Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => Discussing Photographic Styles => Topic started by: Rob C on November 14, 2018, 05:46:24 pm
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https://www.anndaly.com/georgia-okeeffes-door/
Yes, I know, painting. But reading the last paragraph tells a lot about what some of us are doing with our cameras, and as importantly, why.
The painting really does work for me. Pity it's so difficult to simplify like that with cameras unless on a minute scale that removes context.
Another example of less decidedly being a little bit more.
Rob
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A video about her:
http://jillnicholls.net/2016/07/26/georgia-okeeffe-by-myself/
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A life well lived.
True about the reduction, simplification in her images.
It is difficult to feel without being in front of her paintings.
It is one of the strong attractions that draws me there when i can make it.
It is all around you in those places of New Mexico.
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Apart from painters, it has certainly attracted a lot of photographers.
I'm not so sure that photography can use that landscape in the same way - it's too literal a medium, I think, and it must be very difficult to extract something more basic or representative, even, than mere topography. Of course, I have to base this opinion on photographs of the place because I have never been down there.
I've seen some amazing photographs of the Atacama desert - so colourful.
https://www.atacamaphoto.com/atacama-desert/
Rob
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Santa Fe and the surrounding area has had a huge impact on my photography and my appreciation for art, and O'Keefe is one of the purest expressions of that aesthetic (IMHO).
The age of the city, and the monochromatic base materials used in building punctuated by bright blue, red and orange accents and dark shadows form an extremely unique palette. Most people (or at least most photographers) are familiar with the spread of reds and oranges of the American Southwest set against a brilliant blue sky, but Santa Fe, Taos, and the rest of the northern New Mexico towns take that palette and boil it down into a much simpler, almost abstract, representation of the earth and sky translated into dwellings that could be a year old, or 500 years old.
It's just about my favorite place in the world.
To your point, Rob, that it's comparatively harder to simplify like that with a camera, that's certainly true - but I will say that the architecture and tonality of the area, and the historic building style that's still a mainstay today makes it easier that you might expect. I'm not at my production machine at the moment, but I'll try and show a few of my Santa Fe images that reflect that sometime this weekend.
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I used to agree with James. Santa Fe was a wonderful place in the sixties -- one of my all-time favorites. Here's a shot from a trading post loaded with Native American pottery and other art. The two are selling some of their work. Don't remember the name of this place, but it always was fascinating.
Then Hollywood discovered Santa Fe, and to me it became a tragedy. Don't know what it's like now. Been a while since I was there, but I hope it's changed back at least to some degree.
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I used to agree with James. Santa Fe was a wonderful place in the sixties -- one of my all-time favorites. Here's a shot from a trading post loaded with Native American pottery and other art. The two are selling some of their work. Don't remember the name of this place, but it always was fascinating.
Then Hollywood discovered Santa Fe, and to me it became a tragedy. Don't know what it's like now. Been a while since I was there, but I hope it's changed back at least to some degree.
I think you're talking about the 80's / 90's era? That's faded somewhat, and there's a growing, but very progressive (which I gather isn't your thing ;) ) youth movement to the arts scene there.
Here's a good article (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/santa-fe-past-meets-future-180961498/) on what's happening these days. Taos is a bit more like the "old" Santa Fe, and some of the small mountain towns are even more so.
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Hi James, The period in the sixties when my wife and I were spending an occasional week in Santa Fe was the period when kids were “going back to the land.” It was a pretty laid-back, Hippy culture at the time. That began to slack off later on. I don’t really remember when the Hollywood crowd hit the place, but I remember spending a couple nights in Samta Fe and being astonished at the crap that was going on. We started spending time in Taos, and I always loved droppping on down to Albuquerque’s old town for a day. I suspect we’d enjoy the “arts scene” that you see growing. My wife had a gallery for ten years, and I remember buying paintings fairly often from various operations in the Taos, Santa Fe area. Cañon Road was a real “arts scene” in the late sixties. We watched the kids gradually get driven out as it became more well known.
Here’s a picture of the lobby in the Sagebrush Inn, just south of Taos, a truly gracious and beautiful place to stay in the late sixties, but run into the ground later on. I miss it.
