Rocks in San Francisco

Photo by Warren Lee - Copyright 2009.

A new photograph by Warren Lee that is part of a series of images of the CA coastline. This image was made with Ilford Delta 100 black and white film behind 5 stops of neutral density glass on a Hasselblad 503 CW medium format camera.

F ArtForum Magazine Cover

F ArtForum Magazine Cover

Decided to desecrate the cover of a recent issue of ARTFORUM magazine and share with all you art lovers. This months feature issue of [F] Artforum is now a tribute to farts. Okay, I was bored, and I was feeling a tad bit immature however I thought it might be a great lead-in to blog about other artists who make similar practice of appropriating the art of others. Indeed, here is an artist who has garnered an international reputation through his art. Some might say he also creatively desecrates other art and public space among other things..But check it out and judge for yourself, - click here BANKSY

Richard Prince, Barbara Kruger, Sherrie Levine are some other artists that come to mind.

My mother always said " imitation is the sincerest form of flattery".

So, homage or just plain illegal? What do you think? I'm sure Avedon is probably not turning in his grave ...

(The art below is by http://hotyoungbodies.org/)

(Based on art by Richard Avedon)

Artist portraits - black and white photography of artists shown with their art cont.

(Above: Black and white photography by Warren Lee)

Artist Portrait Photography - Emrick Konrad

The portrait above is a new addition to a continuing project of black and white photography portraits of artists that can also be seen at Hotel Des Arts in San Francisco. If your into this type of photography you can also see more of this type of portrait photography on Flickr.

ART 08 - John Doffing START SOMA & HOTEL DES ARTS

(Below - Some event snaps by Warren Lee from the ART 08 exhibition / party by Start Soma / John Doffing @ Hotel Des Arts in San Francisco - requires flash )

By Warren Lee:
I brought a camera and portraiture lens to the Hotel Des Arts hoping to expand upon my artists portraits project while exhibiting some work there at ART 08 event. The event was really much too packed with artists, hipsters, party goers and clowns (yes clowns) to be able to pull off the kind of artist portaits that I had in mind, so I had to take down my photobooth that I setup on the rooftop and settle for some detail snapshots of the event and some of my favorite art works that were on display.
By the way if you like any of the art that you see above, I have provided a list of links to all the artists that were exhibiting at the party at the hotel des arts so that you can check out more of their work. What was great about the exhibit was that the event creators and sponsors made the event so that all sales went 100% to the artists, So many many thanks to John Doffing, Rich, Joe and everyone involved..It was great to see such generosity these days especially with the economy being as it is.
This was also my first opportunity to exhibit my photography at an art exhibit, so also many many thanks to John Doffing for the opportunity and privilege to share my portraits among so many talented artists who's work I really to admire.
Heres the list of artists that were showing work, please feel free to bookmark or digg/stumble/delicious or find any other way to save this list of links because im sure you will find some really amazing art and websites in this list below:

John Stephenson

Ruby Roth

Julie Oppermann

R. Yauger Williams

Erik Rieth

Iggy Medeiros

SAMALA

SUGARLUXE

Tricia Choi

Terrence Hughes

Christian Wiseman

Clynton Lowry

Jean-Benoit Levy

Artist portraits by W

Peep Show Mini Golf Peformance Troupe

Mr.23

Ruby Ray

Graham Nelson

Josh Feldman

Kelty Luber

Chase Tafoya

GOLDI GOLD

Seher Sikandar

Ciaran Doyle

Zoey Stevens

Cate Corbitt

Anthony Grant

Tony Hong

Disposable Hero

Steve Javiel

d. dasari

Mark Damrel

Mark Wasyl

Max Ehrman

Ian Ross

Casey O'Connell

Ed Roth / Stencil1

San Franpsycho

Annie Galvin

Marco Zamora

Max Ehrman / Eon75

Daniel J. Valadez

PLASTICGOD

The Postcard Machine (Possibly from the Future)

Elaine E. Barr for Stencil 1

Ryan Stubblefield

Ben Collison aka OB1

Jason Smith

Mish Heinemann

Clay Chollar

CHOR BOOGIE

VULCAN

Keegan Roberson

Jenny Hagen

Quyen Dinh

Tanith Connolly

Mojhgan Mohtashimi

Tony Hong at the Start Soma New Art 08 Exhibit in Hotel Des Arts in San Francisco

Artist Portrait of Tony Hong by Warren Lee 2008

Here is another new artist portrait that is a mashup of black and white portrait photography by Warren Lee that combine the artist with the artists own work. This portrait of Tony Hong was made at the NEW ART 08 exhibit / party at Hotel Des Arts. I highly recommend that you check out the art of Tony Hong at http://www.tonyhong.net to see more examples of his work.

