A New Feature

Some of you may have stumbled upon my blog expositions of my Very Limited Edition photographs, but many have not. I will be changing that here by occasionally featuring one of these editions as a main blog article. As I post these edition articles I will remove their presence in the "Very Limited Editions" static page, currently linked to on the right sidebar of this blog.

Bill processes a Very Limited Edition canvas

The reason for doing this is due to the limited nature and number of static pages allowed in this blog. As I add to my limited editions I would eventually run out of my ability to add new ones as static pages. So after some consideration of this situation I have decided to post all limited edition photographs (both current and future) as main articles.

This will also allow you to easily search this blog for all "limited editions" and get a full categorization and listing of them, OR, you could simply click on the label "limited editions" which appears in the "tag cloud" down on the right sidebar. Then, you can easily click on an edition in the listed articles for a view of the actual photograph as well as an article describing the image and any other interesting tidbits that relate to it.

Thanks again for reading, and you can now be looking forward to articles on specific photographs.

Immersion

Hidden behind a viewfinder
("The Photojournalist,"
Andreas Feinenger's
portrait of  Dennis Stock)

Hiding behind a camera isolates a photographer from their subject, whatever that subject might be. There is a way to break through the isolation and though it should be obvious, many never try it.

It seems like forever since I last wrote concerning the mechanics of composition. And you may not remember that when I first approached the subject I said that there have historically been three main modes of accomplishing this. Well...I actually touched on only the first two: the groundglass and the viewfinder. Hmmmm...whatever happened to that missing third?...and what even was it, anyway?

Whether looking at a surrogate of the final photograph on a groundglass (or its modern digital counterpart), or at a limited view of the world through a viewfinder, a photographer is usually isolated to some degree from the world he hopes to image. However, there is a third way of composing the image that actually connects the artist to the subject and immerses them in the world.

Hidden behind a groundglass

In the 1920s and 1930s, cameras had sufficiently progressed technologically to where they were relatively portable, light-weight, and technically simple to operate. Smaller, faster photographic materials ("film") coupled with faster lens systems also had a major impact. These factors had the distinct effect of allowing the photographer to leave the studio behind and begin finding photographic adventure "on the street." It was a monumental leap for the photographic artist to see her art and craft as not simply that of portraiture and still-life in the studio or even of landscapes (if she dared venture out of doors). She could now join the rest of humanity where they lived much of their lives– in action and on the street. This was the beginning of what we would today call photojournalism.

The groundglass obviously became a totally useless antiquity in this new setting. And even though most cameras still contained a viewfinder, those who looked for the real breath of life on the street (and wherever life happened) couldn't be confined behind the optical system of a viewfinder. They preferred to walk among their people, maybe with the camera held at their waist instead of raised to their eye, looking their subjects directly in the eye– eye to eye.

This visual communication allowed the artist to be in real human relationship with their subject, however brief that might be. The subject now saw the photographer as another human being rather than some kind of bio-opto-mechanical-hybrid monster. And the photographer could now see their subject as not simply some image to be composed within a little rectangular frame, but as a real, living and breathing person who existed within a larger environment.

This alternative mode of composing an image abandons the precision of framing and composition that is offered by the groundglass and the viewfinder, but it definitely makes up for this deficit with increased intimacy and immediacy with the subject. This mode takes some practice to get right, but muscle-memory will eventually take over and make "aiming from the hip" second nature.

Try taking photographs with your camera at waist level— don't worry, with modern cameras "film" is cheap, no, FREE! Take as many as you like, attempting to frame the image you desire. When your practice sessions are over you can easily discard your attempts. Do this often, over a period of weeks and months, and you will see a steadily improving ability to point your camera from waist-level at anything you are looking at and capture an image that accurately frames the one you imagined.

A side benefit of all this is that you can also gain a deepening aesthetic sense that can free you from overly depending upon precision and analysis. Enjoy your new-found freedom!

Pumping Blood and Pushing Daisies

Some art strikes its recipients with thunder and lightning. Other art yields its secrets much more slowly and slyly.

At the recent Parade of Artists in Boerne I had wonderful extended periods of time to talk with some of my fellow artists as well as with the art lovers who came to visit. In talking with my brother-in-the-arts, Harold Teel, I asked him to give me a little insight into how he approaches his work, and some of the little things he does to make his art unique.

Many of the significant details that he weaves into his paintings may be missed by the casual observer. Harold pointed some of them out to me in his painting SPRING ROUNDUP and I will try to recall his tour here.

SPRING ROUNDUP, © Harold Teel, all rights reserved by the artist

On the surface, the watercolor painting is composed mainly of two human legs, both clad in chaps, boots, and spurs. The one on the left is the left leg of a cowboy and on the right is the right leg of a cowgirl. There is clearly a romantic involvement here as the legs are closely spaced and the boots are nearly touching.  Moreover, the cowboy's gloved hand clasps the corresponding one of the cowgirl as he extends to her an offering of freshly picked daisies.

A subtle detail missed by many is the tiny heart-shape embossed in the center of the cowboy's spur rowel— evidence of the cowboy's intent.

Heart in the spur's rowel

As I am looking here at the painting, I notice some other parallel details: the half a heart-shape shadow on the lady's chaps, the heart-shape formed by the blue sky (seen beyond the nearly touching legs) and the two clasped hands above, and the near-heart-shape formed by the lady's boot shadow and the dark toe-end of her boot.  I also notice several (three, four, maybe a half-dozen) other hinted-at heart shapes in the image which may be conscious, unconscious, or even subconscious— but perhaps, accidental and serendipitous.

It's also interesting how the heart-shape itself, a purely abstract contemporary icon for "love" (it really doesn't look much at all like our blood pumps), is composed of two symmetric pieces, joined together in the center— what a great graphic device for two joined by love! And the tension between the heart's pointy-end below and the very rounded-end above seems to mirror the tension that exists in real love between its sharp/compelling aspects on one hand and the comfortable/relaxed freedoms on the other.

Eye of the daisy

And then there is the reverberating device in the form of a daisy: the obvious botanical daisies themselves, their shadows, and the profiles of the two spur rowels...with their corresponding two shadows.  And don't miss the detail of the lady's spur rowel with a yellow center, just like the real daisies above. Then, unseen, and above and beyond the image's border, is the daisy-like profile of the sun itself which is obviously and brightly illuminating the entire scene.

Of course there is even much more to see in the image than what I have stated here, but you get the idea. Take your time when observing art. Look beyond the immediate and the obvious. And even look beyond the subtly designed details. Learn to appreciate each piece for what it is, and it may yield up some surprising secrets.