on a vacation I went to the Pacific Northwest to the United States and I went to Portland Oregon for a few days uh some driving in between and then also wound up in Seattle Washington and then back to Portland and thanks to all those who tweeted and emailed and wanted to get together and do meetups and I apologize that this was just a vacation it was a chance to see some old friends and relax a little bit so I really didn't do that but I will be back I promise um both of those cities are absolutely wonderful as are all the locations in between and it's I mean my gosh I really want to move to the Pacific Northwest it it really is beautiful um despite everybody being cranky about what they were calling a heat wave believe me when you're from Texas it was gorgeous um but anyway one of the shows that I saw when I was up there um did a little bit of a bus man's holiday towards the end uh went to the Portland Art Museum and so a wonderful show that I have a um I have the catalog for this little brochure uh called two-way street and this was the photographs of Gary winand and Jonathan brand and if you're not familiar with winand he was a amazing photographer um typically referred to as a street photographer although he hated that term and quite frankly I'm not a big fan of it either um but did a lot of social document documentary types of stuff and mostly shot in black and white uh this show concentrated on the real classic period of of Gary's work of the late 1960s to early 1970s so almost a 10year period in there uh Jonathan brand was a friend of his a wonderful photographer in his own right and the mixture of the work of the two and showing that friendship there was a lot of behind the scenes of Gary working and doing some of his famous images and it's a really well done show it runs at the Portland Art Museum until August 24th 2010 and so go see that um if you were in that area and would like to go check that out um anyway this show got me thinking a lot and and there's also the fact that I was on vacation and those of you who watch the show regularly I've made an announcement recently that I'm not doing the show full-time and I'm trying to rather than Jump Right In uh I'm trying to be more thoughtful about this about how we approach the show and some of the things we're going to start doing coming up and one thing that I think would be really nice to do is to get back into that art side of it a little bit now in the last year we've covered a lot of stuff on this show we've covered uh you know composition we've covered uh you know technical stuff like you know developing Color Film we've done photo history and photo lit uh there's been a lot of things that we've done that all kind of culminate up into where we are now obviously and we want to take this going forward and we'll still do a lot of those things uh but at some point I think I was inspired a lot by looking at Gary's work um Gary's work is not uh classically defined as you know in these compositional forms like rule of thirds or rule of odds or anything like that um and you know in Gary's own words one of the things he always mentioned he was doing was he was out capturing life um he was not capturing a picture he was he was out capturing expressions and people and you know characters and and you know this thing basically life and I think that that's really important because at some point you do have to throw things out the door and go for it now that's one type of photographer and there are photographers that are more rooted in classical Traditions as far as composition goes people like AR C Bon uh Winan's probably more on the in of the spectrum of people like Robert Frank or it's really not about this beauty aesthetic it's about something else and that something else I think is really important and it's something that I don't think we've done a lot of on this show now truth be known in the last uh well since we've done the show The Last 5 Years or so uh I have had a day job and done this and putting a lot of work into this and I will be the first to admit between you and me that my own photography has you know not been on the front burner let's say um and I don't think that it suffered as a result because I do a lot of studying about photography and research for the show and I do a lot of talking about photography here but one of my goals in leaving my day job and doing this full-time is that do want to allow that to give me more time to take photographs and start working on the artist in me as well and so combining these two things I'll talk about it in a minute but what we're going to do is I have a project that's coming up and I think it would be good to document on the show and actually take uh from concept to finish an entire idea for a small portfolio of work which is what I've got in mind so anyway but all that to say you know you know I don't want to stop covering some of the technical things that we've done I don't want to uh stop talking about the photo history I'd love to to do a whole show on on Gary winterr so we'll do that coming up um I'm just mentioning him today because of this this exhibition that I saw but you know I think just being inspired by this and getting out there um a lot of times and I think this particularly manifested itself when we were talking about color film development and processing um I get a lot of people who are really into this that watch the show um and they start carefully asking a lot of questions and as soon as I can figure this out and like you know for instance the heating element to get the chemicals up to the right temperature uh you know all the to say I think there's something to be said for being that kid who wakes up on Christmas morning and just rips into packages and doesn't read directions and crashes the helicopter and starts breaking things at some point I think you just have to get out there and do it and so I think one of the things I'm going to try and do with the show as we move into the fall a little bit particularly with this project is find ways that we can incorporate the more of the doing and less of the study per se but do it in this this video type format um so that is some of the things we have coming up so I want to talk for just a second about this project that I've got coming up and that we'll be documenting a little bit as we move into the fall and I what I hope to accomplish with this is you know like I said we're still going to do a lot of the same stuff that we do on the show as far as technique as far as photo history and stuff go but I want to introduce this as an element of it and I think the reason is is because ironically calling the show The Art of Photography we haven't really dealt with you know what goes into art necessarily you know uh for instance what's an artist statement how do you write one how is that different than a biography um how do you talk about your work how do you come up with a concept and see something through from start to finish um from just something in the head to figuring out what technique you're going to use to accomplish this to the final print to the final display and so I hope that this pushes me into um an area that I haven't been in in a long time and I think