Prof. Boerner's Explorations

by Gerald Boerner

This sculpture was found in the Sculpture Garden outside of the ‘West Building’ at the Getty Museum. This person (and his girlfriend blocked out in the background) was walking up the stairs and I snapped this when he was at the same height as the sculpture. This was taken in afternoon sunlight, but with a tree shading the couple…
[Photo by Gerald Boerner]

On a set of tiers, I found these two planters filled with flowers. I liked the marble facings on the steps and the gentle shadows (both form and cast) in this afternoon sun. It gave me the illusion of a cascading water fall that one might find in the mountains. It creates a sense of ‘Zen’ for me…
[Photo by Gerald Boerner]

The sculpture made a good foreground feature to set off the building, with its rough stonework, and the sky and clouds in the background. I was pleased by the shadow detail on the front side of the sculpture captured without going to an HDR technique. (The Getty does not allow any tripods!) The sky color and the clouds really pop for me…
[Photo by Gerald Boerner]

This was a photo taken of the fountain wall where you get off the tram at the Getty Museum’s main entrance. It was taken at night without flash and I love the way it captures the rough face of the stonework behing the fountain.
[Photo by Gerald Boerner, Digital Color converted to B/W]

This flower grouping gave me a nice set of compatible colors that gave me a ‘warm fuzzy’ feeling. Technique-wise, this may not be an notable shot, but it caught my eye and I just had to capture it…
[Photo by Gerald Boerner]

All photos are Copyright©2009 by GLB-Photo
— All Rights Reserved —

(Originally posted on Friday, June 19, 2009)

“There’s something like a line of gold thread running through a man’s words when he talks to his daughter, and gradually over the years it gets to be long enough for you to pick up in your hands and weave into a cloth that feels like love itself.”
— John Gregory Brown, Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery, 1994

Life is an ongoing thread of experiences. These experiences continue to grow throughout childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. I remember when Heather was born; she was a ‘premie’ and had to remain in the hospital for several days after Grace went home. Each afternoon, we would trek to the hospital to feed her, to hold her, and show her our love. I fondly remember holding her — she was so small that she fit totally within the palms of my hands. She was so dependent and beautiful!

“Any man can be a Father but it takes someone special to be a dad.”
— Anne Geddes, Baby Photographer

She grew and flourished. I was not just a father, I was a dad! As she grew, we formed a bond that continued to endear her to me as I watched her develop her own personality and became a individual, thinking person. She brought enrichment to my life in many ways, she was a complement to me — I was focused on specifics and precise data while she was more artistic and outgoing. She taught me to be more concerned about others while she sometimes struggled with subjects dealing with numbers. I loved to see her growth as she progressed through the school grades and proceeded to college and graduate school.

“The father of a daughter is nothing but a high-class hostage. A father turns a stony face to his sons, berates them, shakes his antlers, paws the ground, snorts, runs them off into the underbrush, but when his daughter puts her arm over his shoulder and says, ‘Daddy, I need to ask you something,’ he is a pat of butter in a hot frying pan.”
— Garrison Keillor

She continued to develop her creative side and writing skills. She took up photography, which I had set aside after grad school, and became the photographer for both her school yearbook and newspaper. Her understanding of people and her ability to write continues to astound me. She continued to develop these creative skills through college and grad school and became an excellent newspaper reporter for several weekly and daily papers. The thread continued to grow and she decided to escape the daily grind of the newspaper game. She dawned the mantle that she had created from this thread and is now an accomplished free-lance writer in the San Francisco bay area. She continues to be my shining light with her creativity.

“A father is always making his baby into a little woman. And when she is a woman he turns her back again.”
— Enid Bagnold

So now that we are both adults, I see her blossoming while I rediscover some of the creative joys during my retirement. She has been an inspiration for me and I thank her for allowing me to walk with her on this journey. Hopefully, as I look back on it, I am thankful for the opportunity to have been an example and guide her during her formative years.

