Steve Rood - Photography then, now and what it will be

The Lecturer of the week is Steve Rood. I have never had a chance to meet Steve prior to the class, so i was excited to hear from an artist that i haven't talked to before. It was extremely handy that Steve had given the class his website which had the lecture content.

http://www.rood.co.nz/talk/


I really like Steve's good sense of humor and it shows through in some his art practice. Generally i find photography difficult, however i actually really enjoy the works from Steve, as they have a very soft illustrative and narrative effect which i personally see similar to a painting. So i found Steve's photographic works very interesting and fun.



Steve began the class by showing us the first photo he took when he was kid, which was a black and white photo of a pile of compost. Sometime later on the same day after he took the photo, the compost caught on fire and had to be put out by the fire department. This inspired Steve to continue down the path as a photographer as he was fascinated at the thought of capturing images of objects and what will happen to it next. I like how he used a mini fire extinguisher as his catalogue' for this photo, which had the story behind the work on the back. I find this idea humorously symbolic of the burnt compost and also somewhat in a way very practical, (great sense of irony right there.)


Steve continued by showing us a list of great influences that helped him in his practices, the list was shown as a red square with names flashing very fast. I had fun trying to capture some of the names. It interested me to see that the name Diane Arbus poped up, because Steve's photos are


very beautiful as well as formal, while Diane Arbus was known for her photo taking of 'freaks'. The subject of her works are often described as 'deviants' or 'marginal'. However i do see a similar photographic lighting style with Steve's earliest compost photo. I would assume it would probably because of the same use of natural lighting. Which i see as a very strong element in Arbus's works, as it suggests a harsh sense of reality. It also reminds me of the series of friend portraits from Steve, as the images are harshly lighted, but in a very selective way, especailly the eyes.



I also thought it was very nice of Steve mentioning 'mum' in the list of inspirations.






As the compost incident introduced Steve into a life-long dedication of photography, Steve first started taking on photography career in London as a documentary photographer. I think most of Steve's works have the traditional formality quality that reminds me of documentary photographs. The first series of works Steve showed us was from when he worked for fashion industries. This series of images by Steve as he explained was over exposed and out of focus, reducing the subjects to a point of hardly nothing and it's most sensual form.
Steve also explained that it's also how he picture clients, which i could relate to, as during my study of fashion at AUT i learnt to see models as simple structures. I was really fond of the picture of the plastic bag. At first i thought it was a flowing silk garment, it's only after Steve told us it's actually a plastic bag i realised how beautiful a piece of rubbish can be captured in art. This idea reminded me of Francis Hansen, who made artworks out of old and unwanted baskets. Immediately the audience would start seeing the object in a new light.
Later Steve moved back to NZ worked with food photography for cook books. I thought the nik-name 'pouring guy' was quite funny. The pouring works have the same style of lighting like his fashion shots. The white background with high color contrast that accentuate the objects. Steve's photos are visually pleasing for me, as the lighting of Steve's works are quite feminine and soft. which is mostly shown in the skincare photos.

The next series of works is of lamp light structures that projects light from the light bulb inside the structures. Steve explains that lighting in photography is always being shined upon, so he want to reverse that and explore the light comming towards the camera instead, so the light cast shadows of the form of the lamps.









Uptill now Steve's practices have been very traditional photography. Steve decided to further his career with his photographic talent by doing a master degree at AUT. And at AUT he made a digital media portraits, called 'project George'. Project George is a collection of fond images that was in an interactive and narrative manner. I like how the little postcards moves around an image and by random they come to contact and the image change. I think it's indeed just like how Steve described it, 'narrative postcards'.
I think at this point Steve's practice is moving into a more modern phase. He began working for website designs, he also mentioned websites like CPRW Fisher and Rita Studio which were infact architecture websites. Because of the close relation between architecture and photography, as they both need each other, Steve with the help from his group of designers and photographers worked for websites to provide them some extra earnings to supports their photography passion. Which is something i wish i can do for myself, like Allie from class who's printing t-shirts for a source of extra money, i would love to do what i love and earn an extra income from it, at the same time, getting my name out there.

Steve ended the session by showing us the history of photography. It began with sketching in 1400, a mirrored device was used to reflect the image onto paper. This technique lasted till around 1838. Which reminded me the pantograph my class made for Deborah Crowe's class. I think it's very clever for people back in the days to invent tools that did what modern technologies are able to do. Then classic painting became the closest thing to photographs as traditional oil paintings are so realistically detailed. Then finally the invention of camera came in around the 1800s and photography replaced oil paintings at that time, and it was heavily debated wether if photography is art. I liked the series of still shots by Edward Maybridge who too photos of a horse running, and proved that when a horse runs at one poin all four of it's legs are all completely off the ground. Steve then pointed out something i have not thought much about before, which is a moving image is a sequence of stills. Lastly Steve ended by showing the lastest way to share photos, websites like flikr and Glastonbury's glastotag, where you can tag names of youself or friends that attended the event.

Steve's lecture was very inspiring, as im currently on the moving image rotation with Rebecca Hobbs. So i thought this talk was very helpful indeed. Steve also opened my eyes to the history progression of photography, and how it has changed through out history. I personally think his own practice is very much like the changing process of photography, as he began his career doing very traditional and formal photographic shooting, then slowly moved to constructing website deisgns which he take advantage of his photographic skills and then lastly Project George was a very fun story like slide show that engages the audience. I wish to follow up on more works from Steve in the future and see how he will do for the next phase of photography.