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| I Photograph Evocations Not Objects |
| 11.23.04 (3:18 am) [edit] |
[1] It is impossible for me to see only what the eye takes in, for the surfaces are only symbols. The look of a wall or a window is a look into time and space. The wall carries its history, what we see is not of the moment alone. Windows are symbols. They are openings in.
[2] No thing is beautiful. But all things await the sensitive and imaginative mind that may be aroused to pleasurable emotion at sight of them. This is beauty.
- - Robert Henri, from his book, The Art Spirit [1960]
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| Why This Artist Photographs 'Old' Scenes |
| 11.21.04 (9:55 am) [edit] |
I believe I’m not mistaken when I look upon something that is scarcely half alive as romantic. The defective, the crumbled, the diseased; e.g., an ancient city wall. Whatever is useless yet mysteriously beautiful – that is romantic. I love to dream about such things, and, as I see it, dreaming about them is enough.
- - Swiss fiction author Robert Walser (1914).
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| Friday Song |
| 11.19.04 (9:33 pm) [edit] |
If you can find no impulse for joy within yourself, look at others. Go out among the people. See how well they know how to rejoice and give themselves up utterly to glad feelings. But hardly have you succeeded in forgetting yourself and enjoying the spectacle of others’ joys, when tireless Fate reappears and insinuates itself. But the others pay no heed. They do not even look around to see you standing there, lonely and depressed. Oh, how merry they are! And how fortunate, that all their feelings are direct and simple. Never say that all the world is sad. You have only yourself to blame. There are joys, strong though simple. Why not rejoice through the joys of others? One can live that way, after all.
- - Tchaikovsky, writing about the fourth movement of his Sixth Symphony.
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| One Of My Favorite Photographers Has Died |
| 08.06.04 (7:21 pm) [edit] |
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Perhaps my favorite photographer has died. Henri Cartier-Bresson. He died earlier this week in France, age 95. He is sometimes called the (always called one of) the greatest photographer(s) of the 20th Century. One of my personal-favorite quotes about (portrait) photography comes from him: "At some age, everyone gets the face they deserve."
EDITED!
1) He studied painting / composition;
2) He was a master of what became called "The Decisive Moment;" that is, that split second when a scene of simple life becomes poignant. Mind you, this requires a perception, an understanding of life and of human nature, so that the photographer can see it coming and point and move to click his camera an instant before the "decisive moment," so that he can capture the moment at it's height.
Some of his photos: www.magnumphotos.com
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| Expression |
| 06.17.04 (10:02 am) [edit] |
After having commented about the Wayne Wang movie =http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0...Smoke to =http://slynne.blogspot.comLynne, I read Roger Ebert’s online =http://www.suntimes.com/ebert...review of this film. He ends his synopsis with this observation, inspired by the movie:
“Of all the handicaps in life, the worst must be the inability to express how you feel.”
And I agree. Even people without arms paint pictures. Beethoven was deaf, and he composed music. Stephen Hawking is in about as bad a condition as a human can get, yet he reveals secrets of the universe.
My grandfather painted regularly, and was satisfied. My eldest sister drew and painted, but didn’t keep up with it and moved over to heroin (and to the grave). My brother showed musical interest, until he became bored with life (he often said) and also moved over to heroin and, likewise, on to his grave. My other sister had baby after baby (four, from three guys) to keep her occupied, until she went on to alcohol and heroin, and then to Hepatitis C and liver problems (…).
Myself? I used to try to write. I moved onto acting, which saved me in my teen years. And 20s. And 30s. Since 12 I have been doing photography. Since 20 I have been keeping journals. (And in my 20s, lots and lots of sex – not for relationship satisfaction, but for some kind of validation or identity-quest). All of these are ways that I express(ed) myself. When I do (or did) none of these, I become bored and depressed. Self-expression. I need to express myself.
So did my brother, apparently. And my sister. As do people who blog. Without our expression and audience, who understands us? Who really knows us? And without these questions and yearnings fulfilled, are we anyone? Are we alive? Are we justified in using up a share of oxygen and other resources? Without the freedom, ability and facility to convey how we feel, to know that someone knows that, and how, we feel, indeed aren’t we handicapped to the point of not even feeling human, of not feeling alive?
