The Book, Part 3

February 26, 2023

When I embarked on this project I don't think I was thinking that creating a book would be easy. But I don't think I knew how big this project would end up being either. The process of creating the content of the book, from making the photographs and writing the text, to working with Emily Belz to select and sequence the photos, to working with Doug Sparks to get the text right, to ink-jet printing the entire 72 page book - 16 times, and now to actually making the hand-made books...has taken me about a year to get to this point. I still have a lot of book binding work to do, but the completed work is in sight!

I have one completed "artist proof", which is a prototype book. There are a couple of things that I learned from doing the AP that will help going forward, but the AP is effectively like the final product. I just completed the sewing of the other 15 book bindings and will be gluing the bindings this coming week. Then on to Middlesex Bindery, where Todd Davis has graciously shown me how to use his guillotine, and is allowing me to trim all 15 books. There is still a lot of work to do, specifically "casing in", but I am enjoying the process and the results are pretty gratifying.

In my next post I will include a page-turning video of a finished book, so I hope you'll stick with me!

The Book, Part 2

January 20, 2023

The journey continues.

There are still places where you and I can buy, or borrow books; the kind of books made of paper. I have a much better appreciation now for the work that goes into making such creations. My journey through this process is one that involves mere photographs, and a few words. But I know now that the making requires more than just a concept, an idea, or even the raw material. It requires persistence and dedication; almost obsession.

The past couple of weeks I have been trying to finalize the content and the form of what I want to create, with the invaluable help of my mentor and my collaborators. The final selection and sequencing of the photographs has been made, my writing has been translated into grownup English, and I have begun the printing, stitching, and binding of the books. There's much more to do, but there's also progress!

The Book, Part 1

December 07, 2022

Hello again!

In previous years I used to blog at the end of a calendar year in order to list the things that I had accomplished professionally in that year. But I’m finding that resuming my blogging especially challenging now, after a long pause, and after experiencing so many changes in the last couple of years. I no longer do client work. I am still making photographs, but ones that are of a different sort; for me.

For the last year I have been working on a personal project that may have been waiting in the wings, ready to be made for decades. It took serious talk and guidance from an incredible mentor to draw this out of my subconscious, and literally, out of my archives. I have been reluctant to even speak of this project to most people while I was developing the idea, mostly because I was hesitant to mention something that I worried I could not finish.

The body of work in this project consists of black & white photographs that I had made in the late 1960s and early 1970s, along with ones made in the last couple of years, of the town in which I was born and grew up. It’s about memories, family, who I was, and who I am now.

I decided to begin talking about it now because I am about to begin the process of making this story into a self-published, and limited edition hand-made photo book. I plan to document my progress as I build this physical manifestation of my project. I hope you find the process and the result worth checking out!

Lost & Found

June 13, 2021

I’ve collected a series of images that I have created over the course of several years that tell a little story about loss. As with a lot of my projects this is a work in progress, but I thought I would let you see it now as I think loss and finding things is especially close to us now after a year that we probably would rather forget.

Please click through to the project gallery and feel free to leave your comments.

Breathe

May 04, 2021 in Art

I realized yesterday that I am constantly just this far away (I'm holding up two fingers to show a small amount) from ripping the head off of anything that irritates me. Just this morning I have already cursed out a bar of soap and a box of tissues. Nothing good came of that. I read an article yesterday that described my state as "languishing". In fact, if someone asks me how I am, rather than saying that I'm "fine", or "doing well", I am supposed to say "Honestly, I’m languishing". I'm not sure who that is supposed to help, but there you are.

I need to breathe!

All winter, the Covid Winter, I had been trying to cope and remain creative by just trying to accept where we were and make some art. And remember to breathe through it all.

I have put together a gallery of the work here. I want you to click that now and breathe with me. There's nothing profound there. Nothing challenging. No irritating tissue boxes. Just some images that I made and that I hope will help you breathe with me.

If you missed the link to the gallery, click here.

Seeing My Shadow

April 27, 2021 in Art, People, Photography

I feel like I have been hibernating for a year. It's getting a little tired. More than a little. I have been trying to keep physically, mentally, and artistically active, but as we all know, it's tough. Last Spring I started an in-person workshop at the Griffin Museum of Photography called the Atelier. The world changed after that first meeting. Like most things, from that point it was all on-line. I don't think any of us thought that the workshop would work that way, but I think most of us changed our minds by the end. I blogged about it here ages ago (Alone Together - the show). In the middle of 2020, being at a certain juncture in my life, I decided to stop taking commercial work, which had all but vanished anyway. For that reason, and for the obvious safety concerns of working in the studio during those days, I couldn't justify keeping the studio. So I let it go.

This blog entry is more of a touch-base moment than anything profound. I wanted to let people know that I was still alive and working! I also hope to blog here periodically, as opposed to my more recent habit of just sitting and waiting for something to happen. Take it from me, that doesn't work. I am working on a couple of long-term projects and plan to talk and show some of that work, at least here. It's a work-in-progress.

I was looking at some of my favorite coffee table books the other night and got a little fixated on the Irvin Penn Centennial book created for the Met's show of the same name from a couple of years ago. I realized just how much I miss photographing people, and my studio. I have loved Penn's work since I was in high school. Those perfect quirky poses, the lighting, the contrast of those flawless prints, and the 'drop of poison', that thing that is a little 'off' that makes you linger and think, always inspired me. Photography as an art has certainly changed since his time, and not only in a technological sense. But I still get inspired by his work, as well as Avedon's, Gordon Park's, and many others who were working in those years when I was so artistically impressionable. So while I am doing some work now, mostly outdoors, I do miss the interaction that comes with working with a subject as well as the intimacy of the studio. I don't have plans for a studio any time soon, nor do I plan to take any 'client work', but I do hope to meetup with people outside and make art with them.

