DARIN HAYTON

Tag: Black and White

  • Making Zines

    Making Zines

    I like making things. Little things. Big things. Lately, I’ve been having fun with an 8-page zine. Printed from one piece of paper, folded, and cut, it is to me the ideal format for a short outing, or for a case study of a place. Or, I can look back through photographs I’ve taken to find a group of 8 that make a good theme.

    A color photograph of zines I have made recently.
    Some of the zines I have been making lately.

    They are easy and relatively quick to print and to fold. I use 11″x17″ sheets of paper, so that each page is about 4″x5″, large enough to showcase the photographs but not so large as to be bulky. I tweaked the layout a bit so that the cover image wraps around the front and back covers.

    Color photograph of the “Vienna at Night” zine, before I folded and cut it.
    The “Vienna at Night” zine before I folded and cut it.

    This format also gives a place to print a large photograph on the back side. It’s sort of a surprise for the person looking at the zine, and a puzzle — it seems unfolding and refolding the zine presents something of a challenge for people, which I didn’t expect.

    A color picture of the Glorietta in Vienna, which is the central image in my zine.
    A picture of the Glorietta that is the central image of the zine “Vienna at Night”

    When it is all done, trimmed, folded, and cut, the zine is the perfect size for my guerrilla art projects. I have given them to friends and handed them to people I don’t know, left them on tables and shelves in coffeeshops, stuffed them between books in libraries and bookstores, and left them on seats in buses.

    Color photograph of the cover of the “Vienna at Night” zine, showing half of the Hofburg.
    The cover of the “Vienna at Night” zine.

    I don’t know what happens to those I abandon in the world. And I don’t really care. The point, for me, is in the making and giving away (not, I stress, “sharing” which has become an essential part of the economy of likes, has become entirely transactional, and depends on knowing what happens to whatever you make).

    Color photograph of two pages in the “Vienna at Night” zine, after I folded and cut it.
    Two of the pages in the “Vienna at Night” zine, after I folded, cut, and pressed it flat.

    Sometimes I leave the house, camera in hand, looking for a coherent set of images that work well together. That was the case with the “Walking in Sacramento” or the “Alone in Philadelphia” zines — I knew an afternoon’s walk would produce at least 8 scenes I could cobble together into a zine. Other times, I draw from a few trips out and about, as in the “Vienna at Night” zines (there are two of these zines, gathering together the photographs from a few nights wandering the city late at night). In other cases, a zine emerges when I’m looking back through photos I’ve taken over a number of trips out. “Alone in Jefferson” is that type — the central image is part of a collection of photographs I’ve taken usually in Jefferson Station that highlight the loneliness of the modern world.

    Color photograph of the central image in the “Alone in Jefferson” zine. A man stands alone against a blue tiled wall. He looks towards his feet.
    The central image for the “Alone in Jefferson” zine.

    Any group of 8 photographs that cohere can become one of these little zines. Inspired by Alexey Titarenko, I took a bunch of photographs of people in a local cafe (see Ghosts in the Cafe). Turns out I have 8 that work well together, so I printed them as a zine. Seems appropriate that I left a handful in that cafe.

    Black and white photograph of a spread from the “Ephemeral” zine, showing ghost like figures is a cafe.
    A spread from the “Ephemeral” zine.

    Like all of my projects, this one will last as long as I find it amusing or interesting. I will continue to print copies of these zines, and cast them into the world. If you’d like to receive a few, send me $10 and your address. I will send you three random zines. Or, offer something in exchange.

  • Ghosts in the Café

    Ghosts in the Café

    Lately I have been inspired by the long-exposure photos of Alexey Titarenko. I think his “City of Shadows” is beautiful and haunting. To be sure, some of my fascination comes from my fascination with 1990s St. Petersburg. Nonetheless, I find the images lovely. So I thought I would try some long or, in this case, multiple exposures

    Black and white photo inside a cafe. All the patrons are blurred out.
    Urban #230911.

    The local café is convenient and has reasonable coffee, so I am practicing there. I like the look, but need to find a better location. I should head into the city one night. Maybe if we get snow this winter. I have some places in mind that will, I hope, look good.

    Black and white photo inside a cafe. All the patrons are blurred out.
    Urban #230916
  • Books

    Books

    I find physical books comforting. Each one is a statement, somebody somewhere saying “I was here. I made this.” Books are human. By almost any measure they are less convenient, take up more room, and weigh more than digital versions. They require shelves. They collect dust and boring insects. It’s not difficult to take one or maybe two with me, but more than that becomes challenging. Because of my own personal relationship with books, I don’t write in them. If I find something I want to remember, I have to write it down on paper. So I need a pen and paper or a notebook whenever I read.

