komkrit.com

Hello,

It has been a busy month for me. I just finished my teaching class and catching up with paper stuffs. I am now free, yahhh, again. As writing this I just got up from a 11 hours of sleep because I had been up more than 39 hours, yikes!!! Well, it is all good now. In a few hours I will have to go to work;) Anyway, that’s life.

I have not photographed much this month, but I still mange to go out to do every week. It has been pretty much about my Vegas project, documenting my town. I follow up lot of areas which I had been before and notice a timeline relationship. Lots of buildings are being build and lots of other ones are left incomplete. Lots of changing in this town all the time. I find that enjoyable for me to spend my little time I have doing it. I like to walk around and feel where I live. You might not see this project overview anytime soon, but I am sure when it is time for sharing it will be very interesting. That’s one thing I would like to communicate with viewers too of how we relate to a place, and how to do that is to show them of ” Time “. The bottom line is it is really personal and it is my only person view point so someone might find it good and the other people find it is not. That is not my point. My point is to share to all how I see it. I try to be fair about how I treat everything around my life. It is who I am.

I’d like to share what I saw and felt that you would like to see it too. It was on last week of November up in Zion national park… They are jpegs so please don’t mind that. The films will be much better.

Ok now, this year the weather is very very different, far off than I have had experienced, from before. It was raining in the West for almost a week, but the temperature was not low enough to have snow as it usually is. We have had 50′f day time and somewhere between 40′f night time, and it rain all day and night straight 4 days. then on and off for a few days. At the same time, it has been very bad year for the east coast, lot of snow storms there. Hope that will be good for this coming spring!!! We have to wait to see that there will be some storm in Jan and Feb 2011 or not. If there will, there will be a wonderful spring flowers again. Let’s pray:)

It’s holidays time, and I wish you the best you can be. Please enjoy you time with family, friends, and whom you love and care for…. It’s Christmas my friend.

” There always be light ”

Merry Christmas.

Komkrit T.

Hi everyone,

Back again for Nov. I know it is a little late, and I am sorry for that. Most of time during these fall months I always have been tight up on time because of a full time job, a part time job, and my personal job. Talking about sleeping I am still far behind from what I suppose to have. Well, I have no complain for the life I choose, but I feel bad for people around me because I always keep they waiting for me all the time.

Well, it has been a really wonderful fall color this year. So far from my notes and from many people talking about, this fall have been waited from a lot of photographers like myself for over 6 years. The colors and the lasting of time which leaves staying on trees was amazingly awesome. I’ve start to work since September and this coming week might be my last week for going up to Utah. It is almost 2 and a half months long which is rare for fall color around here.

I know for sure that there were a lot of photographers from far away were disappointed by the timing. As I mention on my blog a while back about the weather event El Nino which is end at this fall. The weather has been push off it timing almost 2 weeks. By time that most visited by the photographers, leaves were still green and weather was still warm!!! This is what I always mention to friends and my students that nature is amazing and unpredictable. The only way to be sure is going to there and check it up often. That what I do. It is ok to be early, but it would be sad if I am late for it. Lots, of people I know would say that it is costly both time and money. ” Who would have all the time to go out and wait? ” is a sentence which I most heard. Here is a thing which make the different between people who live by making choice and people who live by choice which they depend on. Life is not fair and we all know this. That’s why there are not many great photographers out there. Something great doesn’t come easy!!! Even sometime, someone would have to spend a whole life to find out about it. It is a believe which not everyone see it as important, but believe is the only thing which bring a person cross a cold river, cross mountains, spending all the saving money and etc to find out the dream. At least from that, it gives that person peace at the end. Maybe he or she will makes it, and maybe he or she could not makes it. Then on all the questions will be answered, and that will bring peace to the person.

“Nothing will be better than being old with a full cup”.

That’s who I want to be. Along my time here in US I have met a lot of people as friends. One of them gave me a very good lesson ” do what makes you happy “. I have thought of it often, and it gives me ways out of a normal life style. I am start to realize myself now that I am not really a normal person. I have been told many times before, but I didn’t believe that. I also see now that in order to make a big different in what you do, we have gotten to be crazy about it night and day. Then something great might happen. What I am trying to tell myself to do almost all the time now is ” trying to push my own limitation “. I said before that we, human, have no limit. I really believe in that. We can do almost everything that we put our minds into.

