New Photography

I recently watched Finding Vivian Maier, a documentary about a nanny who compulsively took photographs on her daily walks.

Curiously, most of her pictures remained undeveloped in her lifetime. Maier's work was discovered a few years ago during a liquidation sale of her storage holdings. Since her death on 2009 her photos have received critical praise and found a wide audience though the internet and international exhibitions.

The film inspired me to try some photography during our two week break at the National Academy. Unlike Maier, I couldn't bring myself to photograph strangers on the street, not in any recognizable fashion anyway. I limited myself to abstract compositions in an effort to resolve a new set of pictorial issues that had nothing to do with figurative painting.

I have a Nikon DSLR but found it too clunky to carry around. I used my iPhone instead and online photo editing programs.

I took many pictures, deleted most of them, but thought I'd share a few images. Art class resumes this Saturday but I'll probably continue my photographic experiment. It's a new way of looking at things. I find myself mentally cropping everything I see in order to distill my daily life into its abstract essence.