(Originally posted on Friday, June 26, 2009)

by Gerald Boerner

What Draws our attention? And, how does this attention leads to enhanced motivation? That’s what we are going to deal with in the next several posts to this discussion. This is a topic that fascinated a group of psychologists starting in the 1920s. They viewed the "whole as being greater than the sum of its parts…" It was based on the ideas of Goethe, Kant and Mach; these thoughts were systematized by Christian von Ehrenfils. This mode of thinking about perception became known as "Gestalt" and was especially focused on visual perceptual phenomenon.

These principles become especially important for those of us specializing in the visual arts. Painters have employed them. Sculptures have used them. And, in more recent history, Photographers have adapted them to create more compelling images. While the ‘fine artists’ have used them to make their images more interesting, the commercial photographer depend upon them to attract the viewer to the products being sold. Just look at the photos in the windows of fast food restaurants or on menus or in magazine ads to find evidence of this. And their purpose? To get you to select and buy their product — and, of course, more of that product if possible. Impulse buying is the bane to any shopper’s existence!

Just a note before we start. In psychology, there is a difference between what we see, termed ‘sensations’, and that we think we see, termed ‘perception’. Sensation is based upon our sense organs and are dependent upon the structure of those organs. Perception, on the other hand, is based on how our brain ‘understands’ these perceptions; this process incorporates past experience, ‘memory’ with the ‘sensation’ to create the ‘perception.’ If you think about it, this is the reason you must consider the audience for your artwork or photograph, since you want to build upon the base of shared experiences and memories found in that group. That is why ads intended for the teen audience is different from those ads targeted at the 20-35 year olds, and still different from the elder populations. Isn’t this the essential difference between the "Jay Leno" show as opposed to the "Conan O’Brien" show?

So why study these Gestalt principles of perceptual organization? Because the underlay the path to more effective visual art and, in my case, photographs. So, let’s take a brief look at these various principles…

Principles of Perceptual Organization:

Similarity…
People look for patterns in objects and these patterns are based on objects that look similar. The corollary of this principle (‘anomaly’) is any object that differs from a pattern will stand out. This different object will then draw our attention in a drawing or a photograph. Art Wolfe often uses this principle in his photos to attract attention to the one object that differs from the pattern.

Continuation…
Our eyes move through an object and continue to another because the ‘flowing’ object directs our attention to the second object. Logos use this principle to lead your eye to the company name. This also is used by photographers by employing leading lines, S-curves, diagonal lines to focus our attention to the object in the photo.

Closure…
When an object is incomplete, our eyes perceive the whole by filling in the missing parts of the object. This is often found in photos to create an image that is not ‘really’ there. This is why objects arranged in a scene can attract attention because these objects form a triangle or other regular arrangement. This attracts attention and focuses the eye to essential elements of in the image.

Proximity…
When elements are placed together they tend to create a new element that is ‘perceived’ to be there, but is only seen as there due to our past perceptual experience. An example of this principle would be a school of fish or a flock of geese. The resultant, group object can draw attention more than individual, scattered animals. Likewise, when individual objects form another familiar object, then our attention and perceptual is directed to that derived object. This is an element found in many renaissance artworks.

Figure and Ground…
Some objects are composed in such a way as to take the perceived form of two different objects, depending on what we perceive as the object. The ‘Ground’ (Background object) is differentiated from the ‘Figure’ (Foreground object), but in this perceptual context, the sub-objects flip positions as a function of our attention shifts. This ambiguity of serves to focus our attention on this object and makes the composition more potent.

Perceptual Triggers

All of these elements that trigger our perception tend to potentiate our attention to the artwork or photography in front of us. These factors, individually or in combination make our photographs stronger and motivate the viewer to attend to them for a longer time. This increased attention and direction of our focus is what differentiates a "good," effective ad from otherwise "so-so" or "bad," ineffective ad. Likewise this attention differentiates an effective from an ineffective photography.

By understanding these dynamics, we can begin to compose better images both in the camera (not to be neglected) and in the image editor (a secondary process). During the latter, you can only enhance the composition in limited ways. Good camera images and good editing will enable you to create attention-getting photos that build on the above principles.

