Tag Archives: France

FEBRUARY 24, 2015

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The ‘Click’

That vine I carried home a few days ago has leaped up onto my still life table begging me to be seen instead of sitting by the fire trying to avoid being the next piece of firewood. I had been wanting to do something with it, but nothing was calling out to me, then today I found this flask at a local flea market. It’s made from a gourd and has some beautiful little dotted lines etched into it, and the cap screws on with a satisfying little ‘click’ a it snugs into a perfect, spiraled fit. A real craftsman’s trick, and probably the thing that made me bring it home.

It’s handmade, but since it was an organic thing, like the vine, I felt some kind of kinship was possible, so I set them up simply to look at them together to see if they had any kind of affinity beyond their origins as vine and gourd.

They’re a handsome couple – in their way –  but nothing is going on with them, no dynamic, no mystery, no fire, pardon the pun, nothing but their separate identities.They’re boring, like some couples you meet at a party!  But I’ll leave them up overnight and see what other objects might want to muscle their way in and bring some life to this static duo. To be continued, or not.

Feb-24 L1000680

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

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Hodge Podge

Feb-23 L1026328.

Sometimes a crazy, meaningless collection of objects, spaces, colors, light, and actions all come into play at once, and from it might come the call to pay attention to this hodge podge of stuff in front of us. I think hodge podge comes from an old Dutch or French word meaning a soup made from whatever was left lying around, probably meaning a hot pot, or something like that. In Amsterdam I once saw a Dutch historical painting where there was a hot pot made for the masses who were celebrating the Spanish defeat, or something like that. Anyway, as we know, sometimes a mess of a stew can be delicious!

And although this frame isn’t exactly delicious, it is interesting to me just how much it continues to hold its own and make me want to look at it again. A little uncertainty is useful sometimes as it presses the argument. First, there’s the sculpted figure on a marble block about the same size as that car, (not to mention that the figure seems to be an early prototype of the model draped over the car hood to show its curves, just look at that head and chest) and then around her head is the corona of the tree’s limbs which, when seen in relation to the crane’s beam and the lines to the light poles, both fill and fracture the space in provocative ways. And there is an interesting ‘read’ to the overall space through the way the figures – statue/car/couple – diminish on an angle all their own. I would bet that were I to print this at 60 inches the image would invite us to look harder and pay us back with interest.

It’s open-ended pictures like this that I believe help refine our sensibilities and enable us, in fact, urge us, to look more thoughtfully at all the spaces and moments we pass through. Let’s accept that there is nothing much going on here of note, but that it still has some kind of pull in spite of that shortcoming. I would rather make a flawed, but interesting to consider photograph, than a more successful image that uses conventional forms to tell its tale.

 

FEBRUARY 21, 2015

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Every Sensation

How many vineyards are there? It seems as if every road in the Luberon Valley of Provence is laced with endless rows of vines, and they are all beautiful in their way, whether it’s their sheer commercial production beauty and organization, or older, pre-mechanization vineyards that have a different spacing for their mature vines.

But every once in a while I come across one of these newer vineyards where the young plants have been collared with a plastic tube, something which sounds like it will only add an ugly note to the landscape, but which, at least here in this flat, but still backlit light, offered me something to stop and take a look at. I always trust my instinct when that tiny ‘Zen bell’ goes off in my head and says to me, “hey, what’s the hurry”.

Stepping out into the space is always a moment to take a fresh look! What’s here? Why do these dumb plastic tubes call out to me so strongly? Perhaps it’s just the pure color note they bring to the earth tones and the new green, maybe its their relationship to the veiled and slightly blue haze on the hillsides, generating a kind of ugly beauty which makes a new harmony. Or perhaps its their repetition and the visual mathematics of scale, with the neon blue buzzing as it diminishes in size all the way back to the horizon.

Whatever it is it tests the limits of what can make a photograph on any given day. So, on this day, this is the most memorable of my visions, and yet it is made of so little as to almost be without value. Yet I remember every sensation!

 

Feb-21 L1026188.

FEBRUARY 20, 2015

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Never Say No

There are roads in Provence that can break your heart. This road near the town of St. Remy is one I have traveled almost every time I come to the region, and in fact it is so moving to me that I published two pictures made along its course in our book,”Provence: Lasting Impressions”. In those images the trees are leafed out in the fulness of summer, and again when fall burnished their leaves a rusty gold.