    Still life #240331.1. A black and white photograph of old books on a shelf.
    Still life #240331.1.

    I do not own a dedicated ebook reader. I can’t imagine ever owning one. Not being able to turn a page would drive me mad. I do read articles on a tablet. And I annotate those articles. I find it incredibly convenient and easy. I can take hundreds of articles with me anywhere I go — my tablet never seems to weigh any more no matter how many articles I transfer to it. Sure, I never need more than a couple articles, but since I can take them, why not?

    Still life #240331.2. A black and white photograph of old books on a shelf.
    Still life #240331.2.

    Books and ebooks make me think of cameras and photographs. I can take thousands of pictures on my digital camera. I can take copies of every one of those pictures with me on my phone. It never gets any heavier. But somehow not being able to flip through photographs leaves me unsatisfied. Pinching and scrolling might allow me to see details I wouldn’t see in a photograph, but I don’t know that my experience has improved. I don’t enjoy holding my phone for other people to squint at, and I don’t enjoy squinting at other people’s phones.

    Still life #240331.3. A black and white photograph of old books on a shelf.
    Still life #240331.3.

    I will not likely examine every photograph I print, just as I probably won’t read carefully and remember every book on my shelves. But I like having those books there on my shelves, organized according to my own idiosyncratic system, ready to pull down when I want. I like having boxes of photographs, organized according to my own idiosyncratic system, ready to sort through whenever I want. When somebody asks, I can pull down a book and point out something, or I can pull out a photograph and show that person something.

    Still life #240331.4. A black and white photograph of old books on a shelf.
    Still life #240331.4.

    I also enjoy the process of making photographs, just as I enjoy the process of making books. Everything I make could never progress beyond some digital artifact — I always use a digital camera, I could compose on a computer, I could assemble documents that combined text and images, I could make PDF or EPUB files. But that would be, for me, unfulfilling. Some days, I use a film camera, some days a digital. Some days I confine myself to a digital process. Some days I stick to analog. Most days, regardless of how I get there, I make books or partial books and fragments of books. I have boxes full of books and possible books. Rumor has it that making things with my hands is good for my brain, but that’s not why I do it. I do it because I find physical books comforting. I do it because it’s my way of saying “I am here. I made this.”

  • The Tyranny of “Style”

    The Tyranny of “Style”

    Style has become both a fetish and a marketing device. We read or, more likely in today’s podcast- and YouTube-dominated world, hear and see over and over again that we have to discover our style as if it’s some buried treasure or a form of therapeutic self-realization (the alternative formulation, “we have to find our style” doesn’t change the point). The person telling us to find our style usually offers to help us do so, adopting a sort of guru or therapist role, or, equally often, offers to sell us a class to lead us along the path to illumination. All this focus on style seems to be, at best, misguided or, more likely, fraudulent.

    Urban #230917. A black and white photograph of ghostly images in a cafe.
    Urban #230917

    Style is now a commodity that people sell. In marketing pitches, they link photographic success to finding a style. They dream up exercises and techniques, not for taking pictures or making photographs or thinking about what interests you, but for developing your style. They talk about visual consistency. Although they are quick to say style is more than a set of presets, they then reduce style to a set of prescribed actions that enables you to achieve this consistency of look, as if homogeneity were a desideratum. And they promise to help you find your look. Free newsletters are gateway drugs to $150/hour coaching sessions. Free YouTube videos are infomercials for classes and one-on-one sessions. Some talking head teases the viewer with promises of fame and success, usually through tedious and dubious claims about the presenter’s own overnight economic success. Style is always reduced to economic success.

    Never do we hear these people promise your photography will be more fulfilling or more rewarding or more enjoyable. They don’t say you’ll be better able to realize your creative vision, or that you’ll make more important photographs (here, David duChemin’s distinction between good and important is relevant here). No. They can only promise financial success. How often they deliver on that promise is an open question.

    Imposing a style, i.e., a signature look, has replaced any expression of creativity or individual intentionality, has reduced photography to an iterative almost algorithmic task. Find a particular scene. Photograph it from a particular angle in a particular light. Process in a particular way. To paraphrase and repurpose Lear:

    That way madness and homogeneity and boredom lie; let me shun that.
    No more of that.

    To be clear, I think that after doing something over and over again and with intentionality, a person will create a style. Klinkenborg’s comment seems appropriate here: style is the “fusion of your command of [visual] language and your commitment to your own intent.” Importantly, “you don’t need to think about style.”

