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I'd like to introduce everyone to Daniel
Gregory
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me is a photographer instructor here at
the photographic center in northwestern
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Seattle and you see his specialty is
fine art photography so tell us a little
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bit about what you do so is a fine art
photographer I kind of do a variety of
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different things landscape Street
portraiture but two different things I'm
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teaching lies I come out of film
generation has to actually do some work
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in film and you work is really so I get
to teach black and white film to teach
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color I teach historical and altering
processing actually combining the
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digital world with the historical
processes their hundred hundred and
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fifty years old and nasa to class on be
called visual literacy learning to speak
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about your work and how to analyze and
talk about photography in a meaningful
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impact the way with yourself and with
other people and that's really what this
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class is about daniel is telling us
about the visual literacy class a day at
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a dinner at Photoshop World is kind of
how this class got started and there was
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a bunch of photographers at the table
about seven or eight of us eating sushi
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and talking about how to be able to
speak about your work how to get better
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connected to your work and how to have
others you know connect more with what
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you do because that's really what we're
all trying to do we're trying to make
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better images make better photographs
and better pictures as we want to do
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have people connect with it and there's
a couple of different schools of thought
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about that some people take a very
technical approach to it and they're
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changing gear or they're changing
technique or things like that to feel
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that connection and what Daniel brought
to the table with two riveted the entire
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table and got us all really talking
about it was this idea of visual
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literacy of being able to speak about
your work and being more connected to it
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and we loved it without everybody should
be a part of this conversation cause we
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all benefited so much from it so kind of
explained to us a little bit about the
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concept so important I'm actually pretty
technical photographer so I background
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coming out of the mighty space I'm
pretty comfortable with computers and
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all of that actually the Photoshop
support engineer years ago and what I
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realized that my own work then I started
teaching in watching students come
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through class was the technical stuff
people get doing they could repeat
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pretty well and then they can get to a
certain point and they would create
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certain images that were really
compelling to them and then they would
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create images that weren't and they
didn't know why they couldn't explain
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why so that's really kind of where that
started for me was I had to figure out a
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way to help my students understand their
own work better and what I realized was
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that there's a huge set of vocabulary
there's a huge process we have to
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undertake that's very internal and then
a very community aspect as well that we
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have to learn how to share our work and
say a picture is worth a thousand words
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if you look at your gonna get it didn't
really suffice
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so it really the class started out of
let's talk really at a low level about
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understanding what a photograph is then
how do we understand and interpret
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what's in the photograph to also get to
meaning and intention and my belief was
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are still is that what happens to a lot
of us is that sits at a subconscious
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level and we get a photograph that works
well the creativity breaks into the
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conscious mind just for a couple of
seconds then it falls back down and the
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goal of the whole component of
developing its vocabulary is that we
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want to take what's happening under the
water and bring it up to the surface and
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so that way we can always go out in with
intention in with meaning create work
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that matters and then when it comes back
and looks at look at the photographs we
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can understand why this is what didn't
work in the photograph this is what did
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work in the photograph and then rather
than just don't know what happened we
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have a way to actually talk about it
which is where that comes from you
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really recognize that feeling so you're
not swinging blind so did you know that
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you take all of these images in one
clicks and it's not necessarily just
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because of all of the technical aspects
to come together but because you felt it
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and you can see that feeling in the
image
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absolutely actually the some of the most
technically great photographs to me are
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some of the most solace devoid of
meaning photographs
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and it's because they lack some
connection in some story some element
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that had me stick with a photograph you
know it in my world you know what I will
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carry the photograph to me the Holy
Grail object and its a material object
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and some I'm an object the print
tangibility of a photograph is very
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important to me so i my world the
photograph doesn't happen until your
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print so am I will have snapshots I have
images I have photographs have started
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to put buckets around those in part of
that that doesn't give me permission to
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do certain things to the photograph is
where intention and meaning and
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understanding our money just something
that sits between that a snapshot was
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just something that happens so when I'm
out about and I'm on taking pictures of
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my lot in the morning that's a snapshot
of emotional connection I mean I'm
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emotionally connected to coffee I live
in Seattle but the actual image itself
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doesn't have a huge amount of meaning to
me and when you take pictures right so
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what do you take pictures of mostly my
family my kids and are they really
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important to you yeah they are also the
house is burning down if I had a Ansel
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Adams on the wall or Joe McNally or
Elliott Erwitt for some really famous
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photograph on the wall and your family
portraits were underneath what do you
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save family portraits for sure why cuz
that's what that's what I'm connected to
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that's what I feel most close to yeah
and that's one of the coolest things
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about photography is it it's got an
ability to manipulate our understanding
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of time and so your photographs of your
family you have an emotional connection
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to your response to they take you back
in time to win the photograph is taking
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they allow you to project forward about
your family will become that's one of
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the great powers of photography so in
your world what is a famous very
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important photograph you collected for
because you love the beauty of it to me
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whatever but in today's say the
photographs of matter and what I want is