My challenge to you is to look at some of your images that you consider "good" and see which of these elements are in those images. Do your "outstanding" images have more of these elements or these elements used more effectively. Let me know what you find…

Next Week: We will continue to examine how our viewers’ attention is attracted to our photos by evoking emotional responses through the use of colors. Join us for that examination…

(Originally posted on Saturday, June 20, 2009)

by Gerald Boerner

“Art is life seen through man’s inner craving for perfection and beauty—his escape from the sordid realities of life into a world of his imagining. Art accounts for at least a third of our civilization, and it is one of the artist’s principal duties to do more than merely record life and nature. To the artist is given the privilege of painting the way.”
— Paul Outerbridge (1896 – 1958)

Yesterday (Saturday, June 13) I saw the work of Paul Outerbridge at the Getty Center in West LA. What an experience! While I enjoyed some of his photos more than others, I was especially impressed with his use of photography to create artistic works. He started as an art student, but his real career training started when he attended the Clarence H. White School of Photography in New York City which reflected the photo-successionist views; White was trying to get photography accepted as an art, not just as a reflection of reality.

During this period he learned to use light & shadows to define creative views of everyday objects. His career ranged from the use of these photographic techniques to create architectural images and images for commercial art. Many of the stunning 5″ x 7″, black and white images created with these techniques are on display in this exhibit. These contact prints were taken by and large in the studio where he could apply some very creative lighting with his exceptional “photographic” vision. He used focused light, in many cases, to highlight particular areas of his subject and created his magic. He was a modernist that blended “art for art’s sake and commercial art,” resulting in a body of works unlike any other.

His vision, as exemplified in the above quotation, was to capture the essence, but not necessarily provide only a reflection of reality as was the goal of most photographers of his era. Only a few of his landscapes are on exhibit, but these reflect this artistic, etherial feeling that goes beyond the physical elements photographed. As in most of his images, he often employs “soft focus” to help create this artistic image on film.

Two items of special note. The first is found in his focus on the nude figure in photographs taken between the mid 1920s through the late 1940s. Many of these images are on display in this exhibit. Here again, Outerbridge used customized lighting, skillful posing, and a creative use of props to create many beautiful images. This series of nudes rival those produced by the more traditional artist.

The second focus of his work was the use of color before the wide use of Kodachrome became an photographic option. The process that he used, the carbro process, which created brilliant color photographs from three black/white negatives (each taken through a different filter — either a red, green, or blue) that went through an laborious process. In Outerbridge’s day, this process used a 5″ x 7″ view camera needed to take these three images by exposing three pieces of film in succession. This is why many of the earlier images were made of still life that didn’t move! Later on, he was able to use this for the more typical studio poses. These color images were better quality than most color films brought out by Kodak, Agfa, and others. These carbro images were vivid and very true to life.

[Note: If you have ever printed color separations from your printer, then created a color, laser transparency from these printouts (in the appropriate color: cyan, magenta, yellow), and then overlaid these images and projected them
via overhead projector, you know that you can create a full-color image from
these three black and white copy.]

Back to the carbro images… The quality of the color in these images, as mentioned above, are far better than produced by most color films. Kodak developed its Kodachrome as early as the late 1930s, but it didn’t come into common use by photographers until the latter 1950s. Kodachrome images can’t ‘hold a candle’ to those images created by this carbro process. The only approximation of the vivid, intense color in a color transparency film that could be even compared with the carbo prints is the Fuji Velvia film. Unfortunately, the days of this carbro process is past. It used special gels, special paper, special chemicals, and two days for each print. While there are those who would be willing to spend the time to produce these images, the lack of availability of these materials prevents this from happening. Therefore, this art, as practiced by Outerbridge, is at its end.

[Note: Simultaneous with the Outerbridge exhibit, there is one room devoted to these carbro prints and features the work of Richard C. Miller, a southern California resident. There is also one wall that goes over the carbro process and displays a camera that takes all three negatives simultaneously. This is like a dessert after seeing the many fantastic images by Outerbridge, which is the main course. Using the same analogy, the appetizer for the Outerbridge exhibit is a room of composite images by Jo Ann Callis called "Woman Twirling".]

