Loretta Ayeroff

http://www.lacma.org/adults-studio-art

Digital Photography/Outdoor Session/Five Sundays:Sept. 25, Oct.2,16, 23, 30/11am–2pm//LACMA's diverse collection will spark ideas to create vibrant, online or print images, from digital or cell-phone cameras. Learn photographic techniques for lighting, bracketing, and composition. With photographer-artist Loretta Ayeroff. $170; members $160/ 5 week session; limited enrollment....Only 10 spots left! If you are in Los Angeles, let's shoot together =0)

In addition to saturating myself with visuals, finding the brothers and sisters to my own work, I had great conversations with, and enjoyed the photographs presented by, many national and international visitors, including:
- Luo Yong, and colleagues: Beijing, China: Pan-View Gallery, Booth B-210
- Hannah: “The La Brea Matrix”  The Lapis Press, Booth B-305
- Pete Eckert, Alice Wingwall, Bruce Hall, and their 4-legged guides: Blind     
  Photographers Guild, Booth B-500
- Louis Klaitman: Vintage & Contemporary Photographs, Booth B-402
- Norman Kulkin: Select Vernacular Photographs, Booth A-203
- Wesley, Beijing, China: MR Gallery, Booth B 404
- Courtenay Nearburg, Jeff Dunas: The Palm Springs Photo Festival, Lobby
- Associate: Queensland Centre for Photography, Australia, Booth B-406
- Joanne: Joanne Artman Gallery, Booth A-204
-  Associate: Stephen Cohen Gallery, Booth B-204
- Jade Dumon: Los Angeles Art Association, Booth-409
- Ben Bindra, JR Skola: Dawn of Man Productions, Projection Outside Wall, SM   
  Civic Auditorium

Enjoy your visit! Remaining days for 2011 Photo LA, Sat. January 15-Monday, January 17, www.photola.com

The other day, after posting more images to my series “Los Angeles, Dedicated to Raymond Chandler,” a kind friend, suggested a drive down to San Pedro, an area rife with noirish environments. Tempting, as the idea seemed, my inner photographer rejected it immediately… opting instead to explain, with this blog.

Shooting urban-scapes, landscapes, built-scapes, and other architectures, has been a major subject for me since I picked up a camera, over 30 years ago. Although I have been regularly hired, by consumer publications for my portraiture work, and exhibited the same (Men Series, etc.) upon this year’s archive review, it was the consistent shooting of natural and built landscapes that caught my eye. If you read my artist’s statement: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=466804391841 which details my three moves in four years within Los Angeles, one can see the development of a theory: I prefer to live where I shoot, and not pass through.

I don’t grab scapes. I ponder them. I watch the light for weeks. I wait, expectantly, for dawn, dusk, rain, fog, and other atmospherics that impact my choice of subject. I force myself to get layered with clothing to shoot in cold weather. I shoot the same scene over and over again, until a time-lapse grid is formed: http://www.artandculture.com/users/2692-loretta-ayeroff#Works. I watch how the color changes, or doesn’t, shooting mono-chromatically whenever possible. Or, even in harsh mid-day light, if something interesting is happening. I shoot out of my windows, from my studios, and my car. I sense light all day long. Usually, I get it “right” on the first try, ala William Eggleston, who only shoots a subject once, he says, in the documentary about him I recently viewed at LACMA. Occasionally, I go back, or am cameraless, and the scene falls into that lost file, forever.

This has been my method since 1971, with my first b+w scapes while living in NYC, taken from my bicycle. Yes, I have grabbed a few, actually quite a few, particularly while traveling, Paris, Italy, the US, etc. That’s how the “Road Pictures” evolved. So, no, Jim….I won’t be driving down to San Pedro with you to grab shots. But, maybe I’ll move there for awhile……..

Much of the work mentioned in this blog can be viewed at: http://loretta-ayeroff.photoshelter.com

….by Robert Frank, at one time, belonged to my friend, Garry Winogrand. The “TC” before my signature, in the upper right hand corner, meant that this copy had passed to Garry’s friend and printer, Thomas Consilvio, after Garry’s death in 1984. I inherited it after Thomas’ death in 1991. Which brings us to my subject, what makes a photograph “iconic?” Why do we recognize, even from a distance, as I once experienced, looking through the window of a closed photography gallery, that an image is a “Kertesz” or a “Cartier-Bresson” or an ”Arbus?” Why does the shape of a subject, like Kertesz’ figure on the couch in “Satiric Dancer” enable us to know who shot it? Or, that when we pass a draped car, we are reminded of Frank’s image, “Covered car - Long Beach, California” from "The Americans"? What makes a photograph “Gurskyesque?”

 In a way, recognition is simply in the eye of the beholder. Certainly the photographer was not thinking of making an icon when the image was shot, with the exception, possibly, of Ansel Adams shooting a full moon in Mexico. Currently, a traveling exhibition of photographs by Robert Frank, originating from the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., organized by Curator Sara Greenough, gives us, the viewer, another opportunity to understand what makes an iconic image. Running through August 23, at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, “Looking In: Robert Frank’s ‘The Americans’ ” celebrates the 50th anniversary of this seminal book’s publication. If you are in the Bay Area this summer, you might want to take a look…And, in Los Angeles, images from the permanent collection of “The Americans” can be viewed at the Museum of Contemporary Art, along with films by Robert Frank, through October 19, 2009.

 http://www.sfmoma.org/

http://www.moca.org/museum/exhibitiondetail.php?id=422

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/06/robert-frank-

the-americans-san-francisco-museum-of-modern-art.html

http://www.cameraquest.com/LeicaM4G.htm

5 ?s 4: Willie Middlebrook, Photographer/Artist 

 1]     Does your work sometimes surprise you, or take its own direction?

Of course it does. What would be the fun of creating, if you knew exactly what was going to happen. What separates us from the animals is curiosity, we want to know how the story ends, but the true fun is the journey.

 2]     How do you see your work growing, changing or evolving in the future?

  I have no idea. Again what would be the fun if I knew.

 3]     What was the best advice you ever gave your students, and, what was the best advice you’ve received, from someone else, about being an artist/photographer?

  To Students - My Father never lied to me. (Listen to your elders. This does not mean follow every word.)

To Me - The world, doesn't have the storage for the amount of best advice I have received over the years, that I keep in my head.  That’s why the brain will always be the best computer.

 4]     What inspires you - how do you use these inspirations in your work?    

  I am inspired by everything!! In every way!!!

 5]     If you were an art critic, how would you describe your current exhibition?   

  I am not, and will never be, an art critic. I cannot see myself in that position for any reason.  I believe in discussion not criticism. Only a fool does not vote for him or herself.  So, for the record, I have never had or been in a bad exhibition.

Eshibition: "Willie Robert Middlebrook EARLY WORKS 1977-1984" WLCAC Cecil Fergerson Gallery, June 1-July 24, 2009   http://www.wlcac.org/wattsart247.html

Website: http://web.mac.com/middlebrook

http://cola2009pressroom.wordpress.com/

http://www.geocities.com/aestheticsforus/