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What else they might be

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I’ve always loved Minor White‘s dictum to photograph something not only for what it is but also for “what else it is.” His images that accord best with that idea tend to be ambiguous ones of rocks, frost on windows, etc. I don’t really know whether or not he had clear ideas with particular images what else they were of. Which would be just like I don’t for the image above. But I do have a kind of feeling that it’s about more than a frozen stream at the base of Pine Creek Falls at the northern end of (I kid you not) Paradise Valley.

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Painting on photographs: Erika Meershoek and Dennis Moet collaborate


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Painting From Life vs. From Photos


We have had much discussion about painting from photographs (e.g. here, here and here). What about painting on photographs? Artist Erika Meershoek and photographer Dennis Moet of Haarlem have teamed up to do just this. Their work is a powerful synthesis of the two media, which, beyond its visual impact, turns the photography versus painting discussion on its head.

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My first online art purchase

Paul Butzi recently showed this photograph on Art & Perception. I fell in love with it at first sight. There was no discussion of the image in the post itself. I asked Paul if he could write something about the picture, and he did. At that point, I decided to buy the print.

This weekend Paul’s print arrived in the mail. I was not sure exactly what to expect, because Paul uses an Epson printer to produce his prints, and I had no idea what the result would be. Now that I have it here, I am surprised but pleased with the result. The print is crisp (despite my lousy photo of it above) and has lovely gray tones. It is not like a “normal” photograph, however — it is matt rather than glossy. This does not diminish its beauty, but does give it a different feel — say, like a fresco as compared to an oil painting.

Am I ready to “upgrade” to the 40″x50″ print for $2500? I’d like to Paul, though I’ll have to wait on that one. But I am most encouraged with my first foray into the online art market.

Art and commerce

I have made my living with a camera for over 20 years. Photography has been at the center of my life for perhaps double that time. Having the day job also be my creative life has lots of interesting implications.

My father prides himself on the fact that he has never taken money for his photographs. He started photography as a teenager, headed the local camera club, and at 83 he is conversant with scanner settings and monitor profiles. He is in love with the creative act of making images, and has never wanted to be hemmed in by the requirements and dictates of doing it at someone else’s behest.

It is a common solution to the dilemma of “whose work is this anyway.” There is a kind of purity in the amateur’s approach to any medium, and it is to be respected. Creative activity is an important piece of a well rounded life for many of us.

I chose a different course, because I was a really intense kid, and because I wanted no barrier between who I was and what I did. That said, it took a long time to accept that my creative voice was something I could rely on to be at the core of my livelihood. There was about a ten year period of scratching at the margins, trying to get a foothold in the profession, before it finally took hold. It wasn’t until I stopped trying to be a “commercial success”, trying to fit into a mainstream image of what my work should look like, and instead pursued the photographic vision that was most compelling to me, did I finally begin to achieve a measure of professional success and security.

There is an inevitable, and useful, tension between being a commercial photographer and being an artist trying to push against boundaries. My success as a commercial shooter is contingent upon replication–I am hired to do the same thing over and over. My economic life is dependent upon regular praise for it. But without my alternate life as an artist, pushing at new ways of seeing, the commercial work would lose its edge and quickly become stale.

I have always had personal work that I did just because I had to. I have a continuous photographic trajectory I have followed in that vein, things and environments I work on, processes I master, print quality that I value. That specific work is not what built my commercial career however. Clients don’t hire me because I can manage chaotic complexity in landscape photographs. Nonetheless, because I have my particular attentiveness to a photographic sensibility, and a relationship to my surroundings because of my camerawork, I can bring that to bear when the job is to fulfill a client’s need. It has more juice behind it, even if what I am hired to photograph has no apparent bearing on my personal work.

It means I can be both very attached to the manner in which I make photographs, be completely engaged in the situation and the way the photographs come about, while having no attachment whatever to how the photography gets used in the end. That’s what they pay me for—to stay out of the room where those decisions are made. I have a blast on assignment. I love being completely engaged on a job. I may like seeing the finished product in print, but I never think of that as the “real” work. It pays the bills, and keeps me in equipment and in frequent flyer programs. But it’s not how I identify myself in the end.

From the shadows

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Most photos don’t turn out as well as hoped for, and a rare few turn out better than expected. Some (like Colin’s hands and rock last Tuesday) can be turned to a new purpose. But the accompanying image seems to have turned on me altogether.

It was made in a mining ghost town last September, where I spent about 12 hours over two visits (once under hot sun, two weeks later in light snow). I was busy but unhurried, and the experience was entirely peaceful. I loved the light reaching into the rooms and hallways of the abandoned buildings, and I was thinking about that more than anything. It’s sometimes said that light is the only subject of photography, and it felt true then.

Developing the images later on my computer, I realized that beyond a feeling of nostalgia or mystery, many had something faintly (or not so faintly) sinister about them. I hadn’t been aiming for this effect, it just seemed to appear as I looked at the images ready for a first print. The image here, taken inside a shack built into a hill, elicited the term “violent” from a photographer friend, and I had to agree.

I’m really not sure how this came about. Am I inventing things that others don’t see? Is there inevitably a dark side to pictures about light? Was I so entranced by the light I just didn’t notice what was happening in the dark? Is it just poor preparation, led astray by my appreciation of darker tones — though the image shown is actually a bit lighter than my first version? Perhaps — an idea I rather relish — I have unsuspected psychological depths that are making themselves manifest…

I am interested in any thoughts you have on the image or the idea of light/dark in art or mind. Know of any similar pictures? If you’d like to consider a larger context, a dozen other photos from the same location are on my website. And if you want to adjust your monitor to show detail in both highlights and shadows, make sure all steps of gray are distinguishable on this test image.

I’m also wondering how often it happens to painters or other artists that one is surprised, looking back on a work, to discover something quite unintended. As a painting or quilt or whatever takes more time in the making than a typical photograph, and may entail more active decisions regarding content, is the chance of later surprise any less?

I will be checking comments intermittently, and will respond to remarks directed to me (or not!) when I can. I do work a day job…

A picture

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Larger

luminous wave

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Lake Michigan beside the Sleeping Bear Dunes shows a gradient of colors in the sun. The distant deep water looks purple, closer to the shore it turns blue. Small waves breaking on the sand are turquoise green.

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