{"id":509,"date":"2014-03-12T13:51:50","date_gmt":"2014-03-12T17:51:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/?p=509"},"modified":"2018-12-03T10:35:53","modified_gmt":"2018-12-03T15:35:53","slug":"lines-lines-lines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/2014\/03\/12\/lines-lines-lines\/","title":{"rendered":"Lines. Lines. Lines."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have lines on my mind.<\/p>\n<p>Just recently, commercial photographer and photography instructor <a title=\"ZackArias.com\" href=\"http:\/\/beam.zackarias.com\/#!\/index\">Zack Arias<\/a> has (finally!) launched his <a title=\"DEDPXL. More signal. Less noise.\" href=\"http:\/\/dedpxl.com\/\">DEDPXL<\/a> website, complete with Q&amp;A videos, the obligatory blog, links to merchandise including the upcoming renewal of his popular <a title=\"Onelight 2 (DEDPXL)\" href=\"http:\/\/dedpxl.com\/product\/onelight\/\">Onelight<\/a> instructional video, and a section for non-photography, but inspirational, things called <a title=\"The Society of Good Stuff (DEDPXL)\" href=\"http:\/\/dedpxl.com\/the-society-of-good-stuff-01\/\">The Society of Good Stuff<\/a>, authored by Zack&#8217;s wife Meghan. Meghan identifies herself as an un-photographer, but is an excellent <a title=\"MeghanArias.com\" href=\"http:\/\/meghanarias.com\/\">singer and songwriter<\/a>. Zack himself has some serious chops, ranging from personal projects and street photography, through instructing at <a title=\"Gulf Photo Plus\" href=\"https:\/\/gulfphotoplus.com\/\">Gulf Photo Plus<\/a> in Dubai, all the way to <a title=\"Anatomy of an Editorial Shoot (ZackArias.com)\" href=\"https:\/\/zackarias.com\/editorial-photography\/anatomy-of-an-editorial-shoot-coca-cola-ceo-muhtar-kent\/\">photographing the CEO of Coca-Cola<\/a>. Plus, he sports a stylish goatee and flat cap, occasionally plays the ukelele, and seems like the nicest guy in the world.<\/p>\n<p>One exciting aspect of DEDPXL, for those who&#8217;ve been waiting for the relaunch, is that Zack has embarked on a series of assignments for his readers. These are designed to push us to think more, create new work that is different from our usual photographs, and &#8220;see the photograph&#8221; in the scenes around us (or in our mind&#8217;s eye, visualizing before shooting). The theme of the first uses a single prompt word: Lines. The <a title=\"Lines (YouTube)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=KOhftHTlfo0\">accompanying video<\/a> is almost hypnotic, and now I can hear him saying the word over, and over, and over again. Lines. Lines lines lines. Lines.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s interesting about this exercise is how open to interpretation it is. That single word, &#8220;lines&#8221;, makes me think of all kinds of different things:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>visual lines of buildings, roads, railings<\/li>\n<li>railway lines<\/li>\n<li>power lines<\/li>\n<li>lines of text<\/li>\n<li>lines of music<\/li>\n<li>curved lines<\/li>\n<li>parallel lines<\/li>\n<li>intersecting lines<\/li>\n<li>lines of people queuing for things<\/li>\n<li>grade school students writing lines as punishment (do they still do that?)<\/li>\n<li>the clean or attractive &#8220;lines&#8221; of a ship, or a car, or a piece of clothing<\/li>\n<li>age lines on a face<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And so on.<\/p>\n<p>The first photographs I specifically went out to shoot with this theme in mind were, well, fairly predictable. Railings. Windows. A view I&#8217;ve sat near for a long time, and <a title=\"Bioinformaticians (Flickr)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/72994507@N00\/10046479453\/\">photographed before<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Skylines and Blinds by Richard Wintle, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ricardipus\/12993799984\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7351\/12993799984_fa98657ec0.jpg\" alt=\"Skylines and Blinds\" width=\"333\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Then I started seeing lines in placed I hadn&#8217;t noticed, hiding in plain sight.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Crossing Lines - Eaton Centre, Toronto by Richard Wintle, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ricardipus\/12993532583\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.staticflickr.com\/2734\/12993532583_8d58157618.jpg\" alt=\"Crossing Lines - Eaton Centre, Toronto\" width=\"500\" height=\"400\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Looking back through some of the first crop of boring escalator-and-staircase type photographs, I began to find unintentionally interesting bits. A reflection and the underside of an escalator, for example.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Marble, escalator, lines - FCP, Toronto by Richard Wintle, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ricardipus\/13065232745\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3471\/13065232745_f68328f658.jpg\" alt=\"Marble, escalator, lines - FCP, Toronto\" width=\"375\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Then I started thinking about studio photographs. What do I have with lines? A bamboo box? A vinyl LP? Some books? Pencils? Straws? Matches? This could go on forever.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Grooves are lines, too by Richard Wintle, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ricardipus\/13096939665\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3745\/13096939665_c54099807a.jpg\" alt=\"Grooves are lines, too\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>As the month unfolds, I&#8217;ll be looking for, and with luck finding, lines in new locations, and learning to see those photographs a bit more than I do now. Which is, of course, the point of the exercise. As long as I can avoid that little shoulder-sitting demon Zack muttering in my ear, or walking along mumbling under my breath: &#8220;Lines. Lines. Lines&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>More DEDPXL assignment photographs <a title=\"DEDPXL assignment photographs (Flickr)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ricardipus\/sets\/72157642009212573\/\">here<\/a>. Everybody&#8217;s attempts are in the <a title=\"DEDPXL Assignments Group (Flickr)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/groups\/dedpxl\/pool\/\">DEDPXL Assignments Flickr group<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I jump into the first DEDPXL photographic assignment, and find lines everywhere. Lines. Lines. Lines. <a href=\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/2014\/03\/12\/lines-lines-lines\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,9],"tags":[177,179,202,178],"class_list":["post-509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hobbies","category-photography","tag-dedpxl","tag-lines","tag-photography","tag-zack-arias"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}