From this fall, I have seen myself change once again. The way I look for images was different. Also the way I work with myself too. I am not much of relying on tools as I used to be, but instead I am relying on LIGHT and VIEW before me. I am trying to capture the true sense of it. Somehow, I grow up in a way of seeing an image. I see it better and more comfortable. Today, it is not a big thing which gets me, but a little thing is. However, I am not perfect, and I don’t think that I will be perfect till even it is my last day picking up a camera. Perfection makes everything stop growing. Perfection makes me blind. I am learning and have been learning as everyone else. There are a lots more to do and learn, and I see myself just at the beginning of it.

I’d to thank to nature that once again teaching me a big lesson. It makes me feel as I come closer to it, and maybe one day I will find my answer about what I am doing this for beside LOVE.

Here are images of where I went, and I’d to share with you.

Winter is finally here as writing this the wind is going crazy here out side my house… it’s winter!!! Also 40 more days will be a new year again. Where does time go? Please enjoy the holidays everyone, good for us, but bad for the turkeies!!!!

Happy Thanks Giving everyone.

Komkrit T.

              This is a very nice sunday and it is also a 10/10/10!! I am actually not believe into this kind of stuff much. However, it is for me now that I start to count a new decade of my photography. I am sitting and thinking in my head of what I will make in next 10 years. How would my photography change? What tool will be used since we are at transition between digital and analogue. I will for sure to look for ways to continute to work with film if it’s still avilable then. It’s just the way I work and how I love the feeling of when I look at images which made by film. It is really personal taste and I am not in everyway against the digital technology. I even will look for ways to use digital to produce the result which will be as close as the way film looked in the future when the film somehow really go away. We will have to see.

         This year has been a very good year for fall color. It’s last very long, and longer than what I have expected. It is because of we have had some kind of strange weather since the beginning of the year. So I have been lucky enough to be out and make some new images of nature. Last week, I was hit by a snow storm which brought about 15 inches of snow to top of Utah mountain. Also I heard that it did to the whole western. Yosemite had to close the road from Mono lake to Yosemite, highways 120 Tioga pass, last week because the same snow storm that hit me in Utah. It was between 30-35′f and windy during the time I was among the aspen forest. I phtographed the trees under the foggy condition. Eventhough, it was wet, cool, and top of that I have been sick for 2 weeks, I had a great time. While I was standing there, I was photographing and thinking that the view like that should be seen by many people. So that everyone will have the feeling to preserve and protect the nature world. At least I am doing my part eventhough it is a very small part compare to how many people in the world, but at least I am doing it. It has gotten to start somewhere. Well, the result should be interesting, and that we will have to wait and see when the films get to sent out for procesing.

      That was a great weeks with the colors. I hope you enjoy them. Now the color is gone and move down to lower elevation. I plan to visit Zion nation part in weeks. I would be hiking down to the Subway in Zion just because I have not been there for a while, a few years. Also somehow my feeling keeps telling me to go there so it is a plan now. At the end of this month my students and I will be in Zion for fall color too. It will be a field trip which I will be sharing the thought about how to make images and learning about what and where to look fo rthe LIGHT. So the images below are ones I made years ago, and I would like to share with you about where I am about to be at…

     Well, it’s 2:40pm now. I’ve got to go to get ready for work!!! It is a reality…no matter how good the dream is sooner or later we have got to wake up, right? Yeah!!! I am fighting for a balance to live and do something good  to share with you all. Hope it will work for a while….umm… got to go now bye bye.

      The light is great and the weather is awesome… why you are still in a house? Let’s go to see colors.

    Happy Fall everyone.

       KKT.

