The Happy Accident

"The Happy Accident" used to be a much more frequent occurrence in photography. There were so many steps where a photographer could ruin a shot, or end up with a wonderful mistake. Film development, darkroom work, getting the film into and out of the camera, you name it, you could screw something up. Now that we have gone digital, so many images are clear, crisp and precise. Moving cleanly from shutter release to Photoshop and beyond. What I have noticed is that people are creating the happy accident again. TTV, Polaroids, Holgas, Dianas, Photoshopping in dirt and scratches, all to make it look like you messed up your film or that you have a cheap lens, or terrible light leaks. With the mistakes comes a human vulnerability as well as a nostalgia that we have for images that remind of us of old family pictures. The photo at the top of the page is a Polaroid that I took recently, that has either a chemical stain or a light leak down the top. I thought it kind of looked like a shaft of light and added to the mood that I was trying to create for the photo.

(c)2008 Jennifer Dennis Potter, all rights reserved for all photos.

The Mysteries of the Museum

My children love the Buffalo Museum of Science. We have explored the great marble halls since my daughter was 3 and became obsessed with dinosaurs. She learned all of the names of dinosaurs and so we would go faithfully, every week, packing our lunch in a backpack, to check out the tracks and the bones of dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasts. We learned about space, about plants, about trilobites and eurypterids. I took my two children yesterday. My son loves the Ancient Egyptian exhibit. What fascinates me about the place is the volume and mystery of all of the collections. There is a Victorian spirit to all of it, finding, cataloging, protecting and preserving. We benefit, explore and learn about things we may never have seen or learned about in any other way.

Brenton Hamilton

My last post was about my painting professor and adviser, Angelo Ippolito. Another teacher who I benefited a great deal from working with was Brenton Hamilton . Brenton (or BH, as we called him) is in charge of the Residency Program at the Maine Photographic Workshops (Now Maine Media Workshops). He devoted incredible amounts of time to "eat, sleep and breathe" photography with us. The Residency Program is an intensive six month photography program that I completed about ten years ago, and at the time, had us taking photos, developing film or in the darkroom most hours of the day unless we were eating or sleeping. Our group of residency students developed a strong sense of camaraderie, due partially to some turnover of the teaching staff during our short time there.

One of the things that Brenton helped me to understand was Ansel Adams' Zone System. I remember sitting outside the darkroom one day, for the life of me, not understanding or remembering all of it and he explained it by pointing to the rocks, shadows and grass at our feet letting me know which zone each thing fell into. I finally began to "speak" the peculiar new language and was able to apply it to the world around me and the photographs that I was making in the darkroom.

BH was also instrumental in teaching me that photography could be a language of visual storytelling. Especially in groups, one photograph could lead to another and say something that could not easily be put into words.

For these reasons and more, thanks BH.

Angelo Ippolito

I found a Facebook group today called "In memory of Angelo Ippolito" and I had to join. Angelo Ippolito was my adviser at Binghamton University in the early 90's when I was an art student. He was an abstract expressionist, made wonderful assemblage sculptures which he called "jaw-jooz" that were fun and witty. He helped me to laugh about art and to take it seriously. He was an elegant gentleman who was always impeccably dressed.

The most important thing that Angelo taught me was to always play. That art making was about play. The way a jazz musician needs to keep improvising and finding the next note, the way a child needs to make up a game as she goes along. If you stopped playing, you would just steal the life from the art work and just end up with a dull piece. That can't happen without taking risks. He told me that if you had a painting that came easily, that is because the 20 before it were difficult. You payed for it, you had already paved the way. Angelo was one of the first people who ever took me or what I had to offer the world seriously, and I loved him dearly for it.

The Great Apple Discovery

We hike on a trail near our house. Once it was part of the orchards that used to surround this area, and after that, it was railroad land. It still is technically owned by the railroad company, but hasn't been used for many years and has been used by people as a dog-walking or mountain biking area. Well, our family discovered a wonderful apple tree. Most of the apples on the lower branches had fallen to the ground and had bites in them from squirrels and birds, but the upper branches were just chock-full of great apples. So, having an apple tree ourselves (that has been picked by our neighbors, by us, by our squirrels), we happen to have an apple picking pole and we brought it along to pick apples. We got a bag and a bucket-full and are checking out pie recipes. It's so much fun to get free fruit and I feel like we are making good use of something that no one would have used.

Fairy Houses

One day recently, everyone in our family put everything aside to go for a hike. We walked, ran, explored and played. Some of the leaves were beginning to turn yellow and red. It seems to do us all a great deal of good to leave the tasks that being in the house present to us. The picture is of a fairy house that my daughter made, putting her imagination to work. I'm grateful to have the time that I do with my young kids. Their imaginations spark my own and their enthusiasm about life is energizing.

Fairy Tales

I've been working through some ideas about fairy tales lately in my photography beginning with Little Red Riding Hood. I started with this image of Red and the shot of the wolf alone. Now I am planning to get more elaborate with designing the image. One of my great dreams is to create a children's book. I've decided to work out some book ideas and give myself a challenge by creating a sequence of shots, kind of "storyboarding" my way through the story. Some of the photos would be a shot of Red Riding Hood and her mother, one with the wolf, with her "grandmother" and so on. This is another fun project that both of my children have had good ideas for. Trees are tough because either they are very large, or they look pretty fake, like model railroad trees, so I'm not sure what to do for them (make your own?). Well, one of the things I've realized is that projects change as you work them out and often art can be a series of creative problems that you work out as you go along.
(c)2008, all images copyrighted by Jennifer Dennis Potter