Several enjoyable, yet educational photographic experiences with Gabe

by Kirk Portas
http://portask.blogspot.com/

My first interaction with Gabe was shoving him away from a bin of fruit that held the last banana in the room. Gabe has since told me he knew immediately that we would be friends, and in the years following that food-scarce week of crew training that culminated in violence over a banana, his prediction came true.
My first photographic endeavor with Gabe came some six months later, on a day of two plans. I contacted Gabe for help taking a bluescreened headshot of myself for a license photo. After the 2 minutes required to take my photo, I stayed a short few hours longer for my introduction to the world of artistic picture-taking.
The setup consisted of myself holding an iMac, the screen displaying the iMac camera's view, and Jen putting her boot on various parts of me. With the iMac pointed at her or myself, and the scenes portrayed the computer as a window to an alternate perspective –2 viewpoints of the same scene.
Being art, our time (of course) veered toward the erotic. We acquiesced to a series of increasingly compromising positions, culminating in Gabe’s cutting to the chase, “you know Jen, why don’t you just take your shirt off and we’ll take the picture that way?” She said no, but the day was otherwise successful.

A year later we found ourselves under a New Haven bridge. An interesting thing about bridges are the clear edges of light & dark they cast underneath, the dark often concealing the rubbish under the bridge, the light a dually contrasting expanse of cleanliness. Capturing that was one of the foci of our day.

The other contrast of the day was that of clothing and no clothing, a familiar concept in my introduction to art. I’ll spare that photo.

All the Pictures Fit to Print

Back at the Aldrich Gallery (Where I learned the modernism failed. It did. If you don’t believe me I suggest you ask a tour guide at the Aldrich (http://www.aldrichart.org/) She will tell you that the failure of modernist architecture and philosophy is just a fact; a fact like “the echidna is the only egg laying mammal.” One does not question the veracity of such things because doing so would be fruitless mental masturbation.) I made several composite photographs about which I felt very proud. I never had any trouble showing photographs of myself crawling about the gallery floor, clearly violating good taste.

However, there was one image that I simply did not want to share.

I never even did a test print. Looking at this image makes me feel sheepish. I hate seeing myself as a child all twisted up and nervous. This image is a visual representation of the discomfort I often feel. To see my body recorded in such contortions makes me want to hide from the world. At least it did. Looking back through my archive, I wish I had given this photo a chance. It is a mistake to take myself so seriously.

I think admitting that I can be childish and awkward might make me a better artist or, at the very least, a better person.

Florida, Spring 2006

Very few people study art at Yale College. Fewer still are male. Demographically speaking, I should not have expected anyone on the lightweight crew team to share my passion (at least not exactly). Perhaps I just missed the boat; most of the other rowers studied history or economics. When the team traveled to Florida for spring break training, I’d just started photography. I carried my camera around snapping shots of oars, and moments between workouts. The guys liked the idea of glory shots, but no one seemed intent on discussing images as art. And as the sophomore known most for my tie died shirts, and who stunk at rowing, I felt the time wasn’t right to start the dialogue.

We jogged to and from practice. Getting there was never that tough, but jogging back always seemed… harder. I was jogging back with a freshman named Henry Agnew. Somehow I got to rambling at length about black an white film photography. Contrary to my own expectations, I heard myself invite Henry to photograph with me after we got back to the hotel. We walked around, eating, talking and taking pictures of exotic things, like air pumps, and trees. Henry (for some reason) listened attentively as I told him about the camera, and how to use the light meter.

I didn’t realize until after hanging out with Henry that I’d felt isolated in Florida. Not to say that SportsCenter isn’t great. When we got back to Yale, I printed copies of the photos Henry took and gave them to him. I also sold prints of the photos I’d taken to the other guys on the team for memories. Henry’s reward for being a good teammate and engaging me when I need it? I started asking him for more help. It wasn’t long before Henry was hugging chairs on the darkened campus of Albertus Magnus college, pouring mango juice for Ani Katz, and waiting in horror-struck silence to see who belonged to the footsteps of that greenhouse we swore was empty.

Thank You, Aldrich Museum

By Elizabeth Fiedorek
ElizabethFiedorek.com

The Aldrich Museum has line drawings of buildings and shiny purple paintings dripping into nuclear goo. Gabe and I weren't impressed, but we browsed accordingly. Generally I disdain those who meander past each painting, pausing a requisite 20 seconds in front of every name they recognize. Not to say my thoughts are any more elevated, just that I prefer to walk quickly.

Mostly I'm just spinning my wheels.

Gabe once said he wanted his art to make people "look closer at the world." What does he do when there's nothing worth looking at?