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| Photos I'll Never Take |
| 06.14.04 (9:08 am) [edit] |
Between Fairfield and Vallejo, CA is a segment of Highway 80 (the freeway that runs from CA all the way across the country) that has zero "city," it's all rural. Just three or so miles, this section of highway cuts right thru some magical mountains. I want to photograph them but, being along a very busy highway, I'll never be able to walk around taking fotos of these low hills. I would love to be the Ansel Adams of these overlooked hillocks.
French Impressionist painter Claude Monet often painted exactly the same scenes (a ravine, haystacks in a field) in different seasons, in different light, at different times of day, to demonstrate how all these variations change the same subject. I drive this section of freeway often, and these low rolling hills (maybe 200 feet high?) are forever changing by season and by time of day.
In spring, the hills are first delicately green with sprouting grass, and the oak trees' trunks and limbs nearly black after a rain; later, the hills are densely green with thick grass or weeds or with whatever grows on such hillsides. Depending on the time of day, there might be scatterings of cows grazing. A few weeks later, the grass begins to fade toward yellow, with patches of light brown. Finally - this weekend, I noticed - the hills are fully brown and the green of the oak trees now contrasts against what was earlier similarly green.
Time of day, too, changes the texture of these hills. These low hills are old, so there are no sharp edges. They roll and dip and rise like the depressions a child might make in thick mud: random, varied, unpredictable. Atmospheric conditions too - cloudy, overcast, sunny - and time of day (angle of light) always reveal soft rolling crags forever in new ways. Last Friday evening I happened to glance to my right - toward the west - while passing one particular spot and for the first time noticed deep shadows of three close-together vertical crags caused by the sidelighting of the western sun as it neared sunset. These indentations in the hillside would have been invisible to me three hours earlier, as the sun would have been shining directly onto this side of the crags instead of from the west causing their deep parallel shadows.
Like Monet's ravine paintings (I don't know the name of the ravine he often painted) these mountains are forever changing. From the season, time of day and atmosphere, the color and texture of these rolling hills are never the same. I wish I could spend days upon days, each day for hours and hours, season to season, photographing these hills. I'd never have the same shot twice. Merely conveying what the hills are telling us, my photos would demonstrate the magic of nature.
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| Fotocali Art Influences |
| 04.24.04 (4:08 pm) [edit] |
Allow me to explain and demonstrate a couple things.
First, painters who have influenced me; here are two, among others. As a very young boy, I had a children's encyclopedia with the painting below by Giorgio de Chirico on the cover. I loved that picture and would stare at it. It made a lasting impact on how I see light and its effect toward the surreal. I've been seeing like that ever since. I love the compositional layouts of Edward Hopper. Below is just one simple sample of his work. Look at others and you'll see the very graphical nature of his compositions; he frequently uses architecture for its solid panels of color, and for its strong natural verticals and horizontals. As well, these elements always divide the frame in perfect balance. Interestingly, his work has also been described as depicting lonliness and desolation: what I often feel that I try to depict.
On the right is a foto I took yesterday afternoon. See how the influences of Hopper's composition and de Chirico's light show up in my fotos?...
![]() =http://img19.photobucket.com/...
In 1980 (I was 20) I went with a friend to Mono Lake - east of Yosemite National Park. On the right, below, is a foto I took there. About four years later I saw a postcard of a painting by Claude Monet, which is on the left. I may not even have known who Monet was, at 20. I certainly had never studied composition, of Monet or of anyone else. So when I saw this postcard I realized that I must have some kind of innate sense for composition. I mean, heck! Compare the two...!
![]() =http://img19.photobucket.com/...
P.S.: Scroll down for another example of Hopper's influence on me. Go down to "Downtown California 2: Residential." When I walked by that home the porch immediately said "Hopper" to me. The way the elements in the scene divide the frame, and it reminded me of Hopper's paintings of seaside homes.
Also, scroll all the way to the bottom (to "Gallery of Light and Shadow") and scroll thru those fotos for strong examples of the de Chirico influence.
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