Eye Foreign Eye » photography

#19. Lau family portrait series– in progress.

tlau — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 00:31:21 +0000

this is a series of images that i’ve been working on for a while now. i wish i had access to a color darkroom, but since i don’t, i’ve been working on them in photoshop (retouch and color-balance).

the series were taken on the day of my sister’s wedding. it was the first time (and maybe the last) in 35 years that my mom’s siblings would all be in the same place and so i decided to try and capture the moment.

i set the portraits up in my parent’s backyard and based the compositions around the squash that my parents had received as gifts from their neighbors. for as long as i can remember, as my family found our place here in chicago, other chinese folks would stop-by and give the gift of squash grown from their own gardens.

the portraits were also pretty informal in the sense that i just asked my aunts, uncles, and cousins to stand in front of the camera regardless of their outfits. these were taken in-between the ceremony and the reception of my sister’s wedding day and so some had temporarily changed out of their formal wedding attire, while others kept theirs on. i found that the juxtaposition of formal and informal were very reminiscent of my own experiences of being chinese-american.

anyway, i’m still trying to figure them out, and am moving on to the next step of printing them.

peace.

#16. student work- photograms.

tlau — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 23:26:12 +0000

photogram: a photogram is an image created on light-sensitive paper without the direct use of a camera- no negatives are involved and therefore no “shooting” is involved. to create imagery, objects and papers of varying translucencies are placed on the light-sensitive paper and exposed to a light source. the various levels of translucency will register shadows and highlights depending on how they are laid out on the paper– this is very similar to a unburn/suntan. if someone is laying out in the sun, and some jerk comes by and takes a stick and lays it on the skin of the person sunbathing, in a couple of hours, the outline of the stick is left behind on that person’s skin.

in some photo classes i’ve taken, this is usually one of the first assignments and is considered to be basic. i think this tends to convey the idea that photograms are simple. this could not be further from the truth. photograms can be complex and challenging.

last year, i started with basic photograms at the beginning of the year and i was not very satisfied with what my students had come up with. so later in the school year, we revisited the photogram. i had my students create photograms using a variety of layers. they had to use a quote as a source of inspiration. the quote could come from anywhere, and pretty much say anything as long as it wasn’t something that’d get me fired. as part of the lesson, i also taught my students how to create high contrast images in photoshop.

if you’re interested, here’s the lesson, and here’s the photoshop tutorial. (right click and click to download)

here are the requirements for the assignment:

quote/piece of text that was important to them.
imagery on tracing paper
imagery on printer paper
imagery on acetate
imagery on opaque black construction paper.
all 5 were combined to create 1 photogram.

here are some of the samples– some of the samples include the layers that my students used in some of the samples.

sample 1. this one in particular was impressive because this student took the time to draw the details of the gears in the frame and even cut out all the little sprockets.

sample 2.

sample 3.

sample 4.

sample 5.

sample 6.

sample 7.

sample 8.

peace.

#13. found drawings

tlau — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 03:03:50 +0000

more found drawings. these were found in one of my classrooms. i really hope that some of these weren’t my students because if they are, then that means that i need to become a better art teacher.

peace.

#10. a series of images i did with my advisees.

tlau — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 23:44:48 +0000

i’m an advisor to a group of 23 boys in a high school. advisory is basically high school home room on steroids. we meet everyday, and sometimes we sit there just trying to live with the awkwardness that you can imagine might exist when there’s one adult and 20+ high school kids of the same gender.

this series of photos is something i thought of to try to help us pass the time more interestingly and productively. we took the teacher’s desk and put student desks on top so that i could get a better perspective on the classroom we spend our advisory time in. i shot the portraits with black and white film with a medium format camera– the mamiya 645. i had the boys choose how they wanted to be photographed. it actually was a pretty decent time.

peace.

#8. a new series of images…found drawings

tlau — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:50:57 +0000

found images are interesting. drawn. painted. scratched. spray painted. etched. rubbed. scribbled. doodled. burned. carved. sometimes they’re conscious. sometimes sub-conscious. sometimes unconscious. they can be thoughtful or thoughtless. sensible or senseless. on tables. paper. walls. trees. bathroom doors. skin. most always they’re simple doodles that are done to pass the time because the person was bored or perhaps it was a way to help them concentrate. sometimes they’re meant to inform. to offend. to annoy. to inspire. to educate. to assert existence. or to insert resistance. they can be for play during work. they can be art or vandalism. they can be intricate or simple. they can be racist. sexist. whatever-ist. in fact, most of the time, they are.

being a teacher, i see many around the school. being an image maker, i’m constantly aware.

if you see some somewhere, share them with me and i will post them here.

here’s a few that i found in a classroom where i teach…

there’s something about that little triangle that i found interesting. why would somebody draw a triangle? was it a conscious thought?

ready 2 party.

that’s a beautiful eye. the detail and care given to the drawing during class says a lot. but what? i don’t know.

peace.

#6. vegas, flagstaff, sedona, phoenix, and vegas again in 5 days…

tlau — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 20:24:19 +0000

despite some crappy weather, this vacation was a pretty good one. it was my second winter break during my second year of teaching. i do have to say that i wasn’t expecting the two feet of snow in flagstaff…nor the rain in the desert outside of phoenix in the superstition mountains…nor the cold temps in vegas…it was just nice to be out of chicago. here are some images from the trip below…and here’s the link to my flickr site