Nick Turpin - is this the way forward?

Youth #2 - Nick Turpin

I have spent a short time looking at the work of Nick Turpin and I have to say I find his work fascinating.  I love the way he is able to coax fairly ordinary equipment to produce extraordinary results.  However, this has started me to think about what I want to produce during this next project.   Do I want to produce photographs that enhance the day or are they going to be control the night? 

Ray Bolger - Gjon Mili

To explore this a little further I need to explain one of the influences I have had on this journey.  I found a marvelous book in the library - see posting 21st Jan - by Gjon Mili  Many of the images were black and white the predominant colour is black (I know black is not a colour but a lack of one).  Now when you compare these to Turpin's photographs you start to see my problem.   Both photographs are of their time and so reflect this.  However, they do show the different styles, one , Turpin, uses the flash to enhance the colour of the street.   His ability to place light in a very specific area of the image is as impressive as it is imaginative.  The second, Mili, use the flash in a totally different way.  Here he explores the ability of a strobe to isolate and enhance the action.  He freezes that split second that we are never aware of.  In a way it almost entering the quantum realm.

So which is the way forward.  Well I think at this stage the answer is both and neither.   To be aware of these influences and experiment with them.  The hope is that at the end they will help me produce some impactive photographs.

Gjon Mili - some notes and links

I am sitting here writing this listening to Takako Nishizaki wonderful piece of music called Street Musician and doing some basic background research on Gjon Mili - a wonderful way to spend an evening.  Anyway, this post will contain links and notes on Mili and if all goes well will no doubt form part of my next assignment.

New York Times - 18th November 1994

Charles Hagan

'From the 1930's to the 50's, Gjon Mili was one of the star photographers of Life magazine, specializing in pictures that used stroboscopic flash to freeze action. Mili became famous for his distinctive photographs of sports stars, dancers and the like, all captured while leaping or twirling, turned by the strobe into chiseled statues....'

Wikipedia Entry

'Born to Vasil Mili and his mother Viktori Cekani, came to the United States in 1923. Fifteen years later he was photographing for LIFE magazine (a relationship that continued until his death in 1984), and his assignments took him to the Riviera (Picasso); to Prades, France (Pablo Casals in exile); to Israel (Adolf Eichmann in captivity); to Florence, Athens, Dublin, Berlin, Venice, Rome, and Hollywood to photograph celebrities and artists, sports events, and concerts, and. sculptures and architecture.

Working with Harold Eugene Edgerton of MIT, Gjon Mili was a pioneer since the 1930s in the use of photoflash to capture a sequence of actions in one photograph. Trained as an engineer and self-taught in photography, Gjon Mili was the first to use electronic flash and stroboscopic light to create photographs that had more than scientific interest. Since the late 1930s, his pictures of dance, athletics, and musical and theatrical performances have astonished and delighted millions of viewers, revealing the beautiful intricacy and graceful flow of movement too rapid or too complex for the eye to discern. His portraits of artists, musicians, and other notables are less visually spectacular, but equally masterful....'

The Winger - blog

Interesting collection of images of the New York ballet made by Mili for Life Magazine.

Getty Images

8000+ images of Mili's

IMDB

Lists the few films that Mili was involved in

Flickr

Search for Gjon Mili - produced some interesting interpretations of Mili's work and also copies of some of his work for Like magazine.

J. Thompson's interpretations of Mili's work - mainly painting with light

Gjon Mili

A centaur drawn with light - Pablo Picaso, France 1949

Gjon Mili

I spent a bit of frustrating morning in the DMU Library trying to find books on Flash Photography.  There were plenty of books on Adobe/Macromedia Flash but not Flash Photography.  I then realised that I had misspelt photography and then found a a book by Gjon Mili - Photographs & Reflections.  I have only just started to examine the book in any depth but already many ideas about the next project/module/assignment are flooding through my brain.  Many of them are crazy and I am certainly not ready to disclose them to anyone who may read this.   Known the less Mili has been inspirational.  Perhaps this next module will be rather fun than I thought.