If you missed it the recording can now be viewed above.
The Camden Conference and Camden Public Library host internationally renowned photographer John Paul Caponigro, who will share his images from six voyages to Greenland and contrasts them with twelve voyages to Antarctica including his personal adventure stories, conversations with scientists, and facts about the region.
Live via Zoom on September 15 at 6:30 pm.
We just got back from our recent DPD workshop in Greenland’s Scoresbysund, the largest and fastest moving ice fiord system in the world.
Seth Resnick continued to explore his fascination with abstraction, getting in close and finding optical illusions.
View more of Seth Resnick’s images from Greenland here.
Find out about our Greenland Photography Workshops here.
Find out about our Antarctica Photography Workshops here.
During our 2018 DPD Greenland Workshop I made many exposures for several series but focussed on finishing images for one series in particular – Constellation.
My series Constellation marries the heavens and earth by showing the lands and the stars that lie behind, around, and within us. Carl Sagan reminds us “We’re all star stuff.”
When we gaze at the heavens we see where we came from and what we were, where we are going and what we will be. When we gaze at the land we see where and what we are now. Contemplating both we embrace an expanded view of our place in the universe and ourselves.
To find our way we must first find us. These images encourage us to consider a longer wider view.
View selected images from previous voyages to Greenland here.
View more images from my series Constellation here.
Find out about my Greenland Photography Workshops here.
Find out about my Antarctica Photography Workshops here.
Enjoy this selection of images from Scoresbysund, Greenland.
These images are selected from three ongoing series – Revelation, Constellation, and Contrail.
View more images from Greenland here.
Find out more about my Greenland workshops here.
My free December Desktop Calendar features an image from Greenland’s Scoresbysund.
Download your free Calendar here.
View more images in this Series here.
Get the eBook here.
This is a selection of my top 12 images of 2016. This selection doesn’t reflect sales, publication, or activities on the web. It simply reflects my opinion. Click on the titles to find out more about each image.
Geography
While I visited most of the biomes in one year (all seven continents in 18 months), the images I released were drawn primarily from the artic and antarctic regions.
Process
Straight images from Antarctica were processed on location, mostly in Lightroom. Composite images were created in studio, mostly in Photoshop after launching from Lightroom. I date “straight” shots based on the date they were exposed and composites on the date they are completed.
Concepts
I focussed on a long-standing theme, creating symmetries drawn from the land to better reveal the spirit within. The final resolution has prompted me to remaster many related files made in 1996. I released multiple related series of studies, including a series of digitally rendered inkblots.
Magnificent Moment
There was big magic in 2016! In Antarctica there were moments of extreme quietude amid the lifting fogs at Black Head and the glassy reflections in Antarctica’s Plenneau Bay. We experienced the epically varied lands of New Zealand; in one day we moved from a waterfall strewn fiord, through a rainforest, up to a high arid plateau, and finally to the base of a glacier. Sublime light filled hours and hours, as we flew helicopters over Namibia’s Sossusvlei dune fields, which roll out to the Skeleton Coast. All of these adventures were long-held dreams come true.
It’s challenging to choose so few images from so many – but it’s insightful. Try selecting your own top 12 images. Try selecting the top 12 images of your favorite artist(s).
View more of my Annual Top 12 Selections here.
View more images in my ebooks here.
New images from my annual exhibit New Work are out!
Get 25% off all prints today. Use the code ANNUALEXHIBIT2016.
View new Works here.
Take the online interactive 360 gallery tour here.
(Click on the images.)
Get the ebook here.
Find related Studies here.
Read more about the making of these new works here.
View my gallery talks this past weekend on Facebook Live.
Email jpc@johnpaulcaponigro.com or call 207-354-0578.
This is a selection of the images that started my series Revelation over twenty years ago. I had been planning on making related images in the arctic and antarctic for more than ten years. The series Revelation was on my mind when I first went to Antarctica in 2005; I started shooting deliberately for it on a return voyage in 2007; material slowly accumulated in subsequent voyages in 2009, 2011, 2013, and 2015; and then in 2016 it all came together. Part of the reason this work waited so long is that there was other work to do, including the completion of other related bodies of work including Inhalation and Exhalation. Doing that work influenced this work.
The images I recently released (arctic and antarctic Revelations) have a different quality as a result of waiting. they would have been different if I finished them earlier. In part, this comes from sleeping on it; the subconscious does a lot of work. In part, this is is the result of a significant amount of conscious thought; studying craft and composition were only the beginnings, digging into my thoughts and feelings about the subject and the approach were the real keys; related reading and viewing supported it. In part, this is the result of my inner state now; contrary to what some have suggested, I’ve found this isn’t something to overcome no matter what the current conditions but rather something to be nurtured and cultivated. While one needs to guard agains procrastination, one also needs to guard against rushing through content and not developing the necessary depth to fully engage it, fostering an intimate relationship with it. Doing the work develops depth. And, the work doesn’t just happen behind the lens or in front of the computer.
So when should you make work? This is a question that is best approached with awareness and deep contemplation. Though there are repeatable patterns and common tendencies, there is no one definitive answer to this question for all artists and all situations. I’ve found some work gets produced very quickly, sometimes a whole series is made in one shoot, and some work gets produced very slowly, over decades. Ultimately, I think you have to go with your gut. That doesn’t rule out the possibility and potential benefits of a great deal of research and forethought before you do. The two working in concert together often yield the most powerful combination. However, the single most important ingredient is, not mere spontaneity, which can be short lived, but an effervescence of spirit, and it’s particularly important to pay attention to this quality if it can be sustained over longer periods of time. One needs to be alive to the work to make it a living thing.
In the era of social networks, there is a tremendous pressure to release work quickly and to keep releasing work on a regular basis. This can create a pace that is unsustainable for most creatives, at least when it comes to releasing work with real depth. Good fully developed work takes time … because developing a relationship with your work and your self takes time, much like creating deeper relationships with people take time. Savor it.
At the same time, the unfinished work we make along the way has it’s own value, a very different value, and it can be fascinating to watch how we get to our final destinations. It’s important to know the difference and make the distinction between fully developed images and unfinished images, between work and play, both when we are producing our own images and enjoying others.
View new images in my series Revelation here.
View more images in the series Revelation here.
View the 360 degree interactive exhibit here.
View related Studies here.
Two of my recent studies (experiments made and processed entirely on an iPhone) combine historical photographs with contemporary exposures.
Exposures for Antarctica Now & Then were made at Whaler’s Bay, Antarctica on the active volcano Deception Island.
Exposures for Greenland Now & Then were made in the East Greenland village of Ittoqqortoormiit.
I’ve been wondering if there was any connection between these explorations and the work that was foremost on my mind during these voyages.
At first glance we seem to make many unrelated images, but often it’s just a matter of finding the connections. Sometimes we find the connections between what we were thinking and feeling while we are having the experience; sometimes we find the connections long after; sometimes we never find them. At the very least, doing one thing provides a rejuvenating break from the other. There’s usually more going on than we are consciously aware of.
What connections have I found? I was looking into the spirit of the land in these locations and these two experiences provided stark contrasts to that sensibility. People concerned with the spirit of a place wouldn’t kill whales in the way they were slaughtered in Antarctica; thankfully this activity has stopped. That bygone members of Greenland’s indigenous population had a stronger sense of the spirt of the place and practices for interacting with it than the quickly westernizing current members do was made evident in the art they left behind. Was my experience limited by my cultural inheritance and current circumstances? Could I, a westerner living today, also participate in more sacred ways of relating to the earth? I think so.
The finished images I produced on these trips, for my series Revelation, are evidence of this.
