I was going through some old photos. I’m always amazed how much I forget about what I’ve shot. Its really fun to be surprised by shoots that have slipped your mind, or finding a new photo in the bunch. Anyway, I’m going through some of these old photos looking for various portraits. Some of the portraits I’m looking through are from editorial or commercial assignments, some are personal and some are commissioned by clients. In the near future, I will begin offering some workshops on photography, varying from the art of the portrait, to landscape photography, to post work. Nothing concrete yet and no formal announcement, just something coming in the not too distant future, so stay tuned. I’ve been thinking of offering some workshops for awhile now and since I’m working toward my MFA, teaching has become more and more attractive to me and the direction I want to go in.

So here’s an old photo I dug up that I’d forgotten about. There are things I like about it and things I don’t but its just fun to find these “forgotten” photos.

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

I’ve been wanting to include in this series photos illustrating the significance of the land and agriculture. Since its spring, many farmers have been out tilling their soil for planting. This photo is from Tennessee, near Flagpond.

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

Barbara Crane’s Private Views

Barbara Crane’s book Private Views was recently published by Aperture. Its from a series she photographed one summer in the early 1980s in Chicago of people in the crowds of festivals and concerts. It was shot on Polaroid 4×5 film with a Speed Graphic Camera. I really like the tight croppings of body parts. There’s a bit of a similarity to Larry Fink’s Social Graces work, but Crane takes it a step further in that her photos are in color and her sujects even more tightly cropped.

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

I’d been looking for a really good TV dish for awhile. Finally I found one really worthy. I’m still looking for some good antennas, though. Occasionally I seem them on some houses, I’m not even sure what they are for, they look like they’d be for weather, very wire-like.

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

Camera Obscura Article

There’s an article I’ve written over on Camera Obscura that they were kind enough to publish about some of my recent work.  Some of my photos are there as well, which enlarge quite nicely btw.  There are also some really good projects listed on the site worth checking out as well by people like Lisa Kereszi, Mark Brautigam, Jorg Bruggemann and many, many more. So what are you waiting for, go check it out!

Kyaking

Last week I photographed Anna Levesque for Verve Magazine. Anna’s a highly accomplished kayaker and paddler and runs a business, Girls At Play. We went to the Ledges on the French Broad for the portraits and action photos of Anna kayaking. There’s not too much white water around Asheville, as the French Broad is rather tame, but it does have a few spots for white water ,especially with all the much needed rain we’ve been getting lately.

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

Robert Frank’s unflinching gaze

I hear a lot about Robert Frank these days. Not that I didn’t before, but it seems there’s more chatter, probably because Steidl re-released The Americans, as well as most, if not all, of Frank’s other works including his movies. Also, there is the show of  The Americans touring the country and currently on display at the National Gallery. Of course too, he’s influenced countless photographers in the last half century and is credited by most as being of seminal significance, which he is.

So I was just thinking about him and his work. I love so many of his images, the entire book The Americans is pure brilliance, however there is one image that sticks with me time after time. I’m referring to the image of a car on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, which happens to have Frank’s then-wife and children inside. Then-wife because at a later point she was no longer his wife, divorce being the reason. His children are in the car, one of which is his son, Pablo who sadly committed suicide as an adult after struggling with mental illness, and Andrea who died in a plane crash. What strikes me about this photo is the tragedy contained within that car, both the future and the current. You can almost feel the marriage dissolving in front of your eyes.

The Americans ends with that photo and it seems to be the exclamation point on the work. All the photos preceding it of the despair, mundane, acerbic, hopelessness seem to culminate with the sorrow of this one image.   For me, that makes the image the saddest and most powerful of the series. It was so personal to Frank, and he didn’t exclude himself or his life from the aim of the lens. Frank must of had some idea all was not well, and as he traveled around on his Guggenheim Fellowship for a year he was at times accompanied by his family. The stress and strain must have been terrible on not only Frank, but his wife and young children. This singular image becomes so powerful because of third effect we get knowing the future of the occupants as well as the association of melancholy with the photos leading up to it. It may be Frank’s best photograph and it may have also been the hardest to take. One thing is certain, it is pure tragedy.

Copyright Robert Frank

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

HATCHfest Asheville 2009

The first HATCHfest of Asheville is this week. I’m not really sure what to expect with this event. It seems promising, I’m just not sure if that will translate into a successful event. The photography exhibit should be good. The exhibit features the work of several photographers including Ken Abbott, Cathryn Griffin and Rob Amberg.  I’ll be working with Cathryn next year at Western, where she is the head of the photography department and where I will be attending for my MFA, so I’m really looking forward to seeing more of her work.

The photography exhibit will surprisingly be held at Blue Spiral, one of Asheville’s best galleries, however not one know for their display of photography. Asheville in general seems to have a dearth of serious photography exhibits, the exception being occasional shows at UNCA and at the Asheville Art Museum, both of which have had some really strong exhibits over the years. The galleries seem to avoid photography, in general because it can’t or doesn’t sell well. Most of the art in Asheville that sells is purchased for interior design and decoration of homes, not for the sake of collecting and supporting serious art.  Below is some information from the HATCHfest website.

• The photography discipline at Asheville’s first Hatch Fest will be represented by an exhibition of eight local photographers at Blue Spiral Gallery, 38 Biltmore Ave., downtown Asheville. (828) 251-0202  •   www.bluespiral1.com
  The exhibit will open with a reception and an opportunity to meet and ask questions of the photographers, on Wednesday, April 15, from 5-7 p.m., at the gallery.
  The exhibition will run at the gallery through May 3, 2009.
  Photographers included in the exhibition are: Ken Abbott, Rob Amberg, Eric Baden, Cathryn Griffin, Jody Servon, Mike Smith, Mark Steinmetz, and Jeff Whetstone.

Tasteless

This is probably the most disrespectful memoriam I’ve seen. I understand it isn’t mean to be disrespectful, rather the person or persons who set it up simply have no class, tact or common sense. The only thing worse I could think of is to have your remembrance on a toilet. So every time I think of trash and waste, I’m suppose to remember this fallen soldier. Its a shame that someone who gave their life, has to be humiliated in this fashion. It would be humorous, if it weren’t that someone’s life was lost for the joke. What it says is, “When I think of trash, I think of you.”

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener

Easter Bunny

Recent Photos from Barnardsville, north Buncombe county and Erwin, TN.

Copyright Scott Lessing Hubener