So, is this exhibit worth your time? By all means! The Getty Center has again put on an exhibit of photographic art that will seldom be replicated. It continues through August 9, 2009; the “Woman Twirling” will be on display through August 9, 2009. Books covering these exhibits are available at the Getty Bookstore (either at the Getty Center or online). These books are good resources and a nice review of the
exhibit.

Books on the Exhibit:
Paul Martineau (2009), Paul Outerbridge: Command Performance, The J. Paul Getty Museum. http://www.getty.edu/bookstore/titles/outerbridge.html

Judith Keller (2009), Jo Ann Callis: Woman Twirling, The J. Paul Getty Museum. http://www.getty.edu/bookstore/titles/callis.html

Paul Martineau, “Richard C. Miller: Master of the Carbro Process,” Photoicon. http://www.photoicon.com/online_features/38/

Labels: Exhibit, Museum, Outerbridge, Photography

(Originally posted on Thursday, June 18, 2009)

“Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.”
— Dinah Craik

Tasha from almost the beginning was an explorer. When she was only a few months old, she was already trying to climb out of here crib! We were new parents and wanted to provide her with plenty of stimulation — we succeeded almost too well. Her room was painted with bright, flourescent colors. She went with us everywhere, and Grace took her to Aunt Marilyn’s for babysitting during the day after she returned to teaching that spring. Tasha was interested in almost everything. And, she spent most of her time with kids who were slightly older than herself.

“I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection.”
— Sigmund Freud

What she needed most was guidance. You didn’t need to prompt her into action; she did that on her own. But she needed my help [and my actions were intended to be helpful] in selecting and limiting what she took on. She was into painting. She was into tennis. She wanted to learn to play the piano. She was into dance. She was a busy girl! All these things let her sample her environment and find out what she was best at. She was a bright, talented little lady. Yes, sometimes se drove us crazy, but what a joy to see her developing the many talents she had!

“Dad, your guiding hand on my shoulder will remain with me forever.”
— Author Unknown

As a father, my job was to try to be her guide — she did the hard work. Sometimes she was hard to deep up with, but it was awesome to see her develop through childhood, adolescence and young adulthood. She and I shared many of the same interests and aptitudes; this also led to conflicts on occasion. She loved to travel. And she seemed to be fearless. During graduate school, she decided that she wanted to study in Germany. She found a study-abroad program that included an internship with the Bundestag [German Parlement] in Bonn. Off she went alone and spent the next semester and summer there. What an exerience that was for our little go-getter!

“Be kind to thy father, for when thou wert young, Who loved thee so fondly as he? He caught the first accents that fell from thy tongue, And joined in thy innocent glee.”
— Margaret Courtney

Children will grow and go their own ways. All we can do is to try to be a guiding, helpful hand. Through all of Tasha’s experiences, I saw this little girl turn into a beautiful woman. When she married I was proud to walk her down the aisle. While it is difficult to accept her living abroad in Germany, she has succeeded as a woman, as a business professional and as a wife/mother. I was so thrilled when she brought our little grandson, Máté, to see us last Christmas. He is a precious little man and I’m sure that his father, Isti, will try to be a model for him as I have tried to be for Tasha.

“Fathers, like mothers, are not born. Men grow into fathers — and fathering is a very important stage in their development.”
— David M. Gottesman

Life is too short. All we can do is to try to be the best father we know how to be. We must lead by example, human as it may be, and nurture these precious little ones given to us to guide for so little a while.

(Originally posted on Wednesday, June 17, 2009)

“Sherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later… that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best he could, out of a sense of duty and, perhaps love, adopted a role called Being a Father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a Protector, who would keep a lid on all the chaotic and catastrophic possibilities of life.”
— Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities

Aren’t children wonderful! They enable us to recapture our youth after we have braved adolescence, young adulthood, young married life, and started on our career trek. But along comes this bundle of joy that can rekindle the wonder of our earlier years.

