Although I am trained as an engineer, I have a strong passion for art. While I am far from being an artist, I believe that there is the spark of creativity in us all. Besides creating and expressing themselves, artists and their art plays an important role in helping to ignite that spark in us all, ultimately making society more creative.
This past fall, I met up with local artist Judith Cottrell at a coffee shop to discuss some ideas that she had about creating a mobile app for artists. During our conversation, I told her about my blog, my love of art and an idea that I had to engage and feature local artists. I wanted to experience San Antonio through different artists point of view, asking them take photos of the parts of the city that is most important to them, their current works and even some of their favorite restaurants.
But there was a catch: they had to do it on disposable cameras.
In the world of Instagram and filters, Photoshop and digital cameras, we take for granted our endless roll of film, instantly knowing how our shot turned out and the ability to correct, filter and enhance it. The disposable camera is interesting because it places several restrictions on the photographer: there is a set amount of film, you are in the dark as to whether your shot will turn out and what gets developed is the picture you get.
Judith thought that the project sounded fun, and after socializing it with some of her friends, I gave her a handful of digital cameras to hand out to her fellow artists. I am excited to announce a new series for 2013 called San Antonio Unfiltered, where we will publish the film from an artist’s digital camera each month, along with notes from the artist on the project and upcoming exhibitions in the city.
This has been a project that has been a lot of fun to start working on, and I am thankful for Judith’s and all the artists’ participation. I hope that you look forward to the posts and encourage you to not only share them, but to also check out the artists exhibitions as they happen around town!
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