Now, on a wintry day, with flawless sunlight etching every detail into my eye, the white bones of the trees are singing against the blue dome of the sky. I’m not stopping – as I have done before, to dance in the middle of the road and play in the oncoming traffic –  but I’m driving straight through and letting the windshield be my frame while the miles of trees fill and empty it as I pass.

I love this road and how I feel whenever I am on it. It always feels new to me, and yet it touches an ancient nerve where the definition of ‘road beauty’ lies in wait to be awakened once again. I remain susceptible to these quirks of mine and never fail to respond even if it seems as if I have had enough of them to last a lifetime. And I may have. But I believe in letting loose the arrows in my quiver whenever the impulse arises. That gesture, that Yes!, is my tipping of the hat to the spirits that have guided me to respond to the world for more than 50 years, and I never say no.

Feb-20 L1026278.

FEBRUARY 19, 2015

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Simple Things

Simple is good! This may be true for food as well as for photographs (even the complicated ones). But I have to say that on a day in February, when the temperature is 60, and the sun is hinting at springtime coming to my neighborhood soon; a couple of cappuccinos, some English biscuits, and some coffee ice cream, eaten in sunlight, sitting next to the woman I love, well, nothing could beat that.

I don’t equate simple with simple things. I think seeing the complexity of the world, in all its varied layers and movements, and its timings, is an amazing feat of observation. And as richly detailed and capable of multiple meanings as it all becomes, both in the reality of the moment, and later in a print, it can still be stated simply. Because if it was understood intuitively, and thus proposed in a direct way, the visual language at your disposal will do all the rest.

Photography is a language. That is something I have always believed. And it takes years of learning the ins and outs of that language, the intricacies of its forms and shadings, the expressive potential of energies that visit you while you are seeing something, which we build and learn over time, until one day you realize that you actually have your own private language. If you have made it a clear and elegant language, you will communicate with your visual voice to all kinds of people. And strangers will understand you, people will be moved by you, some will feel the feelings you experienced. The world will want to see what you have to say.

Isn’t that what we love about photography?

Feb-19 L1026246.

FEBRUARY 18, 2015

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Leo

There it is! The first tiny bud indicating that spring will come again. Maggie, the gardener in our life notices every change, even the slightest, which is how a true gardener perceives the world. Her glee, the sweet innocence of her discovery, moves me to delight. I see the child-like spirit, maybe even catch a glimpse of who she was when she was 10 years old. This brief morphing of the mature Maggie into the child is something all of us are lucky to see in our loved ones. Like seeing the original before the world gave us our lumps.

Simple as this is I like seeing the pairing of the trellis form and Maggie’s, and – only an insider can know this – I catch sight of the word LEO on the lintel, and Maggie is a Leo, so that’s a little playful aside, which tickles me. But who else knows and who cares? Me!

And as we know it’s only for us that we make photographs, but I put it out here now because of all the images from today this is the one that makes me stop for a moment to take it in, and to wonder how that small square of earth can support such a generous plant, which, in fact, goes all along the roof line in both directions and must be amazing to look at in summertime when it’s in full bloom.

Feb-18 L1026238.

FEBRUARY 17, 2015

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Show Me The Way

Feb-17 L1026220.

A beautiful day for a walk through the fields of Provence. Here they let travelers and hikers cut across what we think of as private property, as long as you are respectful of the vineyards and orchards, which are the main crops of this fruitful valley, it’s fine with landowners. They must have been pruning the vineyards recently because I came across piles of vines like these everywhere, and while there were hundreds to choose from these two had a quality and form that spoke to me. And besides, I had to carry them for a couple of miles, so they had the right heft.

I was thinking they may work in a still life somehow, but as yet I have no idea what role they’ll play or how I’ll use them. Might just be for firewood in the long run. Who knows? When I got back I placed them on the terrace floor and just looked at them. Sometimes the quiet study of what I have in front of me sends sparks through my mind, which, given room to catch fire, can send me on flights of imagery; aimless, loose, sometimes insightful, and even more often not connected to anything I’m involved in, which is the best I can hope for since it may open a door not yet known.

The light was gorgeous, but on the wane, so I carried the vine around like Liberace with a candelabra, looking for a place to see it separate from the other vine, and not as a still life object. This is not something I have ever spent time doing before. My photographic stance has always been; “the world gives, I receive,” don’t touch a thing! But this year abroad, and the making of some recent still lives, has allowed me – in some cases – to play in ways I never have before. Where it’s all leading I don’t know.

