Visual Literacy

Hello everyone! Once again it has been quite awhile since my last post and once again I apologize. The fall semester at school has flown by and has been keeping me extremely busy. Over the course of the last several months I've been developing a new project which involves converting hard back books into pinhole cameras. Creating these book/cameras can be a very daunting task but often times I find the process to be therapeutic. I've had a lot of questions from people who haven't seen the books in person about how I make the cameras. I've decided to use this blog to attempt to answers those questions. So here we go!

First:

I hunt for books! I certainly have my nerdy side and I often find searching for the books to be a lot of fun. I frequent consignment stores such as Goodwill and the Salvation Army as these places often have the cheapest books. I also nose around used book stores and special sales such as the San Francisco Public Library's Annual Book Sale. This year they had over 500,000 books to rummage through! I picked up about ten books for $30! I don't have much of a criteria for the books I choose. Sometimes I have a specific title in mind that I'm searching for but I often just peruse and let the books generate ideas for me. I use the books as jumping off points to create photographs. Inspiration can come from the title, author, or a theme or story the book contains. Once I find a book I want to take a picture with I must convert it into a camera.

Second:

In order for the book to function as a camera I have to hollow out a portion of the pages so that a negative or other light sensitive substrate can be placed inside. I do this by hand with the use of a rectangular guide and a scalpel. This is usually the most labour intensive part of the whole process. The scalpel blade lets me cut out an average of three pages at a time so the cutting process can take anywhere from two to nine hours depending on how thick the book is and how thick the pages are.

Third:

During the last step of the building process I take a power drill and bore a hole in the cover of the book. The holes are a little bigger than the diameter of a pencil. After that I take a thin piece of metal, I started out using pieces from beer cans but have switched to a metal material used for insulating homes, and poke a tiny hole in it using a sewing needle. The metal material is adhesive on one side, which makes it easy to attach to the book and it forms a nice light tight seal. My friend Ruby Hazzard turned me on the material awhile back when I first started making pinhole cameras. I'm really glad she did because it really works great. Thanks Hazzy! But I digress, once all of that is complete I build rather crude shutters on the front using tape and cardboard. I have some ideas for nicer looking shutters to gussy things up a bit but haven't gotten around to implementing them just yet. In all honesty, the look of the shutters is on the low priority list...I'm more interested in taking photographs!

Fourth:

Now I go out and shoot! As I mentioned before, I use the book as a jumping off point for the photograph. Sometimes I have a clear idea in my head of what I want to shoot when I purchase the book and other times that idea is conjured up over time. For ideas, I read the books themselves for information, research the authors, or think about how the titles may work in some way. Basically, I let the book inspire me, which may sound cheesy but it's the damn truth. It's not completely uncommon that my first idea doesn't work or translate through a pinhole photograph so I keep trying different ideas and subject matter. Here is a photograph I shot with The American Male:

©Adam Donnelly

Here are some more examples:

The Holy Bible

©Adam Donnelly 2011

Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems

©Adam Donnelly 2011

Moby Dick

©Adam Donnelly

Emily Post's Etiquette 

©Adam Donnelly 2011

Great Expectations

©Adam Donnelly

The Book of Virtues

©Adam Donnelly 2011

Irish Californians: Historic, Romantic, Benevolent

©Adam Donnelly 2011

When the project is installed in a space the book/cameras are presented along with the photographs. They are displayed on a shelf and I encourage participants to handle the books. My hope is that people will spend more time and further engage with the work. Many correlations can be made between the books and the photographs which can lead to many different interpretations, which I welcome. This project has opened up a whole new world for me as there are infinite number places it can lead me. It is still in it's early stages as I have only been working on it for about five months. I plan to keep going and I will be sharing my discoveries along the way. As always, thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings and questions, comments and suggestions are always welcome. You can comment directly on this here blog or email me at adonphoto@gmail.com  Keep on doin' yo thang everybody!

Adam

New Black & White Work!

     Hey Everybody! So, as I promised in my last post...here is some black and white photographs that I  had been working on during the fall and winter of 2010. It's been a challenge showing this work in graduate school as it has been said that the photos are very broad and people struggle to find cohesion amongst the photographs. The work stems from simply carrying a camera with me everywhere I go and photographing what I find interesting. When pressed to speak of concept I refer to the work as a bit of a visual diary. A great deal of photographers, and artists in general for that matter, speak about their practice as a way to to explore themselves and the world that surrounds them. For me photography, specifically this body of work, allows me to do just that. It's a ticket that takes me on a journey to an unknown destination. I'm not concerned so much with where I end up but rather what I find along the way.
     I may give the black and white work a temporary vacation from grad school during the upcoming semester but I still intend to keep shooting the work for myself. For now, perhaps, that is the best thing for both of us. We shall see my friends. I suppose that's all for now. As always, thank you for reading and looking. Keep keepin' it real!


Adam

New Split Frames!