         This is way late for me to write the blog for this month since it is Sep25 now!!! Well, better be late than never, and here I am. I have been tight up with work also at the same time looking for time to sleep….yes still working on that. It seems to me that I am always stimulated by my daily life of world around me. Working is great for now because I have great boss and great co-workers at work. Believing me on that that part play a lot to our daily life. Also now it is going to the 4th week of 14 weeks for my teaching class at CSN, college of southern Nevada. Students in my class are very new to photography, and I think that we both are lucky. Why? First, they have not yet been over stimulated by the world out there where businesses love to get involve coz of more money they can make. They are always trying to sell you something you don’t need by persuading you that it is good for you. I have a chance to offer my experince and ideas of what do we actually need in order to make art the way they want. Then if they still intend to buy those stuffs, they would know of what is the real use of them all about. Secondly, we have a chance to bulid a BASIC RIGHT to start of this whole thing of photography. The second part is really really big thing now since I have seen and have a direct experince with the rise of digital world. Please note that I am not saying that digital is not good!!!! coz I myself use it daily. My point is that you have to learn till you know about WHAT TO USE IT FOR , WHEN TO USE IT FOR, AND WHY WE USE IT FOR.  This is very important about how we make art. We will NOT make art just because we want to produce a body of work which saying about the procese. We make art because the art work itself expresses something you want to comunicate to people.

    ” Making art is about IDEA, and not about the technic. The technical part is a way whcih we must work THROUGH to get to where the idea is. That is how to make art. “

      Unfortunately, lot of people have been caugth up with the tech part till they forgot about what was the actual thing they want to express. Or maybe sometime somepeople who have not had trained themself enough about photography thought that by employing all the tech and new tools would help them get to where their work should be. However,  when the body of work and the idea of using the tech don’t have enough contant to support. Then the body of work don’t have enough power to stant out on it own because there is nothing in it but it just a demo of how the artist using the tech. This type of people is a target group of those big name photography product companies. They get biger and biger everyday. Can you imagine how it gets biger and biger… wishfuly, you are not one of the supporter.

     ” It seems to me today to say that BEFORE art runs by ideas, but TODAY art runs by tool and tech. “ 

     These two thing will never be the same. Therefore, I am worrying a bit about our future generation because soon we will run out people who know about ideas and live by ideas. We soon will not have enough good educators as time goes by, and soon it will be so rare to see one. I wonder what art would be then.

     Anyways, get back to where I was about to talk about as I did a hint by title this bolg about. Fall is already here up around 10,000 elevation. It was, I would say from my taste, about 50% to end of it already. I was blessed with rain, hail , and fog or I would say cloud ( a low one ) on last Tuesday and Wednesday. I was up by Dixie forest in Utah ( where I always love to be ) for aspen trees. Some of them turn yellow, some on orange, and some on red. The best part of that is when we get to see it early, they are all mix in colors at the same group. It is what I look for. As in Vegas, a heat wave has come back somehow, and we are about 100′f this week. However, it is good news because it means falls this year would stay a bit longer coz the weather is not changing much. Well, it was 41′f at night where I camp there. Nice and cold :)  I was hiding under some pine trees from rain and hail which was as big as pea. When it all come down at once, now we have to think about dumping bags of pea of you…hurt!!! haha. I will be working my way down elevation from high mountain in Utah till fall is gone. I will share with you along the way…

     Here are some images from the trip. By the way the B&W are the one I work for my class.

   Top from 80mm and 10mins exposure.                Top from 150mm and 1 hour exposure.

Top from 150mm at 15mins exposure.                   Top from 80mm at 10 mins exposure ( Lake Mead, NV )

     Here are from Utah..

   Thank you everyone for stop by and read maybe if you like to share your thought, please do so. I would love that…

      Happy fall.

    KKT.

           Good morning August everyone,

         My sleeping system now has gone crazy because I don’t have a certain time for me to go to bed. Someday I stay up all night after work then went out to do some photos. Someday, I just sleep in all day coz I am tired from work and from stay up many days all together. This is not a good sign, and I must change it.

         Before I am writing this here, I have this in my mind since lastnight which made me unable to sleep well so I told myself to do it and get over and done with. Then I will able to go sleep again before going to work at 4pm. On top of that it is my MONDAY… not happy hahaha.

