A S C R A P B O O K O F S O L U T I O N S F O R T H E P H O T O G R A P H E R
Enhancing the enjoyment of taking pictures with news that matters, features that entertain and images that delight. Published frequently.
22 September 2018
Saturday matinees long ago let us escape from the ordinary world to the island of the Swiss Family Robinson or the mutinous decks of the Bounty. Why not, we thought, escape the usual fare here with Saturday matinees of our favorite photography films?
So we're pleased to present the 258th in our series of Saturday matinees today: Cristobal -- Jazz with a Camera.
German-born, South African photographer Cristobal Vision takes a conceptual approach to photography. He explains on his Web site:
I aim to capture the essence of a scene, be it an object, a location or an activity. I simply use the camera as an optical instrument with which to create abstract expressions of what I feel is present. Though remaining recognizable, the subjects are not represented exactly as they appear to the human eye. By submitting them to abstraction using a manual process, I intend to encapsulate an intrinsic quality. In effect, the images are perceived in a more intuitive way.
In the video, which he narrates, he tells us how he came to that.
He got fed up with the production involved with bigger and bigger commercial sets. And one day, as he walked down the boardwalk at Venice Beach in Calif., he saw some street musicians performing.
Big smiles on their faces. No production overhead.
He thought he'd like to be like them, wailing on his camera the way they wailed on their musical instruments.
So, later that day, he tried it.
Using his camera intuitively rather than methodically led to less contrived, abstract images. He played his camera like a saxophone and music came out.
Jazz with a camera, he calls it. Your eyes only have to blink to its beat.