Hey Look!

It only took me four months to post these Chihuly photos on flickr! Back in May, I visited the Dale Chihuly exhibition ‘Through The Looking Glass’ at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. It was big, flashy, loud and glassy. And sometimes it was impressive. You would go in, look around, take photos, exit through the gift shop, spend money on Chihuly-approved merchandise. I did all the above with the exception of spending money. I took some photos with my other than the iPhone camera, you know, a real camera, and in typical fashion I procrastinated seemingly forever to review, edit and upload them.

So, yes, now that the exhibition is over, a month after the chaotic last days when the lines stretched all around the museum block and people waited for hours to see it, now that no one cares anymore, I have posted the photos on flickr (you can click here for the slideshow). Here are some of my favorites:

FAST Light at MIT

This past weekend of May 7 and 8 the MIT campus in Cambridge and the Charles River got illuminated by many quirky art installations. It was FAST Light, the finale of the three-month-long festival of Art + Science + Technology at MIT.  On Sunday I walked around the campus, enjoyed the scene and the neat art pieces,  and took some photos.

Liquid Archive

voltaDom

Light Drift

String Tunnels

Low Resolution

Oh, the evolution of the image quality through the history of photography: We started in low resolution and monochrome. Then we strove for higher resolutions and color. We went from cameras obscura to film to digital. We created heavy lenses with complex glass systems. We wanted more megapixels, we came to despise the grainy image, we wanted it to be crystal clear.

Then we became overcome with nostalgia of the grainy image. We went back to shooting film. Then we realized our cell phones took low resolution photos. We became obsessed with the faux-vintage look. We used and abused camera phone applications that give that certain look to our photos, we couldn’t get enough of applying the preset filters. We still want our phones to come with cameras with more megapixels to capture clear images, only to reject the clarity in editing and post-production. We killed image clarity with Hipstamatic and Instagram.

The evolution trajectory in image resolution has been from low to high to low-or-high. Clarity and image sharpness are a choice now, which, of course, is a very good thing. Sometimes I do like my photographic images to have a retro look. I like them to be low resolution and almost look like paintings. Sometimes I like things blurry, I like things looking dreamy. In these days that everything seems loud and big and intrusive, I sometimes prefer things to be implied, I prefer things to be subtle.

Snow Day, January 12, 2011

At work on Tuesday we were all talking about the snow storm brewing, kept reading the updated weather forecasts, and started growing anxious, when by the end of the work day we still didn’t know whether next day was going to be a snow day or not. I left work and 15 minutes later I got the call that made me happy: a snow day indeed. Tuesday night I drank wine, stayed up late and watched every news forecast available. They were talking about 18 inches of snow. When I got to bed around midnight, it was still dry.

At around 6 a.m. on Wednesday I woke up by the sound of thunder. I must be having weird dreams, I thought, I should drink less wine next time. I got up around 9:30, looked out of my window, everything was white, it looked like a lot of snow. The bikepath was completely covered by snow, the tree branches were snow frosted, and fat snow flakes were coming down. I turned on the TV and they talked about thunder snow and lighting. Wow.

It was quite windy, as well. By around 2 p.m. I realized I’ve been too lazy and I went for a brief walk from North Cambridge along the bikepath to Davis Square. It was beautiful, fresh snow, few cars on the roads.

Saw cross-country skiers, dogs trying to walk and play in the thick snow layer. And I took some photos, of course. The wind made it a little bit challenging, and it was quite cold: when I finally got back home, my fingers and toes were frozen.

Here’s the slideshow of my photos and here’s the set .

 

My Neighborhood On An Autumn Day

This is what North Cambridge looked like yesterday. Yellow. And blue.

Photo of the Day, July 19, 2010 on Bostonist.com

A photo I took during ArtBeat, the funky arts festival in Davis Square in Somerville was chosen Photo of the Day for Monday July 19, 2010 on Bostonist.com. I took the photo on Saturday, which was a pretty hot and humid day, that is not as refreshing as water, this year’s ArtBeat theme. The water in the inflatable pool looked inviting, the bubbles not so. When I tried to picture myself in the bubble,  I could only think of depleted oxygen supply and suffocation. Yes, you can call me party pooper. But kids, that’s what they like, walking on the water in gigantic bubbles. And it looked like they were having lots os fun.

I decided to do some post production treatment on the original image, using the Photoshop application for iPhone. I kinda like the dreamy hue of the end result. The blue of the inflatable pool is strong and reminds me that I can’t wait for the day I’m going on vacation.

Gritty Somerville

Sometime last summer I took a photowalk in the gritty parts of Somerville. The areas of the city with the auto shops, the areas of abandoned buildings, abandoned trains, boarded up buildings, the areas where rust and decay are everywhere. There is something compelling about decay, there is something beautiful. Something that catches the eye and you can’t ignore. You can see the full set of my photos here.

Self-Portrait

I only like the photographs of myself that I take. When the photograph is taken by someone else, I feel the burden of the pose, the forced smile, the uncertainty of how things look. In the end nothing ever works for me. Maybe it’s a matter of mood; I have to be in the mood to be photographed to feel comfortable. Maybe it’s because I can never trust the other eye behind the lens – do they see what I would see?

A couple of weeks ago I noticed that the theme for February’s photo competition on boston.com’s RAW was “Loving Portraits”. The competition is for amateur photographers and the theme sounded intriguing. The idea was that the photos submitted should show the love of the photographer towards the subject. The good thing about this contest was that the photo did not have to be taken in this month, which was extremely convenient, since I wanted to to submit a photo I took back in September. And it was a… self-portrait. I wasn’t sure if self-portraits were allowed so I asked the site’s moderator, while jokingly saying “cuz, ya know, I really, really love myself”, and she said yes.

It’s not the “self” part that makes this photograph special to me. I think it’s the best portrait I have ever taken. It’s not that I look perfect (my nose is its usual big self), but I feel that the photo captures my mood, which was something like “things sometimes get tough and I am tired, but in the end I’m gonna make it alright”. I remember the day I took this picture. I went for a walk on the Minuteman bikepath and when I got to Spy Pond in Arlington, I sat by the pond for a while to enjoy the low early evening light. I had my point and shoot camera with me and with the sun bathing my face I started taking photos of myself. I was feeling comfortable, although I could hear people walking behind me all the time. But I didn’t care. Everything felt right, everything felt good: my mood, the light, my skin, my hair. I have made photos from that shoot my avatar pictures on twitter, facebook, flickr and here. And for a while now I abide by the rule that my profile photos should be only self-portraits.

After posting all the entries galleries and the final 50, today they finally announced the winners of the “Loving Portraits” contest and my photo made it to the Top 10, at number 7.

And if you think this is shameless self love, I am fine with that…