        Well, Summer in Las Vegas is very very hot and so tired to get out of the house to do something during the day. This reminds me of animals sleeping through the winter because of the cold and foods. I am about to be the same during the summer time, waking up near the evening for work and foods I wish it could be the other way around because I love cold better than hot, and I can’t wait for summer to be over. Surely soon leaves will turn their colors up on the mountains in Utah. I have some places which must be revisit from past years. This year timing will be better from learning through my own mistakes. I believe that it is a must way of making meaningful images beside sometime luck comes to our sides. So for now, I get my equipments check, my films check,  my car check, and with a good pray for a good year of color.

        Here is the point that’s why I am here writing. This is  an introducing of an ongoing new photographic work project ” Road Trip “. This is a photographic work which has been done, and it is a parallel idea to my typical landscape works. Years before, I passed by these opportunities because my mind was not mature enough to defind clearly about what it is. Nowadays, this is considering from myself that it is now a main body of work that my mind is always looking for. As mentioning here time to time that we all have to follow how we feel in order to find ourselves. So here I am.

        Anyways, someone might have questions about my personal goal about why I make art works the way I do, and what is my point of doing it. Simply, I make art because it is what keeps my life up and makes myself stay positive in my world. It is not easy now to really live life the way you imagine it should be today. Many factors force you to be unable to live the way you want. I do art because it makes me come close to what I want my everyday world to be at least in my mind, and it is for me. No one can change that or take that away from me.  My goal today is that I am thinking that I might be able to call myself an artist. From that I feel that I have a commitment to myself to make something to keep and share MY TIME in some forms, and this case I choose photography. I love every minute of photography. Within my photography world, there are not limitations nor the outsiders forces telling me about how I should to do things. It is all up to me. There are many possibilities within this medium and it doesn’t seem to have the dead end. Things can seems to be different in a matter of light flickrs our eyes. That’s interesting for me.

           The Road Trip is my open end world. It is stimulated by my age and where I am seeing myself at in that particular moment of time. What I see could be meant differently at different moment. Everything never stay the same, and all my subject matters can be everything in which I was given to be able to see it the way it attracts my feeling. That is a hard part of the making. The photograpic part is not too difficult once you know what you want to capture before pulling out a camera. 

      Some of you may notice the shift of my work. It is shifting to new direction on some part. However, I am not limited by that idea. I always believe that there is should not be limited of how we make art from today and the next. All of works can be made with different approch at the same time. I mean I can and still make landscape photos and now I just add the new way of how I see my photography world on top of the landscape. Also, sometime I put them both together, and the result turns out to be very different…as I said about this is and open ending project.

      Here are images I wish to share with you. I wish you would find it someway interesting and enjoyable.

      Thank you for your time and hope you enjoy summer.

       Komkrit.

    Hi everyone,

          Summer is finally here. I usually have a question to myself about how have I managed to live here in Las Vegas over 9 years with the heat of summer. So I am here again at an usual time to ask the same question almost everyday during summer months. It is now about 104-108′f outside during the day. How can I express the feeling of when I was out doing my project to you in order to make you feel as I felt?  Anyway, I don’t think that it is fun. However, I manage myself to go through the summer months alright so far. With a lot of water, short, and T-shirt, I believe we will do good. One thing I like about summer is that the sun sets about 8pm. By the time I don’t have to deal with trafic, and parking space. Also, people seem to enjoy evening outside their houses better than other seasons. That means I will have more opportunities to photograph them in action!!! Eventhough, I don’t photograph too much of people. However,  there seem to be some kind of activities that people do during the summer which I interest in very much. 

         I seem to be quite open mind when I go out to look for my image, and I think that it is important to keep my mind that way. That is a fun of it too. Someday, I come across something very exciting, and someday it was dry and I could not see anything.

       I might call this event during this time of my life as a ” an explorer with out a map ” period.