    Countless artists developed a style, but not by focusing on style. See, e.g., Lucas Cranach the Elder or Albrecht Dürer or Hieronymous Bosch or Giuseppe Archimboldo or Pieter Breugel since I’m in a Northern Renaissance mood. They produced lots and lots and lots of drawings, paintings , sketches, and engravings. Their style emerged, as Klinkenborg puts it, through their command of the relevant language and their commitment to their own intent.

    No, the style gurus can’t teach style. They can teach rules. But rules are not style, as Mavis Gallant reminds us:

    Working to rule, trying to make a barely breathing work of fiction simpler and more lucid and more euphonious merely injects into the desperate author’s voice a tone of suppressed hysteria, the result of what E. M. Forster called “confusing order with orders.”

    M. Gallant, “What is Style?” in Paris Notebooks, 259–260

    Gallant’s comment applies equally to photography, and probably every other creative endeavor.

  • For no public

    For no public

    I do not write for the public.

    G.M. Hopkins

    I don’t quite know how Hopkins meant this comment. His poetry suggests, to me, that he meant he didn’t write popular verse. He wrote for an audience of one or maybe for no audience. He wrote what he needed to write and didn’t give any thought to how people might read it.

    Urban #231223. A black and white photo of a table with two chairs in a darkened space.
    Urban #231223.

    Hopkins’ comment pairs well, I think, with a poster I saw the other day:

    it’s not always about what you make, but the fact that you are creating.

    Simone Salib Studio

    Today’s economy of exposure demands that we create in the hopes of gaining validation from some imagined audience of potentially thousands. Succumbing to that demand prevents us from making the things we want to see and risks constraining our collective creativity.

    Repeat as needed: Be comfortable enough with yourself to create what you need to create. That’s what matters.

  • Business is slow

    Business is slow

    Seven women sit in the cafe. I’m the eighth person. Aside from the worker’s voice that carries, the room is quiet. One woman is writing something, her pen poised above a pad of paper. One woman reads a book. Two are working on class assignments — like most students, “work” seems to mean announce that they have assignments to finish, and then to talk to each other about non-assignment issues (e.g., “I’m looking for an audio version of that book I wanted to read” and “My Spotify smart list introduced me to lots of new music” she said as she put in her earbuds). Another woman just entered and put her stuff on the table nearest me. She ordered an iced chai.

    The three workers behind the counter pass the time by telling stories.

    Urban #230916. A black and white photograph of ghostly images in a cafe.
    Urban #230916

    Three more women just entered; an old man followed them in. They stopped to put there stuff on a table. He walked straight up to the counter, ordered a large black coffee — “No” he replied when asked if he needed room for cream — and immediately left with his coffee. The women order lattes, one with vanilla.

    So went the first hour of business. Maybe the incessant rain discouraged customers from coming in.

  • Seen in a Café

    Seen in a Café

    The old guy is asking questions, offering suggestions, and taking notes. He’s there with a young couple, planning the music for the couple’s wedding. At first glance he looks like the leader of some cover band, but he’s probably DJ. A full head of lovely silver hair, he is in his mid-60s and easily twice the age of the couple. She does most of the talking. Her fiancé sits quietly, nodding his support when she looks his way. The old guy directs most questions to the young woman. She fields even those the the old guy tosses to her fiancé, who seems overwhelmed, a confused spectator in his own life. The fiancé’s physical presence exhausts his role. His being there is evidence of his agreement with the planning decisions made this morning.

    Black and white photograph of three people sitting at a table in a coffee shop.
    Urban #230909

    She, by contrast, has arrived prepared and eager to engage. Consulting her computer screen, she emphasizes her responses with a chopping motion of her right hand. Occasionally her left hand reaches out to touch her fiancé’s shoulder, but her attention remains focused on the old man. She steps through various stages of the event: while guests are being seated, walking down the aisle, entrances, first dance, father-daughter dance. The fiancé nods appropriately. When he looks to the side to retrieve his coffee, fatigue flashes across his face. He shifts, uncomfortable in his chair. He doesn’t share her enthusiasm for this process. Will the fiancé remember this episode? Does the music matter to him? Maybe. Maybe not. The music will likely have no more of an impact on him than the flower arrangements, the menu choices, or the photographer whose serviceable but unremarkable photographs will rot in some drawer amongst a pile of other USB thumb drives filled with important memories.

    As they stand to leave, the young woman hands the old guy an envelop, she looks at her fiancé who, on cue, extends his hand and thanks the old guy. They say how excited they are to be working with him. They leave. The old guy puts the envelop in his bag, walks up to the register, orders an oat latte, and sits back down.

