Pioneer Color Photographer
Apr. 3rd, 2007 11:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebToday I went to a talk by Marie Cosindas, a successful photographer. She does portraits and still lifes.
The talk consisted of a slide show of her photographs with commentary which is the absolute best way to have a talk on your photography. She talked about all kinds of topics like how she likes color, how she likes to go around the site to collect things to include in the photograph, how sometimes she has to dress people in her own clothes because they insist on wearing black, how Lawrence Olivier let her touch him, how a war movie she was photographing was exploding all over her, how she would stand on ladders or drape things over screens or re-use cool artifacts, and how a company that hired her to photograph asparagus told her after the fact that they had expected her to cook it first.
After a while, you could really start to know a few things about her. For example, when she said the word "kimono," I knew she would love them. She likes to put people in big interesting coats and she likes color, so of course she would like kimonos! She bought a bunch as gifts, but then she just couldn't part with a single one of them. It was an enjoyable talk.
Unlike me, she poses people and sets things up to photograph. Someone once gave her 15 minutes to photograph someone, saying "How long can it take to snap a photo?" By the time she told us that story, I knew how it could take more than 15 minutes. For a still life, she likes to collect things and arrange them artfully as if you she going to paint them, only she can't paint it better--it has to already look perfect in real life.
And for portraits, she takes the person and some favorite items and drags them all to the area with the best light, shoving everything else out of the way if necessary.
I still don't like the idea of making people pose, but I may try asking my favorite people if I get inspired. And I may start thinking of arranging artifacts that I think would look good together and bringing them to the good light rather than just capturing everything as it already is.
So, the talk was a little inspiring as well as interesting.
I never would have gone to this talk on my own. I found out about it yesterday and it sounded like something that might interest R. so I told him. He wanted to go and I went with him because I am a good girlfriend. I saved him a seat and he gave me a ride home. This is the kind of teamwork I really like--neither of us would have been there if it weren't for the other of us and we both enjoyed the talk.
The talk consisted of a slide show of her photographs with commentary which is the absolute best way to have a talk on your photography. She talked about all kinds of topics like how she likes color, how she likes to go around the site to collect things to include in the photograph, how sometimes she has to dress people in her own clothes because they insist on wearing black, how Lawrence Olivier let her touch him, how a war movie she was photographing was exploding all over her, how she would stand on ladders or drape things over screens or re-use cool artifacts, and how a company that hired her to photograph asparagus told her after the fact that they had expected her to cook it first.
After a while, you could really start to know a few things about her. For example, when she said the word "kimono," I knew she would love them. She likes to put people in big interesting coats and she likes color, so of course she would like kimonos! She bought a bunch as gifts, but then she just couldn't part with a single one of them. It was an enjoyable talk.
Unlike me, she poses people and sets things up to photograph. Someone once gave her 15 minutes to photograph someone, saying "How long can it take to snap a photo?" By the time she told us that story, I knew how it could take more than 15 minutes. For a still life, she likes to collect things and arrange them artfully as if you she going to paint them, only she can't paint it better--it has to already look perfect in real life.
And for portraits, she takes the person and some favorite items and drags them all to the area with the best light, shoving everything else out of the way if necessary.
I still don't like the idea of making people pose, but I may try asking my favorite people if I get inspired. And I may start thinking of arranging artifacts that I think would look good together and bringing them to the good light rather than just capturing everything as it already is.
So, the talk was a little inspiring as well as interesting.
I never would have gone to this talk on my own. I found out about it yesterday and it sounded like something that might interest R. so I told him. He wanted to go and I went with him because I am a good girlfriend. I saved him a seat and he gave me a ride home. This is the kind of teamwork I really like--neither of us would have been there if it weren't for the other of us and we both enjoyed the talk.
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Rich
on 2007-04-04 09:20 am (UTC)I like the fact that your attending this event was an example of the teamwork you like in relationships; what a great outcome!