i've always been a mama's boy so it's no surprise that i find myself relating more easily with females than males. when i first picked up a camera, i spent many hours laying still in the grass to wait for birds to come to the feeder... searching playgrounds, sidewalks, even tracing building facades for evidence of erosion or vandalism... scoping out western facing backgrounds for the sun to settle into... anything to stay away from people. a bit odd, as i'm a people-person. i guess i just didn't want to bother anyone with my "hobby".
as i began to master the camera itself, i realized i would need to expand my subjects. i decided that people were in fact interesting. naturally, most of those people were my friends. naturally, most of my friends were female. i began to ask my friends if i could photograph them 'in their natural habitat'. i took pictures of girls at play. this quickly moved into a more interactive environment where i started posing, setting up shots, figuring out locations, etc. the photographs in this collection are ones that i took while learning how to photograph people. my introduction to portraiture. i thank all of my friends who took the time out of their days to help me pursue my passion.
this collection may never be complete. somewhere girls will always be at play, and something tells me that somehow, i will always find that beautiful.
i possess the genetic coding to travel. i owe this to my father, a missionary. i wish i would have become a photographer earlier in my life to record some of the things i have seen. my eyes often remind me of the things my mind forgets. photos are my memory.
in 2007, i lived in rome. a thank you goes out to all the friends, american and european alike, and especially to my mentor lorenzo pesce for nurturing my heart for photography.
a brief recount of a sad tale: after half a year in rome studying photography, i headed back to the US with my dad's fujica 77z from his college days, my lenses, my 4,000 or so E6 slides, my computer containing the digital copies, my backup hard-drive, and a lot of memories. my memories and i made it back to st. louis. the rest did not. in contemplative moments i've always been too tough to share, i wept. i was furious. i wondered if it was a divine message that i should put down the camera for good. i cursed the people who stole my creations... my heart. then i healed. i got back on a plane with a new camera in hand, and i went to new zealand. these photos represent memories i made while there. memories that can't be stolen.
green was everywhere. animals, abundant. people, curious and a bit lethargic. there was a theme that pervaded the landscape. a theme of beauty lost in some timewarp where architecture superceded living space, animals were more important than people, and the world slept.
Southampton, New York. 2010.
these images are not mine. i put them on my website as an homage to the children who took them. over the summer, i taught a photography workshop at a camp in southampton. i had the privilege of putting cameras into the hands of children after teaching them a brief lesson in photography. the resulting images are above. what surprised me wasn't just the variety of subject matter, but also the elegance and often striking imagery in the composition of their work. 5-12 year olds took all of the pictures above. the interesting thing is that there was a difference in style even at that young of an age. there was also a difference in compositional proficiency.
we live in such a media saturated age, that kids are now seeing so many more photographs a day than what i saw as a child. you can flickr, stumble, or facebook your way through thousands of images in minutes now, and most children have access to computers and the internet. perhaps there is something to be said for the subconscious of the children, as represented in these images. perhaps they're just pictures. whatever the case may be, give a kid a camera. you will learn something about them, and yourself. check out my "give a kid a camera" group on viewbug.com by clicking.
my name is justin mayfield. i'm currently working for a photography company in columbia, missouri and it's keeping me quite busy. on the side, i have a lot of my own projects flittering about. i studied under renowned photographer lorenzo pesce in rome, italy for a few months back in 07', and then under joe johnson in the united states upon my return. check them both out if you get a chance by clicking on their names. very talented individuals.
i really enjoy shooting, and i think it's something anyone can do. there are always moments worth capturing or creating. i do a lot of portrait work, because i've decided people are interesting to me. they express so much so willingly. i also enjoy animals, landscapes, still-lifes, etc. really, anything that i think is visually or conceptually interesting is fair game. if you'd like to have any work done, please let me know using the form. also, get ahold of me on facebook if you like.
jm
it's simple really. the world is the product of a series of colliding paths. peoples' paths intertwining for a moment - forming relationships. a brushstroke in the personal canvas of one life... when we continue to cooperate, to sustain one another... we find a canvas filled with a beautiful painting. there are many artists involved in the creation of one work of art, or one life... but ultimately, the work of art itself is not the artist, but the reflection of many diligent artists working together through a divine painter's hand. we simply view that through the lens we choose. we are always an end result, but we're ever-changing. nothing is finalized.
i work to paralyze moments of transience in their mortal form. to illuminate concepts that would otherwise perish as obscure objects. the leaves on a tree... the expression on a child's face... the passionate gaze shared by lovers... as ubiquitous as these occurences are, they hold importance to individual lives. though we see them as slices of time, they are as eternal as their creator. i hope to capture just a glimpse of the dissection of infinity when i make photographs.
fragility juxtaposed by bravado. excess in simplicity. turmoil over peaceful ground. all those ironically flittering facets. ephemeral photons attack the impressionable silver ions on a piece of film to bring out colors and wavelengths, silvers' shine and the depth of emptiness; i strive to pull the same contrast and energy out of the thinly veiled film of temporality ahead of me. this is not an emo love song. this is how i view reality. i'm compelled to attempt capturing these abstractions on a sensor the size of a postage stamp. i just really have to admire the preservative qualities of photography in my own life... and i take these things as metaphor and provision.
i find that sometimes 'taking' a picture is less taking, and more giving something away... i make... i share pictures... i don't take them. what good is a possessive photographer? making photos, for me, is more akin to releasing hostage energy in the mind perhaps, than it is to adding something to a collection or a gallery. i've literally exposed nothing but a rendering of an infinitely small portion of my experience and the photon arrangement that has influenced my visual sense for a fleeting period. but those eternally small moments of my experience, if i can grasp at them and coax the light into a piece of film, a sensor, another eye... a photo... in its simplicity, that act may affect the perceptions of another person for the rest of their lives... and that is why i believe in photography not solely as art or technique, but more-so, storytelling... books written on postcard size photo-paper. poetry for the eye. life in miniature - eras in moments. framed. thanks.