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One more, James. This one's from Taos in 2010. I have a huge collection from the whole area: Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Taos, on up to the border and on to San Luis in Colorado... Ever eat at Rancho de Chimayó? Best Mexican food I've had, and I've had a lot of it in the U.S and in northern Mexico. Chimayó is a town so small you'll miss it if you blink. And yet, tour buses pull up in the lot at Rancho de Chimayó, and you'd better get there well before lunch if you want a place to park.
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Hi James, The period in the sixties when my wife and I were spending an occasional week in Santa Fe was the period when kids were “going back to the land.” It was a pretty laid-back, Hippy culture at the time. That began to slack off later on. I don’t really remember when the Hollywood crowd hit the place, but I remember spending a couple nights in Samta Fe and being astonished at the crap that was going on. We started spending time in Taos, and I always loved droppping on down to Albuquerque’s old town for a day. I suspect we’d enjoy the “arts scene” that you see growing. My wife had a gallery for ten years, and I remember buying paintings fairly often from various operations in the Taos, Santa Fe area. Cañon Road was a real “arts scene” in the late sixties. We watched the kids gradually get driven out as it became more well known.
Here’s a picture of the lobby in the Sagebrush Inn, just south of Taos, a truly gracious and beautiful place to stay in the late sixties, but run into the ground later on. I miss it.
Beautiful photograph with exquisite tonality. Reminds me of prints I used to make from M3 negatives for my last employer, except we didn't have New Mexico nor always Paris: we just had BBC tv room sets.
Again, beautiful.
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Thanks for sharing Russ! The great thing is, you could find either of those two images again today, at least in spirit. I haven't been to the Sagebrush (if it's even still there?), but I have been to Chimayo, and several other small towns along the "High Road" to Taos from Santa Fe.
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Rob - here's some of the simplicity in form and color I was mentioning above.
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Rob - here's some of the simplicity in form and color I was mentioning above.
Thanks for posting the pictures.
I think that one answer to the too much information factor might be using black and white, just as did those guys of yesteryear. Close up also works in some cases, obviously through elimination.
Looking at some of the Sabine Weiss website images (see the Style section), her black/whte film work certainly carries an amazing range of tones. Trouble is, film needs a lot of backup services to do it well on your own, and farming it out feels pointless for nobody else can know what you want to stress, and how many of us can stand behind a printer all day and advise him of our wants, and never mind the cost of that!
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Thanks for posting the pictures.
I think that one answer to the too much information factor might be using black and white, just as did those guys of yesteryear. Close up also works in some cases, obviously through elimination.
Looking at some of the Sabine Weiss website images (see the Style section), her black/whte film work certainly carries an amazing range of tones. Trouble is, film needs a lot of backup services to do it well on your own, and farming it out feels pointless for nobody else can know what you want to stress, and how many of us can stand behind a printer all day and advise him of our wants, and never mind the cost of that!
Wow, Rob. I had not heard of her previously, but the integration of (or emphasis on) tonality in her composition is tremendous.
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Wow, Rob. I had not heard of her previously, but the integration of (or emphasis on) tonality in her composition is tremendous.
Happy you enjoyed her site!
Rob
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Happy you enjoyed her site!
Rob
I did, very much.
I'm not sure if this is going to make sense or not, but in B&W photography, I almost always see artists using darks to stand out from the lights, whereas her work almost seems to use lights to stand out from the darks. Am I crazy? Does that make sense?
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Here’s a picture of the lobby in the Sagebrush Inn, just south of Taos, a truly gracious and beautiful place to stay in the late sixties, but run into the ground later on. I miss it.
Beautiful bw image Russ. All I can say is nothing stays the same. I often feel that I miss the places I have been to, especially after revisiting them many years later and finding things have changed quite bit. Mostly not for the better but for tourism dollars, and/or neglect. I see them as they were. OTOH, when I first visited north/central Ontario where Algonquin Park and the highlands are located, I thought I was in heaven and couldn't believe what I had missed all those years of going to other places. But the reality is others saw and visited these places long before me and they think the places have changed for the worse! Good thing is, I have seen some places rehabilitated, including nearby creeks, almost always with public money and occasionally with some donations. So there is hope. You must find an organization that you can donate your collections to and that will preserve and put it to good use. Your work looks very promising to me.
