Seeing in Color, by Eric Meola

[David Sutton]

Sometimes I have been known to praise my students' work, but mostly I make them quietly suffer. Today an eight year old came in thinking he was going to learn classical guitar. Instead we spent half the lesson on the theory of logic. But by golly he went out having deeply learned something about music. My teachers do the same to me. It is not an easy way to learn but it is what I look for now when I need help, as I know the learning will be profound.
A good article from Eric. Not laid out on a plate, but sort of circled around. I like that.
David

[NikoJorj]

I do like that too!
Many thanks for the article.

[usathyan]

Fantastic article. Very inspiring and artistically written. Enjoyed reading it - and the images presented are very apt.

[dreed]

What an interesting departure from the "normal".
A great read that'll keep me thinking.

I especially love that some of his work (e.g "Promised Land") shatter various photography myths that get repeated here as gospel - myths such as the idea that blue sky and no clouds cannot make for stunning photographs.

Looking forward to more from him.

[alain]

Thank you, Mr. Meola, for the wonderful article. I looked through your 44 pictures - so inspiring. http://www.ericmeola.com/

Sharon

Indeed, the pictures are nice, very nice

[wolfnowl]

Eric's always been my hero for 'colour' work - not images IN colour, but images ABOUT colour.

Mike.

[Marlyn]

Eric is a fascinating guy to be around as well.   If you ever get a chance of seeing his India work,  it is stunning.  I highly recomend it.

Last year I was lucky enough to be on a shoot with Eric in Iceland for the Volcano,  and it was certainly an eye opener.    I recall one specific example, we were stopped at one of the waterfalls for a break.  The weather of the day was thoughly 'bleh',  the lighting was worse,  the particular waterfall not that inspiring, and most of us were standing around going 'hmm,  what to do with this'.    Eric and a couple others headed off, clearly seeing something else. Eric showed some of his shots later on the bus and several of us were 'Err, did you actually visit the same waterfall as the rest of us.....'. 

There is an inteview with Eric from the same trip on Focus-on-Nature website - http://www.focusonnature.is/id/1000355

Regards

Mark Farnan

PS: Walking around town with Seth resnick was also a massive eye opener in ability to 'see'.     They both see patterns, shapes, colour for compositions in what can be the most initially uninspiring of places !.

[dreed]

Eric is a fascinating guy to be around as well.   If you ever get a chance of seeing his India work,  it is stunning.  I highly recomend it.

Last year I was lucky enough to be on a shoot with Eric in Iceland for the Volcano,  and it was certainly an eye opener.    I recall one specific example, we were stopped at one of the waterfalls for a break.  The weather of the day was thoughly 'bleh',  the lighting was worse,  the particular waterfall not that inspiring, and most of us were standing around going 'hmm,  what to do with this'.    Eric and a couple others headed off, clearly seeing something else. Eric showed some of his shots later on the bus and several of us were 'Err, did you actually visit the same waterfall as the rest of us.....'. 

There is an inteview with Eric from the same trip on Focus-on-Nature website - http://www.focusonnature.is/id/1000355

Regards

Mark Farnan

PS: Walking around town with Seth resnick was also a massive eye opener in ability to 'see'.     They both see patterns, shapes, colour for compositions in what can be the most initially uninspiring of places !.

Looking at those photographs from Iceland, maybe some of what he saw was that if there's less in the picture then the picture becomes more? None of the photographs of the waterfall contain all of the waterfall (for example.) And again with the pictures of ash on the car - he's not showing all of the car covered in ash, rather presenting some iconic items (the bonet/front grill of a Mercedez benz or wind screen wipers) and how the ash worked with those.

There was a comment from Michael Reichmann (I don't recall if it was in an essay or posting or elsewhere) that one of the biggest faults he sees with many photographs is that the person hasn't zoom'd in enough. And having just read William Neil's commentary about light edges, the location he talks about at Yosemite with trees silhouetted against the dark mountains behind - I've taken photos of it but alas it wasn't until I got home and started playing around with cropping the pictures that I realised that I hadn't zoomed in enough on that particular scene because although the scene was quite beautiful, when I cropped the picture, less indeed became more.

Ah, the lessons we learn.

[Marlyn]

The very first shot on that webgallery was one of the images I'm refering to.   If I recall the India presentation, Eric does shoot very tight at lot of the time, and I think I mainly saw him wandering with a 70-200 f4 most of the trip. 

I am finding myself using longer and longer lenses for nature photography these days.     90mm TS/E  and the 70-200 are getting used a lot more than the 16mm.
The 300mm 2.8 got a lot of use in iceland.

I Havn't tried anything 'landscape'  with the 800mm yet,  but I'm sure I will !.

Regards

Mark