wlotus | The Canadian and The American

I enjoyed meeting

alois and touring the Robert Frank exhibit with him.

alois has a refreshingly relaxed attitude about photography that I usually expect to only find in people who have many years of experience under their belts. Talking to him, I would never guess he's only been doing photography for a few years. I was also surprised to find that like me, he has a background in the sciences, not the arts.

We walked through the exhibit, which included some of Frank's early work as well as The Americans in its entirety. We both came out of the exhibit reflecting on our own work...not that either of us want to copy Frank's style, but studying his style gives us ideas for our own. For my part, I am encouraged to be a little less critical of my work, as I believe I am squashing both my creativity and passion that way. While I ought to strive for technical perfection (meaning, photographs that do not have glaring technical problems that take away from the subject), I need to allow myself a bit more leeway in terms of composition. I need to also remember that a photo which may not work well alone may become powerful when combined with others. I saw several photos in The Americans which would not have made much of an impression on me alone, but when combined with a series of four or five packed a punch.

Art is subjective and nowhere near an exact science. I must tattoo this fact to the inside of my eyelids.

Today's meeting was a pleasant change in my normal routine. It's always interesting to match a face with an LJ name, especially when the face belongs to someone pleasant!