JR
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I did, very much.
I'm not sure if this is going to make sense or not, but in B&W photography, I almost always see artists using darks to stand out from the lights, whereas her work almost seems to use lights to stand out from the darks. Am I crazy? Does that make sense?
I guess that some photographers with a long history of transparency shooting tend to consider the highlights as key, the areas they want to stress, and so, even with black/white, they automatically allow shadows to vanish wherever shadows go when superfulous to requirements, much as they often had to do with trannies.
I don't think this atavistic reasoning is applicable to Sabine, though, because for many professionals in that era it was b/white almost exclusively. Maybe we have yet another female enigma? However, she did shoot fashion in colour too, so maybe...
In the photographic jazz band, she plays clarinet.
But no, I don't think you're slipping over the edge of sanity (oops! I almost fell into an abyss there) at all, and thinking about it, I believe you have a valid point.
Isn't it interesting to consider the many different ways that people go about doing essentially the same thing? It ties into my interest in the photographers as much as in their work: I feel that the more one knows about the one, then the more pleasure one can draw from the other, though I guess there's ever the danger of letting the legend blind one a little bit.
Rob
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Beautiful bw image Russ. All I can say is nothing stays the same. I often feel that I miss the places I have been to, especially after revisiting them many years later and finding things have changed quite bit. Mostly not for the better but for tourism dollars, and/or neglect. I see them as they were. OTOH, when I first visited north/central Ontario where Algonquin Park and the highlands are located, I thought I was in heaven and couldn't believe what I had missed all those years of going to other places. But the reality is others saw and visited these places long before me and they think the places have changed for the worse! Good thing is, I have seen some places rehabilitated, including nearby creeks, almost always with public money and occasionally with some donations. So there is hope. You must find an organization that you can donate your collections to and that will preserve and put it to good use. Your work looks very promising to me.
JR
Thanks, John. There's some truly lovely stuff in the Taos, Santa Fe, Albuquerque area, as well as some wonderful food if you fancy the hot stuff. I loved that area for many decades and I miss it now. I always used to plan my trips from and to Colorado so that I could eat dinner -- enchiladas served the right way, flat -- at La Posada in Albuquerque's old town. Then there was the Pink Adobe in Santa Fe, where my wife and I used to eat regularly when we stayed in town in the sixties. There also was The Shed, a lunch restaurant, which had some of the best enchiladas I've had in my life. We once sat there and watched a woman at the next table eat enchiladas while the tears cascaded down her cheeks; they were that hot.
I have an organization that will inherit all my photographs -- negatives, prints, files, etc. It's called four sons, three of whom are quite good photographers and seem to improve constantly.
Almost forgot. Here's one of the vendors who always seemed to be posted outside La Posada.
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Thanks, John. There's some truly lovely stuff in the Taos, Santa Fe, Albuquerque area, as well as some wonderful food if you fancy the hot stuff. I loved that area for many decades and I miss it now. I always used to plan my trips from and to Colorado so that I could eat dinner -- enchiladas served the right way, flat -- at La Posada in Albuquerque's old town. Then there was the Pink Adobe in Santa Fe, where my wife and I used to eat regularly when we stayed in town in the sixties. There also was The Shed, a lunch restaurant, which had some of the best enchiladas I've had in my life. We once sat there and watched a woman at the next table eat enchiladas while the tears cascaded down her cheeks; they were that hot.
I have an organization that will inherit all my photographs -- negatives, prints, files, etc. It's called four sons, three of whom are quite good photographers and seem to improve constantly.
Almost forgot. Here's one of the vendors who always seemed to be posted outside La Posada.
The Shed is still there, and the enchiladas still amazing. Can't go wrong with "Christmas" chile sauce :)
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Arrrrgggghh! I need a Shed enchilada! I've gotta stop talking about them and thinking about them.
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Check out their online store - they sell the “red” premixed and the the ground chiles.....
Frank