  • The Loss of Idleness

    The Loss of Idleness

    I don’t know quite how to begin. These ideas are just beginning to take shape. Maybe I can start simply, by describing what concerns me, what seems, at least to me, to be a problem.

    The other day, while stopped at a traffic light, the two people in the car next to me were both consumed by their phones; behind them on the corner a pedestrian stared at his phone as he leaned on the light pole waiting for a walk signal. This morning as I stood third in line to order coffee, the person in front of me hunched over her phone. The woman behind me at the market, having loaded her groceries onto the belt, pulled out her phone while I paid my bill. When I look around, such scenes repeat themselves everywhere — we don’t dare spend a single moment in idleness. I worry we have lost something important by filling every instance with an endless source of distractions.

    Urban #230510.2. A black and white photo of a woman standing in 30th Street Station looking at her phone.
    Urban #230510.2.

    Neil Gaimon is reported to have said: “Ideas come from daydreaming. They come from drifting. So if you want to get a good idea for a book, you have to let yourself get so bored that your mind has nothing better to do than tell itself a story.” Gaimon’s point applies to more than writing books. Daydreaming, drifting, boredom are the source of and essential for creativity. In idleness we become bricoleurs, collecting fragments of the world around us that we arrange into something new.

    Urban #230510.3. A black and white photo of a woman sitting in Pret à Manger in 30th Street Station looking at her phone.
    Urban #230510.3.

    Most of the things we create will seem, at first glance, of little value, but upon reflection we might begin to appreciate both the process of creating them and, now and then, the things themselves. Each item will, after all, be something we have made, something we have added to the universe, proof that we have been here. Each will reflect us at a particular moment. Photographs, for example. Through a process of selection and exclusion, each one is an assembly of pieces from the world around me. Each reflects ideas and anxieties, joys and sorrows of a particular moment and a particular place. Each also offers a seed for later reflection, a chance to try to recover what concerned me at the time or opportunity to tell myself a story about what happened to the scene afterwards.

    Urban #230510.4. A black and white photo of a man sitting in Pret à Manger in 30th Street Station looking at her phone.
    Urban #230510.4.

    Bricolage is the process of assembling the fragments of your surroundings into something new — Gaimon’s comment about telling yourself a story. It’s what the bricoleur does, it’s what the author and the creator do. It takes practice to fit pieces together, to grasp how different shards can be combined into a harmonious whole. Idleness, boredom, drifting — these are the times we practice assembling those shards into something coherent and new. If we deny ourselves those idle moments we deny ourselves the chance to have ideas. When we outsource those ideas to algorithms and other people (who are, typically aping something they have seen on their phones), we lose the ability to think and create for ourselves.

    Urban #230510.5. A black and white photo of a woman standing in 30th Street Station looking at her phone.
    Urban #230510.5.

    The world is a fascinating place, if we just take the time to look around, if we lose ourselves in doing nothing. Idleness is, it seems, essential to creation.

  • Creativity Needs No Audience

    Creativity Needs No Audience

    I envy Vivian Maier. Not because I like her work — I have seen too few of her photos to know what I think of them, though I doubt they would appeal much to me. No. I envy Vivian Maier because she seems not to have cared whether or not I liked her work, or had any ideas about it one way or another. She seems not to have given a single thought to any audience. That must be liberating, a particular type of freedom that encourages a more sincere form of creativity.

    Urban #230717. A black and white photograph of a person ice skating alone.
    Urban #230717.

    In my taxonomy, Maier didn’t produce art so much as engaged in creativity. She answered to some siren call that others were not able to or privileged to hear. She made photographs that she wanted to or had to make. Maybe she produced for an audience of one, herself. I am always impressed by that person who strives to do something, to make something, to realize some inner need even when or especially when nobody is watching.

  • Fragments and Traces

    Fragments and Traces

    That a photograph must tell a story is commonplace. “Storytelling” has conquered every form of photography, from landscape to street photography to elaborately staged scenes. I prefer to see photographs as fragments, extraits from a now lost present. John Berger remarked on the gap between the moment photographed and the present, saying

    All photographs are of the past, and yet in them an instant of the past is arrested so that, unlike a lived past, it can never lead to the present.

    Urban #230727.1. Black and white photograph of a person ice skating showing just the skates on the ice.
    Urban #230727.1.

    Photographs, in being fragments contain only traces of their own immediate pasts. From those traces we imagine a thousand different possible pasts that remain entombed like some ancient insect in the amber of the past.

    Urban #230727.2. Black and white photograph of a person ice skating away, showing just the skates on the ice.
    Urban #230727.2.