Author: JH

I’ve posted this image earlier, here. This is a more refined version, cleaned up in Photoshop. Now, I know that there’s a vocal tribe in the blogoshpere that acts as if they were heading the Reichskulturkammer and Photoshop were the modern equivalent of “Entartete Kunst”. I am less passionate about this: While I don’t cut and paste (but see no problem with those who do except if it is supposed to be news photography), I feel no need to restrict myself when it comes to changing color or contrast. I am interested in the structure of things, hence I often do enhance contrast quite a bit. And since I am not very interested in distinguishing between “commercial” images like (sort of) this one, and those that make it in my books and projects, many of my images get the same treatment technically.

I have this guilty feeling that I’m spending a little too much thought on where to go next, once I’m through with Manhattan. But at least I know that I don’t have to spend much *time* with such questions: There’s nothing that a quick search on Google Maps, Flickr and YouTube won’t reveal in just a few minutes (how long does it take to get from the UCLA campus to LAX? The train ride from Zurich to Bern? It’s all there).

Doing some research last night, I came across a piece in the LA Weekly that seems a little obsessive though. I am someone who likes to take long walks, and near UCLA campus (so Google tells me) that’s to be done in the Los Angeles National Cemetery. Apparently, other people’s research is less confined by their immediate needs. This from the author “Falling James” (you can read the entire piece here):

“[…] It’s important to find a graveyard that feels like home. Certainly, it would be exciting to be buried among celebrities and other historic people […]. Picking the right place to get lost for an eternity requires some soulful window-shopping. I like to sleep in cemeteries overnight to get a feel for a place, to get used to the idea of death and to see how I’ll get along with the current residents. It’s not much different from testing out a new bed by lying down on a mattress in a furniture store […].

I used to like to wander around the Los Angeles National Cemetery because it was a calm, quiet oasis of orderly green safely hidden by tall trees from the surrounding hubbub of the nearby office buildings and Wilshire Boulevard’s endless parade of traffic. […] The National Cemetery looked peaceful and innocent like a golf course, but it wasn’t a restful place to sleep or dream […].

Similarly, I’ve always thought that Forest Lawn–type cemeteries are too big and impersonal, too much like a Costco for the dead […] My favorite resting place would be Woodlawn Memorial Cemetery in Santa Monica. That cemetery has personality, with graves dating back to the 19th century amid a pleasant clutter of tombs, many topped with mournful angels and other elaborately sentient sculptures. It’s a lovely site, and most nights you can catch a salty whiff of the Pacific Ocean just down the street. Woodlawn is the kind of cemetery where the spirits are friendly and every ghost already knows your name. It’s a great place to hang out — if only you didn’t have to die to get in.”

LA, here I come.

I am not unaware of the fact the people like categories. After all, there is hardly a more convenient crutch. When it comes to photography, there is a particular downside to that: Once you live in one category, be it as a creator or as a presenter of photography, you’ll inevitably be/become/remain one-dimensional. It keeps to amaze me how, e.g., people who are well regarded in field of “fine art” promote incredibly stuffy aesthetics that would make any good contemporary advertising photographer cringe. Or the grandiose, self-absorbed art school person that couldn’t come up with a decent news photo even if if a space ship from Mars landed right in front of her.

Personally, I’m always on the hunt for the elusive image that works in more environments than one. Of course, 999 times out of 1000, I fail. The above image is one example for that kind of failure: It’s somehow not a bad image. In a commercial environment it would license well, but on a wall it does not hold its own (the image is from about four weeks ago, and I actually have a series from that day that may work better. But then, I don’t like images that work *only* as part of a series).