it'll be interesting for you guys as well uh to think about these things and if you're so inclined I wish you would work along and and kind of work on some of these things as I'm doing mine um so anyway the the brief here on this is the studio that I do all these shows in I have in this building for about 10 years well the building turns 100 it's an old cotton genin and it turns 100 years old this year and one of the things that we're going to do um is a kind of a celebration to that there's a large Art Gallery in the lobby and we're going to do an art show basically from a lot of the residents who live here who are in fact artists um there's another photographer at least um probably two or three uh myself uh there's people who paint there's anyway it's going to be a really interesting celebration and I think it's interesting too of being you know a big history fan that I am being in a place in time 100 years later um that started getting my mind thinking about what I would like to do for the show and so what I think I want to do and this could change but this is kind of my just rough sketch as it is but I would like to do portraits of people who live in the building as many people as I can and try to find a way to bring that around into the history of the building and what that means and where we are in that lineage and so I'm not real sure maybe that is is supplemented by additional photograph or something of that nature but anyway that's where I am so far on this and so it's a really basic concept and so what we'll do is is moving down the road I want to talk about artist statements a little bit too um artist statements uh for me personally I think for photography um I work in a lot of different styles of mediums a lot of times and so I will tend to prefer to write artist statements based on a body of works so we'll write I'll write an artist statement to this and I'll take you guys through the process and show you what all is involved with that how that's different than a biography how to keep that from being too corny sounding and how you know why it's important to do and then we'll actually talk about you know sketching out the ideas um the actual process of shooting people what medium I decide to go with most likely film on this um because I would like to do my own dark room prints and make it just a real labor of love that came from within because we're celebrating you know the history of the building so anyway those are my basic ideas um just off the top of my head on that but I'll show you the behind the scenes on how we're going to actually film those uh or actually get them photographed and then do the printing and then actual framing display and we'll do it from start to finish so you'll see the whole idea so expect these to be sprinkled in as we're moving into the fall here that's one thing we're going to work on so anyway just a little bit of an intro to getting into the art of things and as I said I've been out town for the last week uh actually a little over a week and little RNR to recoup and I'm excited about being back and so we're going to do more shows and I know people have wanted more than one show a week and we will get back to that I promise and uh it's all part of moving forward so anyway once again guys this has been another episode of The Art of Photography thank you guys for watching I'll see you next time laterhey everybody welcome back to another episode of The Art of Photography my name is Ted Forbes and today I just got back from vacation and I was trying to plan my episode and I was particularly inspired by a few things that I want to share with you today and I want to talk ironically the art the show is called The Art of Photography we're going to talk about the art side of Photography going into this um a couple things that inspired me um I just went on a vacation I went to the Pacific Northwest to the United States and I went to Portland Oregon for a few days uh some driving in between and then also wound up in Seattle Washington and then back to Portland and thanks to all those who tweeted and emailed and wanted to get together and do meetups and I apologize that this was just a vacation it was a chance to see some old friends and relax a little bit so I really didn't do that but I will be back I promise um both of those cities are absolutely wonderful as are all the locations in between and it's I mean my gosh I really want to move to the Pacific Northwest it it really is beautiful um despite everybody being cranky about what they were calling a heat wave believe me when you're from Texas it was gorgeous um but anyway one of the shows that I saw when I was up there um did a little bit of a bus man's holiday towards the end uh went to the Portland Art Museum and so a wonderful show that I have a um I have the catalog for this little brochure uh called two-way street and this was the photographs of Gary winand and Jonathan brand and if you're not familiar with winand he was a amazing photographer um typically referred to as a street photographer although he hated that term and quite frankly I'm not a big fan of it either um but did a lot of social document documentary types of stuff and mostly shot in black and white uh this show concentrated on the real classic period of of Gary's work of the late 1960s to early 1970s so almost a 10year period in there uh Jonathan brand was a friend of his a wonderful photographer in his own right and the mixture of the work of the two and showing that friendship there was a lot of behind the scenes of Gary working and doing some of his famous images and it's a really well done show it runs at the Portland Art Museum until August 24th 2010 and so go see that um if you were in that area and would like to go check that out um anyway this show got me thinking a lot and and there's also the fact that I was on vacation and those of you who watch the show regularly I've made an announcement recently that I'm not doing the show full-time and I'm trying to rather than Jump Right In uh I'm trying to be more thoughtful about this about how we approach the show and some of the things we're going to start doing coming up and one thing that I think would be really nice to do is to get back into that art side of it a little bit now in the last year we've covered a lot of stuff on this show we've covered uh you know composition we've covered uh you know technical stuff like you know developing Color Film we've done photo history and photo lit uh there's been a lot of things that we've done that all kind of culminate up into where we are now obviously and we want to take this going forward and we'll still do a lot of those things uh but at some point I think I was inspired a lot by looking at Gary's work um Gary's work is not uh classically defined as you know in these compositional forms like rule of thirds or rule of odds or anything like that um and you know in Gary's own words one of the things he always mentioned he was doing was he was out capturing life um he was not capturing a picture he was he was out capturing expressions and people and you know characters and and you know this thing basically life and I think that that's really important because at some point