Jes Lee

New things

New this year, my first tattoo! This is inspired by my Mamiya C330, the first medium format camera I bought in college, the first medium format camera I photographed with, and one that I still use today. I have thought about this tattoo for a very long time…and I am thrilled with how it turned out!

3 2 1

*tattoo by Poohki at Evolution Tattoo. I am not getting any sort of compensation for posting about this here….I’m just super excited about my new tattoo!

10 minutes at a time

There are some technical details of what I am working on for Made Here that haven’t been exactly easy.

Such as how my film scanner is not playing super nice at letting me scan negatives in at a higher resolution than what I normally do. Specifically the black and white negatives, when scanned in on Grayscale mode. Scanned in on color negative mode, they work fine. I have not yet learned why.

10 minutes at a time, re-scanning the black and white images I took last weekend.

10 minutes at a time editing and color correcting, bringing them back to black and white.

10 minutes at a time with all the other things that have taken place over the last couple of days (including dropping a shampoo bottle on my toe…)

10 minutes at a time has worked out pretty well!

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Things I have learned

I had a chance to take a workshop with Wing Young Huie a few years back. To any fellow photographers that might be reading this, if you have a chance to do the same, take it. Do it. You won’t regret it. I could gush about him for awhile. One piece of wisdom he told us is to give yourself time when photographing a place. Stay longer than 1/2 and hour. Stay longer than an hour. Stay two hours. Or three. But be there, be present, and give yourself time. You will like the images you get more, the longer you are there, because you are seeing past the surface of the place, and into the details. When life gets busy, and I feel like I am just “squeezing” in time for my artwork, it is hard to feel I have the luxury of time. But I often think back to that workshop, and somehow make time. I did that on Sunday when I was photographing. I stayed out there, walking around, taking photos. I stayed out for over 2 hours, I think…really, I lost track of time. But I stayed. And I got images I really like. And I will make something cool out of them.

bricks small buildings small red doors small wood and wires small

I currently work at a community college, as most of you probably already know. I am often surprised at what I learn at work, not just from the department faculty, but from the students as well. One student, whom happens to be wise beyond his years, said to me to not think about more time than you can handle. He said there was a time in his life that he was working on just making things work in 5 minute increments. He then proudly stated that currently, he is up to about a week at a time. And he is right. Currently, I think I am at 10 minute increments. Maybe tomorrow will be longer, maybe shorter. But I can handle 10 minutes, and that’s pretty good right now.