         This has been considered a new way of doing thing by myself. Therefore, I am not so sure of which direction it is going to go. As I mention time to time to people I know and to myself about doing what our minds tell us to do is at least a good start. It has been now the 2nd year of doing that, and it has been great so far. However, there are times that I am in doubt too. During lastnight of July 4th BBQ over at my photographer friend’s, Javier www.javiersanchezmex.com, house, we were talking about what is up with both of our works. One thing he said and it has pull me up from drowning with in my own thought. He said ” An artwork is no needed the explanation by the artist, but the artwork must be an extended part of who the artist is. ” All the doubt now disappeared from me since last night conversation. He said to me that I think too much. He is absolutely right. Being an artist sometime we do need a good friend who is able to mirror who we are back to show us. To remind us of what we were at the starting point because as days has gone by, we might got lost, and seeing unclear of where we are going. Thank you Javier.

         These are part of development images  would like to share with you…

             Thank you everyone for spending sometime here. It’s 5pm. It is almost time to get ready to put cameras in a car and, taking off from a house to look for images of Vegas. If you live here, you might be able to see a man with a big backpack on his back, a tripod on one hand and a big bottle of water, beer would be good haha kidding, on the another walking around by your house. Please don’t be panic. He just wants to make pictures…

          Take care and see ya next month.

             Komkrit.

         The Friday night of June 25, 2010 me and lots of many others were invited to join the openning reception of the exhibition ” Unnatural History “. The artists were Richard Barnes http://www.richardbarnes.net/ , and Don Simon  http://www.donsimonart.com/ . Both are great speakers and works were fun to study.  The exhibition is at Spring Preserves, Las Vegas, NV. I would like to say that if you have time, you must check this out. It is not easy to see the works of international acclaim artists in town. It is great when once in a while we are around by art, especially great arts!!! Here is a PDF of this show so you can study about it more before going there. http://www.springspreserve.org/assets/pdf/events_unnaturalhistory_guide.pdf . There are many 40″x50″ photos by Richard and nice 28″x28″ and biger of Don’s works…. Also you will get to see my favorite ” Musk Ox “ life size on display too… what would you say?   Ok Here are images from last night…

From left to right, Mike Spiewak ( SP’s curator ), Richard Barnes ( the artist ), and myself.

     Thank you for reading, and if you are in Vegas this summer, now there is an another place to check out beside, you know, the Strip….again

  Best everyone.

  Komkrit.

An early morning at Grand Teton national park.

       Hi all for June. How are we doing so far? Well, it is 108′f already in Las Vegas!!! Yeah, we didn’t do 90′f, but instead that we just went over 100′f from 80′f. I just came back home from a long 8 days trip to Yellowstone and Grand Teton nation park in Wyoming 3 days ago. This is a quick hello to everyone because I will be out of town very early morning today, a few hours from now. I have to drive to Santa Barbara to pick up my films and drop some off at http://www.colorservices.com/ . This lab is awesome both service and care. If some of you still do film, I would like you to try them out. I am sure that you will not be disappointed, I didn’t. Ok here is just a preview and I will be back for more soon…

   to be continute…

   June 12 at 12:15am.

      Sorry for the wait. I am now just coming to a slow mode. Yes, I went to pick up mu films and drop some off 2 days ago. There are a lot of interesting images coming home with me. It is a matter of time which I need with them. I like to wait and see which image growing in my by time. Soon later I will work with them and I will share them with you here.

    I went out yesterday evening because of the clouds and light for my project, Only Vegas. It was almost happening. The wind was too strong and there was a cloud blocking the last light for my image. I set my 4×5 camera up and only had a chance to watch it to see that the wind would blur my 1 secound exposure. It was about 40 mile/ hour. Well, it will be an another day for this.

    Ok here is an another image I’d like to share with you from Grand Teton… Hope you like it.

After sunset at Jackson Lake, Wyoming.

  Please enjoy the view. It is late now and I am sleepy, not much of sleeping from many thing I have done in past weeks. I will be back and write more about things very soon. See ya.

