A Quote by Alan Schaaf

I like to think of an image as different from a photo. — © Alan Schaaf
I like to think of an image as different from a photo.
I don't have a favorite photo. As a photographer, I have attachments to each image. Not the one photo: the experience of getting the photos is the challenge or the thing.
For the surf idol Duke Kahanamoku portrait, which I created for the Surfrider Foundation, I took a photo from a book cover and abstracted the photo image into a drawing. This drawing was laminated onto a surfboard and auctioned to a buyer.
If you think about photo sharing sites, the mobile photo sharing and social, there's no competitive advantage, there's no obvious business model, so I never play with anything like that. I avoid it like the plague.
Sometimes I'll use four or five different photo apps on one photo just to get it where I want it to be.
Memes can be visual. Our image of George Washington is a meme. We don't actually have any idea what George Washington looked like. There are so many different portraits of him, and they're all different. But we have an image in our head, and that image is propagated from one place to another, from one person to another.
The fellow who wrote the post about sharing a bear suit with a girl at a party saw my illustration and emailed me, which was kind of thrilling. He sent a photo taken on the night, and that was a dream-like experience... but even though I've seen the "real" bear suit, my image of it feels real to me, and his photo the interpretation.
My first album deals with my anxiety. It wasn't like, to heal my anxiety and by writing an album I'm now healed. It was, here's a sound representation of what it feels like to be in an anxiety attack and that's it. I think we can say the same with image, people look at an image and see a billion different things.
I am consistently impressed by reddit. I'd say on a near weekly basis, by little things. Whether it's - I absolutely love seeing the Photoshop jobs that people do. Not of silly cats, but of redditors who are like, 'I have this photo of like my mom. This is the last photo I took with her. She was in the hospital. Can any of you clean this photo up?'
A lot of writers, especially crime writers, have an image that we think we're trying to keep up with. You've got to be seen as dark and slightly dangerous. But I'm not like that and I've realised that I don't need to put that on. People will buy the books whether they see a photo of you dressed in black or not.
I think of scientific veracity as an idea from the past - the scientists say it is so, the photo is proof. Even the authoritative power of the word actual - an actual what? An actual retouched photo, an actual collaged photo?
If you could see a photograph of what it took to make an advertising photograph - things you don't think about, like the photo assistant carefully arranging the meatballs - the degree of unnaturalness would be astonishing. Yet it produces an image that looks natural, and is orchestrated to provoke basic emotional responses.
We also have the option of scanning in an image from outside the computer... a photo, or a sketch done with traditional tools; and we can then paint, manipulate, process, change, and further develop the image within the computer, watching our progress on the monitor.
I can understand there are things like shadows they need to fix after a shoot, but it's unfair to represent an image of yourself if it's not true. They're gonna see what you look like on film anyway, so why try to cover all your wobbly bits in a photo?
Frankly, I get much more sensitive about what's written about me than how I look in a photo. I'm so used to people seeing my image in plays and films that what they think about how I look is none of my business. If they says, "Hey, he doesn't look good," I'm like, Whatever, because I know I look different from day to day. But if you're up there putting your heart into something and people reject your performance, that's very painful. The written word can kick your ass.
Dressing up and doing photo shoots was a side of the industry I really didn't think I would like. But now I've got a glam squad; I love trying on new outfits and experimenting with different looks.
I give myself different roles. I think in different ways on different days. Sometimes I think of it as cooking - different flavors and different ingredients. Sometimes I think of it like orchestrating a piece of music with all the different instruments.
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