    Hello Everyone! So, it has been quite along time since my last post and for that....I apologize. Life has been very busy the past several months. My last post was right before my solo show opened at Pure Beauty on Haight Street in San Francisco. The opening was awesome and a lot of my friends came out to see my work and show their support. It was a truly great night. Thanks to everyone who helped me along the way with the show particularly Dan Stromberg, Leanne Miller and Amelia Konow!
    Since the opening in March a lot of other crazy stuff has gone down. I was accepted into the MFA photo program at the San Francisco Art Institute, graduated from the Post Baccalaureate program at SFAI, was hired to work at the school this summer and helped build a brand new darkroom, and now I'm currently a teaching assistant for a pre-college program that my school runs for high school kids. Through that program I also designed and led my own pinhole photography workshop and I'll be co-teaching another one tomorrow! I've also had many visitors over the past several months such as my main homie Peter Dawson from Delaware, my dope cousin Kimberly Gianone who was in route to Hawaii from Utah, and my awesome brother Frank Donnelly who was in from New York. In the midst of all of that I've been trying to find time to photograph!
   Above, you'll find some of the newer split frames I've shot and been mulling over for awhile. The first one is brand new and has yet to be seen. I also plan to post some of my black and white photographs I worked on last semester and some of the new ones I'm working on now. I also intend to start a brand new project....but I'll tell you about that later as it starts to take shape. I hope everyone is well and thanks for looking and reading. Keep it really fly.


Adam

Square One Show!

What's the good word everyone? I'm excited to say that I will be having a solo show at the Pure Beauty Salon at 1560 Haight Street in good 'ol San Francisco. Pictured is the low budget flyer I made with the quickness for the show. The show opens on March 4th so I'm hurrying to get everything together on top of all my school work. The opening will be from 6pm to 8pm and I believe there shall be some free wine...for your enticement. As always, thanks for reading! If you're around SF next month come check me at Pure Beauty! Word.

Adam

Another Split...

     Hello again everyone! So, here is my newest post from my color split frame series. It's not a definite yet...but I've been working on it for awhile and this is the second time I set up and photographed this scenario. I'm pretty pleased with it. As always, your feed back is whole heartily welcomed.

     Let it be said that I have not given up on the pinhole suitcase camera. I encountered some complications and discovered the project was a bit more difficult than I had expected. I was however, able to achieve some results! I will explain more later and show some of my tests once I'm able to get some scanning done. Until then...enjoy and thanks for reading. 

Adam

My New Camera

     Hi everybody! Today I got a new camera and I'm pretty excited about it! It can handle a wide array of light sensitive materials for picture taking and can it hold sizes up to 15"x22". It can produce images sharper than any lens...and it only cost $10! 
    Yes, I'm building another pinhole camera. Say what you want about pinhole photography but I, for one, am down. My tentative plan, as is common with pinhole cameras, is to make them out of everyday objects which can be found or bought. After turning the objects into cameras, I want to take said object where it would "naturally" function in our society and take a photograph with it. For example, I may take the suitcase to an airport or hotel. In other words, I will be reintroducing the object back into its natural environment. The act of transforming it into a camera then allows me to see what it sees.
    One thing that interests me is how the camera can function...not only as an everyday object with specific purposes but also as a photographic instrument. With the ever rapid advancements in technology, camera equipment is getting lighter, faster and often times more complex and more expensive. But, all you really need is light and time...light and time. Any object you can make light tight and poke a hole in is a camera...that's pretty dope if you ask me.
     Tomorrow I will begin building my suitcase camera and hope for positive results. I plan to share the outcome, good or bad, right here on this blog. So if your still reading and your still interested...I thank you and please stay tuned.
      
Adam
    

Black & White Edit

What's the good word everyone? So, I recently put together my portfolio to apply for graduate school at the San Francisco Art Institute. I'm currently a Post Bac student at the school and I will be applying for their MFA program in the next couple of weeks. My portfolio will include the color split frame photographs from my last post and the above edit from my black and white series entitled Square One. Many of the professors I've been working with have encouraged me to use both bodies of work in my portfolio. The general consensus is the combination of the two shows my photographic range and interests. To my surprise the two bodies seem to work well together. As always, I'm open to comments, criticism and suggestions. Thanks for looking.

Here is my artist rough artist statement that will accompany the portfolio:

     The majority of my life has been about transitions. Over the past ten years I have moved thirteen times and I often find that the constant changes are more taxing than I expected. Despite, my desire to move forward and progress, I can’t help but miss the people and places from my past. I question my decisions and choices and sometimes wonder if I had passed up something better. The constant motion of my life has left me feeling older and more guarded. Each time I move to a new place I have to start from square one and build a new life for myself. Sometimes, this constant re-constructing makes me feel alone and, as I approach age 30, a desire to settle down.
     My black and white photographs are representation of my most recent transition…my last year in Boston and my move to the West Coast. They are a depiction of the temporary spaces in which I settled, the people I had become close to, and the exploration of my new “home” in San Francisco. Many of the photographs are taken at night, as this was the time of day I was most free to photograph. I choose to handhold the camera, as I am interested in capturing quick, fleeting experiential moments, which coincides with the constantly moving transitional periods in my own life. I am attracted to the work of photographers such as Robert Frank and Daido Moriyama as they employ
a similar aesthetic to generate an experiential quality.
     My color photographs are an investigation into domestic spaces and the daily routines and habits that arise from living in them. The split form allows for more of the domestic space to be shown and helps create a narrative within each individual photograph. In many of the photographs I choose to use myself as the subject in order to
investigate my own domestic life and how it functions. I am alone in the scenes because, in my recent life, these are tasks I perform solely for myself.

Adam Donnelly