you do have to throw things out the door and go for it now that's one type of photographer and there are photographers that are more rooted in classical Traditions as far as composition goes people like AR C Bon uh Winan's probably more on the in of the spectrum of people like Robert Frank or it's really not about this beauty aesthetic it's about something else and that something else I think is really important and it's something that I don't think we've done a lot of on this show now truth be known in the last uh well since we've done the show The Last 5 Years or so uh I have had a day job and done this and putting a lot of work into this and I will be the first to admit between you and me that my own photography has you know not been on the front burner let's say um and I don't think that it suffered as a result because I do a lot of studying about photography and research for the show and I do a lot of talking about photography here but one of my goals in leaving my day job and doing this full-time is that do want to allow that to give me more time to take photographs and start working on the artist in me as well and so combining these two things I'll talk about it in a minute but what we're going to do is I have a project that's coming up and I think it would be good to document on the show and actually take uh from concept to finish an entire idea for a small portfolio of work which is what I've got in mind so anyway but all that to say you know you know I don't want to stop covering some of the technical things that we've done I don't want to uh stop talking about the photo history I'd love to to do a whole show on on Gary winterr so we'll do that coming up um I'm just mentioning him today because of this this exhibition that I saw but you know I think just being inspired by this and getting out there um a lot of times and I think this particularly manifested itself when we were talking about color film development and processing um I get a lot of people who are really into this that watch the show um and they start carefully asking a lot of questions and as soon as I can figure this out and like you know for instance the heating element to get the chemicals up to the right temperature uh you know all the to say I think there's something to be said for being that kid who wakes up on Christmas morning and just rips into packages and doesn't read directions and crashes the helicopter and starts breaking things at some point I think you just have to get out there and do it and so I think one of the things I'm going to try and do with the show as we move into the fall a little bit particularly with this project is find ways that we can incorporate the more of the doing and less of the study per se but do it in this this video type format um so that is some of the things we have coming up so I want to talk for just a second about this project that I've got coming up and that we'll be documenting a little bit as we move into the fall and I what I hope to accomplish with this is you know like I said we're still going to do a lot of the same stuff that we do on the show as far as technique as far as photo history and stuff go but I want to introduce this as an element of it and I think the reason is is because ironically calling the show The Art of Photography we haven't really dealt with you know what goes into art necessarily you know uh for instance what's an artist statement how do you write one how is that different than a biography um how do you talk about your work how do you come up with a concept and see something through from start to finish um from just something in the head to figuring out what technique you're going to use to accomplish this to the final print to the final display and so I hope that this pushes me into um an area that I haven't been in in a long time and I think it'll be interesting for you guys as well uh to think about these things and if you're so inclined I wish you would work along and and kind of work on some of these things as I'm doing mine um so anyway the the brief here on this is the studio that I do all these shows in I have in this building for about 10 years well the building turns 100 it's an old cotton genin and it turns 100 years old this year and one of the things that we're going to do um is a kind of a celebration to that there's a large Art Gallery in the lobby and we're going to do an art show basically from a lot of the residents who live here who are in fact artists um there's another photographer at least um probably two or three uh myself uh there's people who paint there's anyway it's going to be a really interesting celebration and I think it's interesting too of being you know a big history fan that I am being in a place in time 100 years later um that started getting my mind thinking about what I would like to do for the show and so what I think I want to do and this could change but this is kind of my just rough sketch as it is but I would like to do portraits of people who live in the building as many people as I can and try to find a way to bring that around into the history of the building and what that means and where we are in that lineage and so I'm not real sure maybe that is is supplemented by additional photograph or something of that nature but anyway that's where I am so far on this and so it's a really basic concept and so what we'll do is is moving down the road I want to talk about artist statements a little bit too um artist statements uh for me personally I think for photography um I work in a lot of different styles of mediums a lot of times and so I will tend to prefer to write artist statements based on a body of works so we'll write I'll write an artist statement to this and I'll take you guys through the process and show you what all is involved with that how that's different than a biography how to keep that from being too corny sounding and how you know why it's important to do and then we'll actually talk about you know sketching out the ideas um the actual process of shooting people what medium I decide to go with most likely film on this um because I would like to do my own dark room prints and make it just a real labor of love that came from within because we're celebrating you know the history of the building so anyway those are my basic ideas um just off the top of my head on that but I'll show you the behind the scenes on how we're going to actually film those uh or actually get them photographed and then do the printing and then actual framing display and we'll do it from start to finish so you'll see the whole idea so expect these to be sprinkled in as we're moving into the fall here that's one thing we're going to work on so anyway just a little bit of an intro to getting into the art of things and as I said I've been out town for the last week uh actually a little over a week and little RNR to recoup and I'm excited about being back and so we're going to do more shows and I know people have wanted more than one show a week and we will get back to that I promise and uh it's all part of moving forward so anyway once again guys this has been another episode of The Art of Photography thank you guys for watching I'll see you next time later\n"