I walk
not passing negligently the things I love
but stopping to know them.
Admiring the imperfect, the impermanent and incomplete
Seeing beauty in things modest and humble.
Walking in fellowship with nature.
After Robert Henri
Images are from an in-process project titled Little Walks. I walk daily along the American River with my dog and my cell phone.
I am a resident of the present and tourist of the past.
I lost my mother in a car accident when I was 10 years old, as a result there are few family photographs of me or the places I have been from that age on. Now, I recognize the importance of what it means to me to make images of the place I live. If I don’t take the time to make these images, who else will? When looking at photographs of the past I am reminded that I am the sum of my own experiences.
This work is about melancholy, loss and working through that to build a meaningful connection with the place I live.
Today in my Senior Portfolio class we did what our teacher Nigel Poor called a Quick snap challenge. The rules for this exercise were simple; we had to go for a walk and collect things we found interesting, bring them back to our studio space and photograph them. Our time limit was ninety minutes, and then we shared one photo with the class for discussion. I thought this was an incredibly fun exercise, I got so carried away with re-arranging the objects that I almost didn’t get it done in time to share.
Exercises like this are helpful because I think that when you let loose and have fun with something like this you open yourself up to new creative possibilities.
I used this as a way to further practice some ideas I have had recently about how I document things I find interesting. Below are the results from what I made and a few from my classmates. Enjoy!
J. William Kraintz II
Try it yourself!!
02 January 2021
31 December 2020
Photographs from a fishing trip to Lake Berryessa 12/28/2020. We didn’t catch any fish.
The incredible nostalgic quality of the photograph. At 36
The more I learned about photography and expression through visual communication the more I wanted to rush home and reexamine the world that created me. It wasn’t the act of photography but the new way of communication that I had never really understood before. Why wouldn’t I want to take pictures that would remind me of some of the happiest moments in my life. To record them in a way that relies less on fading memory but gives me a tangible thing that I can revisit and reexamine and I can share with others a slice of the human experience and hopefully communicate something they hadn’t thought of or had seen before and pushed a little self reflection and creates a connection between myself and the audience. I remember fondly when I was a child my father catching some crawdads in the creek that ran by our town. So when I had the chance at 36 to catch some crawdads with my dad I made sure to bring my camera. I’m not trying to reconstruct my past in any way. I just wanted to make something that would spur such a good memory from my childhood and now connect it to something positive in my present.
By john kraintz
44 pages, published 6/10/2020 A day trip to the Sierras for trout fishing. A reflection on our connection to the Earth.
The spot
It is the spot
The place
The hole
Where the fish live
Where I return
Time and time again
I will travel great distances
To return
To that which connects me to the earth
Food
Fish
Life
And
Death
Hook
Line
Sinker
04/07/2020 We looked at and discussed Sarah Charlesworth’s work titled Stills. The quality of the images reminded me of the Xerox books that were produced within the Conceptual realm of art in the late 60’s. Later in the day Monday for Studio lighting class we did a still life demonstration. It was difficult at first with the new format of class via internet but it worked out. I ended up grabbing a dried bunch of leaves to photograph. After editing I though why not mix it up! So I made a few nice 8.5×11 prints and decided to make a photocopy and then scan the photocopy and see what happens to the image making sure to keep all the flaws.
Kraintz Photography 