Seeing the joys of discovery our children experience can reawaken the ‘kids’ in us. If we are willing to see life through their eyes, our career-oriented, result-oriented lives could be renewed and refreshed. We might again come to appreciate the joys of discovery. This can lead to a renewed of our relationships to our ‘significant others’ and reinvigorate our efforts on our jobs. Life once again can become an adventure to be savored and reflected upon.

“Be kind to thy father, for when thou wert young, Who loved thee so fondly as he? He caught the first accents that fell from thy tongue, And joined in thy innocent glee.”
— Margaret Courtney

By undergoing this self-renewal through the experiences of our children, we can then become living examples of how life can be for our children. We can lead by example, not by using the old dictums of “…because I’m the [mother/father/parent]…” or “…do as I say, not as I do…” Living a live that revels in discovery and love enables those around us. Let us all thry to live exemplary lives for our little ones and teach them how great and fulfilling a family life can be.

“I talk and talk and talk, and I haven’t taught people in 50 years what my father taught by example in one week.”
— Mario Cuomo

Let us make a pledge to be a person that our children would like to become. Let us instill in them respect for others, the love of family, the joy of learning, and the exhilaration of service to others. By doing so, we will help mold and guide the next generation to become that next “Great Generation!”

(Originally posted on Tuesday, June 16, 2009)

“Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”
— Elizabeth Stone

Parenthood is not always a planned event. It often takes us by surprise. Whatever our status is, we are never really READY for parenthood! But when that bundle of joy arrives, we adapt and most of us rise to the occasion. Our hearts go out to this living, crying, loving being we call our BABY!

“The greatest gift I ever had came from God; I call him Dad!”
— Author Unknown

As our children grow from infants into toddlers into young children, we are privileged to share this experience with them. We suffer when they suffer and we are happy when they are happy. They are truly an extension of ourselves, a real out of body experience. As they progress through school, as they play their baseball and/or soccer, as they become more careful with their time and other precious resources, we revel in this growth. We see ourselves in these little bundles of joy. This is true of both the mother and father, but I can say for myself that there is nothing so rewarding as seeing my girls grow into teenagers and onward into adulthood.

As I look at the photos of our family growing up, I fondly remember the events that are encapsulated in these photos. I remember them in girl scout uniforms, I see them in cheerleading/color guard outfits, I see them on various vacations. And from these photos, I remember some of the similar events of my youth. I now know how my father must have felt when I hit that home run, or received my Eagle scout award; I also remember the time he spent with me to develop my baseball skills or that special vacation we took through the Mother Lode country around Yosemite.

So why is this so significant? We all enter this world as helpless babies. It is only through the nuturing of our parents that we grow into young men and women and then into responsible adults. Fathers are special people because they enable us to become what we were meant or want to be. Fortunate children experience this nurturing. Those who grow up without such fathers must derive this nurturing from either our mothers, or more probably, close family men who will take on that role. These male role models are important for both boys and girls. With their help, we flourish!

Thank you Dad, for your guiding hand and presence during my early years. And, thank you to the many men (neighbors and other significant friends) who continued to guide our way as friends, teachers and mentors!

“Dad, your guiding hand on my shoulder will remain with me forever.”
— Author Unknown

(Originally posted on Monday, June 15, 2009)

“My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, ‘You’re tearing up the grass.’ ‘We’re not raising grass,’ Dad would reply. ‘We’re raising boys.’ ”
— Harmon Killebrew (Professional Baseball Player)

Raising children is almost a full-time job FOR BOTH PARENTS! The constant issue in raising kids is this: Do we preserve our things (environment, house, etc.) or do we focus on the needs of our kids (including their exploration even though it may damage some of that environment)? We must hand it to those single parents who cope with these trials alone and succeed. So, what is our task?

I think that the parents main task is to nurture child and help him/her to develop their own abilities, including those related to self-control. We have all had the experience of going into a restaurant for a peaceful dinner only to encounter an undisciplined child sitting at the next table or booth. The child cries, screams, throws tantrums in an effort to get attention and/or get his/her way. This is not only an American phenomenon, we encountered this on our journeys through England, especially on the trains. It is interesting that in Germany, where parents take their children out, are prepared with toys and give their children attention during the outing; we didn’t see disruptive behavior of children in public there.

