2020

To be honest, I've exhausted most of what I wanted to say about this year in the past few updates. Looking back at my catalogue, I still consider 2019 to be my best year in terms of quality. I had reached the peak of my editing skills and I was much more selective in terms of curating. But even before quarantine, I had a lot of time to reflect on where I was going as an artist. I had been surrounded by an art community that considered my genre derivative, a sentiment that I bitterly resented. I had believed that my work was personal and transformative enough to transcend the landscape genre.

However, examining the history of art culture made me aware of the ways in which we perpetuate art trends not because we find them inherently interesting or meaningful but because we feel compelled to follow a standard in the hopes of appearing legitimate. In truth, a part of me was following a standard of romantic landscape art because that's what I considered the height of good photography. I also just enjoyed it.

I realized more recently as I diverged into abstract noise photography that I had an opportunity to merge what I consider the creative frontier of digital art with my traditional inclinations. I suspect that going forward, I'll look at noise less as a statement and more as a supplementary aesthetic to the broader idea of creating photography that explores memory and sentimentality. I've enjoyed my last couple of collections because they bring back my interest in natural work, and it seems I've come full circle from dismissing landscape earlier this year.

I tried creating a collage that summarized some of the themes and topics of my work. Quarantine was an obvious overarching motif, but I also included the massive forest fires we suffered in the early fall as well as my experiments in noise and manipulation. I also included my commercial work, which will likely become a larger portion of my website once I get more clients (and better equipment).

As of now, I am entirely updated with my photography. This is a pretty big milestone for me because the last time I was up to date must have been at least three or four years ago. I tend to pile up projects that delay publishing. I have a few experimental albums with a floppy disk camera that I may post at some point in the future, but for now, I'll be updating my Instagram page and reorganizing my website.

Thank you for reading, and thank you for supporting me as always,

- J.

Building A Better Tomorrow

These shots were meant to be material that I would later edit and abstract beyond recognition in The Neo-Suburban Memory and not as standalone photographs. But I thought it would be a shame to end 2020 without posting them since they fit well into my recent trend of nature/noise photography. Neo constitutes my final exhibition at San Jose State (coming soon in March), and I was exploring suburban iconography within the context of family and memory.

A Warm Welcome

I spent the final days in Portland with my parents where I frequently visited my sister and her family. As has become tradition with my visits, I took a stroll down to the local pond with my nephews, who have also taken an interest in photography. I mostly focused on the diverse birdlife with a particular interest in a flock or "raft" of American Wigeons.

I made a choice to edit in a warmer temperature to reflect the late afternoon setting. I often avoid warmer tones because they tend to make the colors appear too saturated. They also provide less contrast than cooler tones. But on occasion, a warmer palette is preferable when I'm inclined to depict an inviting and contemplative atmosphere. I unironically enjoy overly sentimental art, and something about families of ducks gently gliding on the reflective surfaces of a pond puts me in a sentimental mood.  In this particular instance, the warmer tones transform the dull brown water into gold.

I've learned to be more strategic with reflective water and shore birds like ducks and seagulls. If you compare different photographs in this collection, the first set is located in the shadows of massive trees, which give the water a dark, foreboding blanket of black, while the latter shots open up to the deep blue late afternoon sky. The angle also matters since you can catch beautiful bright highlights in the ripples, which look especially great contrasted against dark water.

Unfortunately, the distance I was shooting at meant that I couldn't capture the commotion of these flocks as vividly and detailed as I might have liked. I close this section with "tapestries" that are cropped wider. I imagine that in an exhibit these photographs would stretch to each end of a wall, and like an elaborate classical painting, you would be able to get up close and observe each duck in their own personality.