Alone Together - the show

September 27, 2020 in Art, Photography

The Atelier show at the Griffin Museum of Photography, in which I was honored to have my work appear along with the work of some really amazing artists, closes today. I talked about the show in my last post, mentioning the challenges that the Griffin had to deal with because of the pandemic. If you haven’t seen that post, please do. I am truly grateful to the Griffin, and to Meg Birnbaum, who led us through those weeks of on-line sessions and, who together were responsible for making an in-person show at the museum work.

I have created a gallery here on my web site that contains all 20 of my images for the first time. You can see it here: https://adrienbisson.com/alone-together

Please feel free to send a comment to let me know what you think.

Alone Together

August 26, 2020 in Art, Photography

Long, long ago, in December of last year, I signed up for a workshop/class at the Griffin Museum of Photography, in Winchester, MA. I have been a member at the museum for a number of years and have taken several short workshops during that time, but I had always wanted to take what is called the Atelier, a 12-week portfolio and project building course. I had decided back in the Fall that I would 'retire' from my commercial photography business either at the end of the coming fiscal year, or the calendar year of 2020, so knowing that I would be cutting back on things in the Spring, I wanted to take the workshop.

Then in March, things changed a bit. The first class was held, in person, on March 10th. I remember there being nervous discussion at the class about 'the virus', but we all pushed forward. After that first meeting it was decided that the next week's class would be cancelled until things were sorted out. We ended up meeting the following week via GoToMeeting, and did so for the remainder of the class. I initially thought that this would not go well, but everyone who was willing to try the on-line meetings, and especially the instructor, Meg Birnbaum, made it work.

Unfortunately, none of us have formally met in person since that first meeting, and while The Griffin will be holding a virtual reception on-line, and a physical show at the museum, it will certainly not be the exhibition that we had hoped for. Anyone can visit the Griffin and see the show, once it is hung, but must make an appointment, and the showing is private.

On a happier note though, the workshop was really inspiring and mind-opening. I especially enjoyed watching the other participants work thought creating a body of work for the show, as well participate in the back and forth critiquing that we did each week of each other's work. Meg does a fantastic job of inspiring, coaxing, and directing the class's efforts. A subset of each body of work will be shown at the museum, as well as on-line (see the links below). After the show, I will create a gallery of my full set of images here on my web site.

Coming back to my 'retirement' story, by the end of the first quarter of 2020, work stopped for photographers. I did have one shoot on June 1st that I had booked back in March, but otherwise things came to a halt. That was when I decided to step back and not worry about returning after the sheltering. In fact, my project for the Atelier is called "Alone Together", and tells a story of those first three months in which Amy and I isolated ourselves back when we were all working through so many unknowns. I have retired from my commercial business, and have let go of my Western Ave Studio, which I will write about at a later date, but I plan to continue working on personal projects that will find their way to the web site.

I hope you look at all of the images of the other participants, as well as possibly go to the Griffin to see the work in person.

Showing: September 5 – September 27, 2020
Virtual Reception: September 13, 2020 4-6 PM

The Griffin Museum of Photography: griffinmuseum.org
The Atelier on-line galleries: photographyatelier.org/photography-atelier-32/
More about the show: griffinmuseum.org/show/photography-atelier-32/

What Day is This?

April 17, 2020

It has been quite a while since I last blogged. It's been almost a year and a half in fact. Much has changed; the good, the bad, and the ugly. On a personal level, we have a beautiful grand-daughter, and I have decided to retire from my commercial work, while hoping that the magazines for which I hope to continue to do editorial work will successfully weather this human and economic storm that is raging around us. My artistic hope is that I can regain my enthusiasm for photography as I concentrate on my artistic work.

Obviously, many people are suffering through this Covid-19 crisis, both with their health and their financial well-being. Amy and I hear most days how "the elderly" need to stay inside, or at least away from others. I don't think either of us felt that we were in that group until this all happened. But we are well, so here we stay.

I am working on some small projects from my lair here in Downtown Lowell that are suggested by a workshop that I am taking, via video-conference of course. When I signed up for it we all hoped that it would happen in person, but obviously things changed. But it has actually worked out to keep me busy and sane, at least so far. So I thought that would give me an opportunity to surface here, for the first time in a very long time, and to show some of that work. Not surprisingly this set documents my current life indoors, where I ask most days, "What day is this?".

Don't We All Hate Those End-of-Year Lists? Me too. So here is mine.

December 28, 2018 in Art, Business, Editorial, People, Photography, Tear-sheet

The endless, end-of-year lists, all structured to be click-bait, are in full swing. I've been doing such a blog post for 4 of the last 5 years. I'm not sure why I missed 2016, but here is my contribution for this past year, 2018.

There were three magazine covers, two for Merrimack Valley Magazine, and one for Commercial Integrator, a trade magazine. There were several features for these and other magazines that I am proud of, as well as a very un-typical-for-me architectural shoot that was actually fun.

Finally, there were my artistic efforts. I was really happy to have had showings at two Curated Fridge shows (click for more on that), one photograph shown at the Whistler Museum of Art in Lowell, Massachusetts, and two photographs that made the 'on-line annexes' of gallery shows, one at the Photo Place Gallery, in Middlebury, Vermont, and the other at the Black Box Gallery, in Portland Oregon.

Thank you, as always, for your support this year and have a great 2019!