The back room was quiet, with good light. Gabe set up a tripod and started asking members of our 7-person group to join him for a project. He directed me and another friend, Ali, to lie on the floor as if reaching toward a painting with a neon-purple-suburban-nuclear-meltdown feel. "Look like you've been conquered" was the advice he offered. He positioned and repositioned our bodies, at times adding his own. He sought feedback and used Ali's suggestion, a pose where she reaches up toward the painting in confusion, as the focal point of the final image. After the image was done and printed, he reminded me to look for it in the gallery, pointing out where he'd fused separate images and how he'd decided what to do.

"Our human debris," he called it.

Small Town, Florida

By Henry Agnew

THE first time I went on a photo shoot with Gabe was during my freshman year. We had met on the Yale lightweight crew team—both of us were walk-ons, he a year older than I. My first impression of Gabe was that he was a little eccentric, very friendly, had a great big smile, and didn’t really seem like a typical college rower. In reality, Gabe Diaz isn’t a typical anything.

When we went on our first shoot, we were in Florida on a Spring Break training trip with the crew team. I know going to Florida for Spring Break sounds pretty awesome, but when we weren’t rowing, the trip consisted mostly of sitting around the hotel pool and thinking about when our next meal would be. Between the morning and afternoon practice sessions, we had plenty of free time to walk around and explore the area. There wasn’t anything very exciting to see. But that didn’t mean we wouldn’t be able to take some cool photographs.

So one day after practice Gabe asked if I wanted to go take some photos with him. I had nothing better to do other than work on my tan, and Gabe seemed like a cool guy to hang out with, so I happily went along. I don’t remember exactly how it went down, but we probably just began walking towards no destination in particular, with Gabe stopping every now and then to take a shot, explaining why he thought it made for a great picture, what with all the light and the angles and so forth. (Gabe knows a lot about photography and he is always super-excited to share his knowledge with interested folks—that makes him a really great teacher).

Pretty soon the camera was in my hands, and Gabe told me to take a picture of anything I wanted. He taught me the basics of using the camera—how to focus, how to click the button to take a picture—pretty complex stuff. I even learned how to load the film! The first shot I took was of an air-vac machine at a gas station. Later I took a sweet shot of Gabe standing in a wooded area near the highway eating a loaf of Amish strawberry bread. Three years later, I still have the black-and-white printouts of both of those.

After an hour or two, we had to return to the hotel, either for practice or for dinner, I don’t remember which. It was a fun afternoon, but at the time, I didn’t think it represented anything more than that. What really happened that day in small-town Florida was something special—a partnership was born. And a very unlikely partnership it was! I had never had much interest in photography—when I did express myself artistically, it usually involved spending a couple minutes during lecture making drawings in Microsoft Paint. But over the next three years, taking photos with Gabe has created some of the most fun, memorable, and questionably legal experiences that I’ve had during college. I look forward to sharing lots of those memories on this blog.

Proper Social Context

By Gabriel Diaz

My work focuses on people. Reading images of people stimulates my mind in a manner no other type of image does. Augmenting and shaping interplay of figures after the fact creates a new largely fictitious social world. The events that take place in front of the camera inspire and shape the fantasies I create. Participants on both sides of the camera guide me. I see my work as the product of collaboration between myself and other artists.

I suppose the phrase "participants on both sides of the camera" demands some explanation. First, I often provide models minimal directions, or none at all (as is the case when I photograph a stranger at a party). In addition, I need peers to assist me with logistical and creative endeavors behind the camera. In fact, during some staged events, other folks make just as many images as I do. A usual shoot will involve myself and one other photographer (such as Henry Agnew, who has been my "photographic assistant" for a few years) making images as the model's actions unfold.

The structure of my photographic practice is varied, but illustrative examples of the process I describe above can be seen in the Happenings Gallery. For example, "floor.jpg" is a shot from a happening I orchestrated. Two painters volunteered to paint two models head to toe in latex body paint. Each came prepared with a theme and set to work creating an original work on a model's body. Three photographers and myself worked along with a videographer to document. Afterward I pooled and edited most of the media we made. The models went home to peel off the latex body paint.

I presented media from the happening above as a piece by me, but I never felt that was sufficient. A work of such scope, that requires so much communal effort, belongs to everyone who participates. Sure, I directed much of the action during the shoot above, but I was not the only creative impetus. The painters made their plans with no input from me, and those wielding cameras got only minimal direction. I established goals, and tackled logistics. The magic of the shoot, however, came from the collaboration.

This blog will help my photographs live in their proper social context. Writers who have created images with me (from either side of the camera) or have an interest in my work, are invited to contribute. I hope that as time passes readers will have the opportunity to understand the collaborative spirit behind the work I make. I also hope that contributors to this blog will inspire others to collaborate. I make pictures not only to produce images, but to explore social living. Readers of this blog are invited to join me.