PHOTGRAPHY INDUSTRY NEWS - ORPHAN WORKS BILL

I received this in an email today from Phase 1. It is an urgent call from the APA for support against a bill that will impact our industry..

Please take part in stopping the Orphan works Bill. This can change the landscape of our business. Here is the link to find your Senator:
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ You can find the fax number on that website, it is too late to send emails. This is Urgent. See the following link to the APA website for more info and a copy / paste letter that you can send to your senator..

http://www.apanational.com/i4a/pages/Index.cfm?pageID=3875

I will be sending the letter to a CA senator, and I urge anyone who cares about protecting their copyright to look into this further and to also help spread the word.

Thanks

Posted by Warren Lee Studio

Personal black and white photography projects

Photo by Warren Lee.

Here is another image made at a photographers paradise known as the Salton Sea. This is a photograph that was lightly manipulated using photo shop. The only digital manipulation involved was an increase in the contrast curve and also a slight burn on the top and the bottom (also using curves and layers). Then the sky was altered using a motion blur. The film photograph that was made at the same time would not need a digital motion blur because film is better suited for long exposures (given the correct adjustments using a reciprocity failure chart) than the digital camera. A long (7 minutes using neutral density filters and ISO 50 film) exposure on the film allows for a natural motion blur effect which is a beautiful site to behold in a gelatin silver print. This is one of the latest in personal photography by Warren Lee and Warren plans to make a few limited edition prints if anyone is interested? .. www.warrenleestudio.com

Personal black and white photography projects

Abandoned Homes Series

Here is another one from a personal project to photograph abandoned homes. All the photographs were slightly styled by the photographer to help with the composition of the image and usually to keep the images from being 'too busy'. Perhaps the next image should be one that is intentionally busy, ha! less work. Well not really considering the images are made both digitally and on film. The process, or work flow, involves using a digital camera as a type of digital polaroid, then using the film camera to make a zone, density tested, duplicate version. Later the digital image is manipulated in photo shop, as it is easier to quickly play around with different creative options such as burning and dodging without having to waste paper or spend extra time waiting to see the outcome. Often there is much time spent in photo shop cleaning up parts of the image that detract from the composition and make the photos to 'busy'.. so spending a little time cleaning up or styling and arranging the scene so that it looks right 'in camera', is often worth it...just to spend less time in photo shop. Once a final digital image is made using photo shop then the film negative is brought into the darkroom and processed to match the digital pre-visualization. Here is a sample from the digital pre visualization where the image was lightly touched up, then desaturated by selecting only the blue channel and a small contrast curve was applied. This would be replicated in the darkroom with slight over processing ( +1 ) and then printed using contrasting building helpers like selenium toning and the use of some high contrast paper and filtration under the enlarger. Then there would be a burn around the edges of the photo to help create an ominous feeling in the space, fitting for an abandoned home.

Copyright 2007 Black and white photography by Warren Lee

Personal black and white photography projects

Abandoned Homes Series
Black and White Photography by Warren Lee

The past three months for professional commercial advertising photography have seen a slow down from large commercial advertising photography projects and have allowed for some time to work on several personal black and white photography projects that are geared towards being published or used as a new portfolio to market to the book publishing industry. Now there is time to update this blog with some samples of the personal black and white photography projects of photographer Warren Lee. One such black and white photography project is a series of black and white photographs of abandoned homes. Here are a few photos from that series.. stay tuned if you are into black and white photography more to come soon. Next week I will be adding a tutorial explaining some of the techniques used to make these photographs which were captured both digitally and on film.