            Hello everyone, here we are in May already. Time does fly, doesn’t it?  I usually feel that all those holidays were a week ago. However, the fact is it has been 5 months now since the new year!!! Here is what happen in a time line about my life since January. Before my class at a College Of Southern Nevada which I am a co-teaching started, I was thinking about how would I teach this class. I was thinking about how would I find ways to share what I have been doing on my profesional life to people. Somehow, it has been great for both students and myself. I am able to see my students develop their skills within time of my course which is 16 weeks ( one day a week and some field trips here and there ).  This coming week is a last week. So what I actually want to say is I don’t realize how fast everything around me goes till it is almost over. That’s kind of waking me up and to realize that now it is time to get back to myself again. It is time to get myself going on doing things, such as earning more income, going more on road trips for making new images, saving more money for buying a space ( this case is a house so then I can set up my wet darkroom, and maybe also a dry one ). All these dreams were paused for about 2 years so far because I believe that I must also develop the other sides of my profestional life too, beyond making images is managing of used and direct its future used of my photography. It has been very challenging life style. Sometimes, it brought me joy much more than I ever imagine to myself to have, and some other times it also brought me down to almost tear.

          Within about 2 years while I have been developed this side of my photography, I have met many wonderful people whom of some I call teachers, friends, and brothers. What if I continuted to live the way of life like I did 4-5 years ago, I would not meet anyone of these. I was careless about things around me at those time. I was only thinking about getting out to make images, and more images. I am older now, 34, so that makes me realized about finding a balance to life is a key to happiness. Yes! now for people my age and older, time seems to go fast and faster, but at the same time it makes me see deeper, and the joy of being who we are last a bit longer. I like that. A matter of fact, today I thought a bit of I am 6 years away from being 40!!!!! Ummm 6 more years I will live half of an average human life. It scares me a bit about this truth!!! Wouldn’t it scares you? Well, this gets me thinking though that I have to live my life wiser than I used to do it. I am now surely trying to being open more, Giving out more, Letting go of things more, and seeking out less of what people believe what it should be, but seeking more of what I want to be.  

            Anyways, I would like to share with you these images behind the scenes from this past spring 2010. They are from between California and Arizona. Looking back in time, I have been realistically limited in income, but somehow I made it around pretty good. Also I believe that I have maybe made some special ones, images, along these paths. Once my new job starts which is soon to be, we will see all those films being processed.

           I have a lot of ideas pop up in my head everyday, and I see it much clearer of how to reach to those ideas and make it happen. It is now a matter of time and some saving. Umm I must say that I stay in focus much much more than before. I have to thank to people around me today whose always tiredlessly pointing out ways, cheer me up when I was down, and most important is whose are always be places I can turn myself to when I have gotten nowhere else to go. Thank you.

           I am wondering how the Dogwood flowers in Yosemite would be like right now.It was snowing there yesterday!!! Redwood flowers will be good in 3 weeks too. That’s 900 miles away from me. How about Yellowstone? Spring up there is always fill with ton of wild flowers. It will take 15 hours to drive up there. May I have a chance to be there?  By Monday I should know my chance either yes or no. Let’s pray together.

            Wish you’re all the best.

               Komkrit.

     Hi everyone.

    Here again for April that I am a bit late on writing about my life through photos. Well, it has been a productive spring this year. We all have been offered with a great show of flowers. It is almost as close to the year of 2005, but it is not 2005. However, I have been photographed them at Death Valley np, Antelope Valley area, and on the way to Tucson, AZ for my Tucson 2010 Internaional Association Panoramic Photographers conference which was between April 14-18 2010 at a Hilton hotel in Tucson.

       The flowers were awesome everywhere, and I hope that I did it right when I photographed them. So then I will share with you later on here.  I went on my trip on the 10 and back home 2 days ago with over 2,000 miles only around Arizona!!! I had a great time.

        At the conference, I have learned many more things. I also have met with people which I was only knew by names. It was a great plesure to meet all of you. The things I have gained from listenning and learning from those masters are the best life experince which I might take my whole life to learn it by myself. Thank you to your kindness for sharing your thought with me. It has been much appreciated by me.

       I shot 20 rolls of color films in past 10 days and I have 3 rolls of black and white which I already develop and there 2 images I wish to share with you here. It was taken while I was on the way coming home.  Hope you enjoy them.

Both images were photographed by A Linhof 6×17SIII panoramic camera with a 90mm lens and Kodak T-max100 film. So now I am exciting about my color work!!!

      Lastly, I would like to say thank you to you to make my trip special more than ever. It would not be done without you.

       Komkrit.