I’m just letting photography show me the way.

Feb-17 L1026225.

 

FEBRUARY 16, 2015

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Proof of Interest

For many years now I have seen dispossessed chairs hanging out wherever chance has tossed them, like old souls left on their own after a long and faithful service. Like us they have backs and arms and legs and feet and definitely bottoms, some even have a head of sorts. All of which, in some way, may make them so compelling. I have also photographed chairs within more noble or comfortable circumstances; thrones, Cardinal’s chairs, cushy corporate ones, and in nearly every imaginable location.

In fact, during my time working inside Ground Zero, one of the most surprising first sights was the unbelievable numbers of chairs that had been thrown from the buildings and remained intact upon landing! These chairs became the bleachers from which the exhausted rescue and recovery workers watched the amazing daily drama while taking their breaks. Every chair you might conceive of, from the most elegant to the most humble, found its way back to being useful once again.

How did I begin to notice ‘chairs’ as a subject? If I remember correctly it was while working on the light box (remember the light box?) when one day, while I was editing for something else, I noticed some funny chair pictures and tossed them to the top of the box, and then as others appeared I found myself becoming aware that this was a theme that I had not really known I was interested in. But the proof of interest was in the pictures that were appearing. And so I began looking out for them while editing and being more aware of them while out on the street.

I believe that it’s important to be open to the suggestive impulses that emerge, either from the world, or out of the work, for these clues have in them the clearest indication of our natural, instinctive responses, our identity even, and also some sense of the consciousness we may be overlooking when we act in more premeditated ways.

Feb-16 L1026174.

FEBRUARY 15, 2015

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Time As Light

When I began making these new still life photographs, in the year before this image below, I found myself working in a dark environment which was a strange thing for me to do since ‘Light’ was the phenomena that marked my photographs as mine. So why the dark? What was so attractive about that? These thoughts, and many more, are questions that rise up out of the chance events of our lives when combined with our creative impulses.

To tell the truth though, it was the weather! That summer the temperature in Tuscany was over 95 every day for 3 months – it never rained – and so searing was it that during the middle of the day it was impossible to be outside, so I retreated into the little studio that Maggie and I shared on the farm we had rented. The studio has never been my normal habitat.

Confronted with a dark corner there, darker than this one in the photograph from Bonnieux, I made many studies on different backgrounds, and over 2 to 3 weeks of work I finally arrived at this dark cloth as my sfondo (background). In fact I took this 100 year old piece of stained linen and had it printed with a dark tone I made out of a number of reassembled photographs of mine so that i had just what I needed to place my growing collection of dark objects on.

There is a story that perhaps some of you know, but which I heard from Ben Maddow, a friend of Edward Weston’s, when he was writing a book about him back in the 70’s. He told me that the famous image of The Pepper was made by placing it inside an old tin funnel (if you look closely you will see the curves of the funnel below the pepper) and that Weston put it far back in his studio away from the light in front. And that he told his sons, Brett and Cole, not to run around since the exposure was to be a long one and he didn’t want the floor to shake. Then he made an exposure (the stories vary from 6 minutes to many hours), letting the slow accretion of photons come to caress and build the light on the dark pepper set inside the dark funnel, in that dark corner of the studio.

This story always pleased me, and because I’ve used an 8×10 view camera since 1976, and know very well the generosity of the light, especially when time is used as light,  I appreciated the strategy, and decided to adopt it to my new work. It has taught me more than I can say here, but perhaps as this blog continues, and these images appear, I’ll carry this inquiry further along.

Feb-15 L1026160

FEBRUARY 13, 2015

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Glimpse

Friday the 13th. I already have had my bad luck day this week.

So the joy of seeing this chorus line of sprinklers dancing along the roadside in February lightened my heart. It’s a nothing image in lots of ways, but the reality of it, and the way it gave me pleasure, transcends the weakness. It seemed to me as if it was ‘light’ that was being sprayed across the fields. That momentary illusion, and the thoughts that trailed through my mind as it was left behind, were worth it to me.

I think that the stimulation the world so copiously delivers in its unbounded and random way, is what makes photography such a powerful medium for ‘ideas’. And for me, through all these years, photography, even though it is made of images, has really been about the generation of new ideas; ideas about life, time, place, relationships, or anything that comes up from that brief glimpse we catch, maybe even just out of the corner of our eye, that makes the medium so continuously provocative.

I feel so lucky!

Feb-13 L1026142.