Zucchini for Edward and Charis

Zucchini

(wet plate tintype)

Yesterday I felt somewhat recovered from the photopolymer gravure workshop, and felt an urge to round out the experience by making a few tintypes. When I walked into the kitchen after getting up, I was confronted with five zucchini freshly harvested from the garden by Elena, including several that were gigantic. After the end of my last wet plate session, I had been thinking that I'd like to embark on a series of still life images as a way solidify my technique and as a visual exercise. The zucchini seemed an ideal subject to work with.

At the moment I'm happy to restrict myself to making about 4-5 plates per session. This restriction allows me to work while I'm still fresh (i.e. before I succumb to the ether fumes! [it's actually not that bad]) which I think is important to strengthening those neural networks and muscle memory I'm building by using consistent technique. Working to the point of being tired will inevitably lead to making mistakes, which come from deviations from consistent working habits and work against the reinforcement of the neural pathways. I'm not worried about making bad plates or having failures per se, but I want to first get down a really consistent working method.

The plate above is the last plate I made yesterday - after working on the wider compositions shown below, I wanted to get in tighter to really emphasize the textures, lines and colour patterns of the zucchini. One of the zucchini had a shape that made me think of a famous nude photograph that Edward Weston took of Charis stretched out sinuously on the sand dunes at high noon. I was making these images at that same time of day, setting up the still lifes on the south facing deck behind the house in bright direct sunlight. So I made this plate as a memento mori of Weston's famous image:

Zucchini for Edward and Charis

(wet plate tintype)

While I was working with the zucchini, I remembered that I had a large etched copper bowl that I had made in a workshop a number of years ago (if you're beginning to think I'm a workshop junky, I understand). I used the bowl as a back drop for some luscious cherries to make this image:

Cherries in a copper bowl

(wet plate tintype)

I think it would have been interesting to make a plate of this set up in open shade, similar to the lighting of the first plate above. However, as I look at these last two images, I'm struck by how much I like this harsher, direct lighting of these still lifes. It reminds me of the lighting one sees in images Weston, Tina Modotti and Manuel Alvarez Bravo made in Mexico.

I'm not pushing any great photographic boundaries by making these still life images, but it is a new way of working for me and I am excited by the endless possibilities. I like these elegant, simple compositions which I think match the seductive qualities of the wet plate process quite well. Looking at the plates a day later, I feel a strong desire to keep making these types of images.

Found Still Life

Title: "Carefully considered, but uncontrived"

(click on image to view larger)

  

I was at an artist's talk a couple of weeks ago given by my friend Dave Aharonian for a show of his at the Lúz Gallery. The show contained two bodies of work, both printed in platinum: beautiful, isolated views of the west coast landscape, and figure studies in the rainforest. An audience member commented that the figure studies seemed contrived, and asked whether the photographer had placed the models in these positions. Dave replied that he worked with professional models who usually came up with the poses themselves. Actually, I was surprised by the question because I've long felt that most figure in the landscape images suffer from the "garnish" syndrome as I've come to call it: the model seems to be draped like a garnish over some feature of the landscape. One of the strengths of Dave's work is how he successfully integrates the figures into the landscape, and the interesting thing about the images he had in this show was the disparity in the scale of the landscape (huge) compared to the figure (quite small and in some cases almost unnoticeable).

I was struck by the sobriquette "contrived", since it is difficult to imagine any figure work (other than the voyeuristic, à la Miroslav Tichy) that wouldn't be posed (and thus contrived), nor most still life studies. Indeed, in the case of still life paintings, art history is rife with explanations of the symbolism in the elements chosen and in their placement within the composition. Modern artists often work very hard to construct still life compositions that look random and natural (although they by definition are not). One of the joys I find in photographing the local coast is the rich source of "found" still life compositions. The objects and their placement is to some extent random, although subject to the forces of wind, sun and ocean surges. As a photographer, I have to be aware and looking, and make considered choices in composing images from these seemingly random collections of flotsam.