So what are we to do? We, as parents and especially we men as fathers, need to learn to identify our children’s needs. By attending to their being tired, hungry, and/or in need of activity, will start to provide appropriate responses to our children. This may, as in the case of the quote above, involve the temporary destruction of some things around us; grass can be replaced or regrown, but a love, confidence, feelings of belonging are not as easily replaced after being ‘damaged’ by neglect or abuse. Let us men, as fathers, take on the responsibility of providing that nurturing environment for our children, of loving them, of providing them with all the reasonable opportunities in life that will enable them to grow up into reasonably happy and functional adults.

Let’s not try to live out the childhoods that we did not have or pass the abuse from our own parents onto our kids. They are precious and deserve to become beautiful human beings. And, just maybe, they will treat us in the same way when roles become reversed in our elder years!

May we all have the privilege of hearing:

“Dad, you’re someone to look up to no matter how tall I’ve grown”
— Author Unknown

(Originally posted on Sunday, June 14, 2009)

“On how to diaper a baby… Spread the diaper in the position of the diamond with you at bat. Then fold second base down to home and set the baby on the pitcher’s mound. Put first base and third together, bring up home plate and pin the three together. Of course, in case of rain, you gotta call the game and start all over again.”
— Jimmy Piersal, 1968 (baseball player)

All of us fathers started out at the same point with our first child: Ignorant of how to take care of this little bundle of joy. We have waited nine months with our wives as this little one to mature, living with the trials and special needs of our beloved spouse. When the day finally comes, we might be in the delivery room, or we might not be allowed to do so.

While in the hospital, our wives get practice in taking care of this little bundle of joy and she has a cadre of nurses to help out so she can get some sleep. When the mother and baby comes home, look out! Unless you are ‘octomom,’ you will not have this cadre of helpers coming into the home — you become that cadre! As far as feeding is concerned, you are off-the-hook if the wife is nursing; however, if not, you will be expected to help in this process. And, as with all good machines, what goes in must come out the other end of this eating machine — dirty diapers.

Now, whether this is the easy wet diaper or the messy ‘poopy‘ diaper, you will face the TASK. It doesn’t matter that you have passed that critical exam (bar exam, doctoral quals, civil service test, etc.) successfully in the past, this test will TRY YOUR SOUL. In the process, it will also test your dexterity to the limit. After all, isn’t this little bundle of joy fragile? Aren’t you the rookie parent without any PRO experience? Don’t panic.

The above quote will help you to attack the battle of the diaper. Master this skill, your wife will reward you with more than a certificate or degree… She will LOVE you forever!

(Originally posted on Saturday, June 13, 2009)

“I don’t care how poor a man is; if he has family, he’s rich.”
— M*A*S*H, Colonel Potter

Father’s Day was first proposed in either 1908 (Dr. Robert Webb, West Virginia) or 1909 (Sonora Smart Dobb, Washington) but didn’t become a national holiday until 1966. It was a day honoring fathers and father figures like Stepfathers, Uncles, Grandfathers, or “Big Brothers. In the United States, it is celebrated on the third Sunday of June; it is celebrated in other ways and on other dates world-wide. In any case, it is a day on which we celebrate the influence of the significant male in our lives.

Some Top TV Dads…

• Ward Cleaver (“Leave It to Beaver“)
• Ben Cartwright (“Bonanza“)
• Andy Taylor (“The Andy Griffith Show“)
• Archie Bunker (“All in the Family“)
• Mike Brady (“The Brady Bunch“)
• Howard Cunningham (“Happy Days“)
• Heathcliff Huxtable (“The Cosby Show“)
• Steven Keaton (“Family Ties“)
• Ray Barone (“Everybody Loves Raymond“)

We will be examining quotes by the famous or that make significant points about the important influences in our lives. Please feel free to add your experiences as comments to these notes. You may examine some of the background of this holiday at Father’s Day on the Net – The History of Father’s Day.