Figure 1 – Paul Manship’s Indian Hunter, Boston, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

On Sunday my wife and I headed into the Boston Museum of Fine Arts to catch up on all of the special exhibits that we had been meaning to see.  I was particularly interested in an exhibit on photographic pictoralism and will discuss that in an upcoming blog.

I love museums, and one of the reasons that I love them is that they invariably offer up interesting subjects to photograph.  Among my favorites are bronze and marble sculptures.  I was enraptured on Sunday, as I always am at the MFA.  Unfortunately, I cannot share most of these pictures because one’s not allowed to publish pictures taken in the museum.  That’s part of the agreement when you pay your admission fee.

So, I’d like to share today the photograph of Figure 1, which is of a gorgeous bronze of an Indian (Native American) hunter by Pan Manship (1885-1966), the sculptor who brought us the beautiful statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center in NYC. And fortunately this sculpture is in a very public place, right in front of the museum’s historic Fenway entrance.

What I love so much about bronze as a subject matter for photographs is: the subtle yet rich golden color and the dramatic way in which it catches light. I immediately take the image to black and white, suppressing all that beautiful color and then I bring it back by sepia toning as a final step. The amazing part, the true magic of digital photography, is magnifying each region of the image and delicately burning in the highlights with a fine digital brush and similarly darkening the subtle shadows.  It’s a lot of work, but so often worth the effort.

When I first did this I realized how hard it would be to do it on a silver gelatin work.  Although, there were chemical brushwork techniques that the masters used. It is a clear advantage of the digital photographic medium, and best of all you can easily discard your work and start all over again.

I have mentioned that I have been working on what I have been calling the Photominimalism Project and today I have put up a Photominimalism Gallery highlighting a first set of photographs from this project.  These are images of strands of seaweed, drenched, wet, or dry taken on the beaches of Kennebunkport, ME in May may also be found at the bottom of this page.

Minimalism as a form in both music and visual art describes work that sets out to strip the subject of non-essential forms, features, and concepts thereby exposing its essential identity. As an artistic movement it evolved in the mid-twentieth century and is strongly associated with prominent artists including: Ad Reinhardt, Tony Smith, Donald Judd, John McCracken, Agnes Martin, Dan Flavin, Robert Morris, Larry Bell, Anne Truitt, and Frank Stella. My son taught me to appreciate this kind of art, given me the gift of his love of this body of work.  And I must say that there is something very exhilarating at encountering  the quintessence of a subject.

A couple of years ago, I walked among the flotsam at tides edge at the beach and I was struck by the minimalist nature of little strands of seaweed perhaps joined perhaps with a shell in the sand.  It reminded me so much of minimalist work.  Of course, I do break the rules here.  Not every image is stripped of detail.  Indeed, some of my subjects revert back to a love of fine detail, like a photograph by Edward Weston.  But I am not going to apologize for that.  Each image stands on its own merit, either is appealing or is not. Such is always the case.

Finally, I should point out that I use the term photominimalism in the concept of minimalist art.  More often the term “photominimalism” refers to a technique in artistic photograph where “more is better. An example would be my recent image of a weathervane.  The subject is essentially enveloped by an expanse of blue sky.  But that was not my purpose here.  My purpose was to delight in very simple things, as if the seaweeds lying in the sand were a form of writing or a graphic in the sand.  They have no more meaning than that, and I hope that you will enjoy them.

Invalid Displayed Gallery

Figure 1 -Kennebunkport Beach, Kennebunkport, ME. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Hati and Skoll Gallery is now almost two years old, and I wanted to thank everyone for their interest and support.  It’s really good to know that someone is out there, and I really value all of your comments.

I have made a few changes over this weekend to keep things up-to-date.  First, images from Charleston, SC have now been moved from the New Gallery to appropriate galleries: Places, Man-made, and Cabinet of Nature. The New Gallery now contains a selection of my photographs from Freeport, Cape Porpoise, and Kennebunkport, ME this past June.  It was fun to revisit the experiences that I felt when taking the photographs.  I anticipate in the near future putting together a complete set of images in my Photominimalism Series taken at Kennebunkport and Goose Rocks Beaches in Maine.

In the meanwhile, I hope that you enjoy these photographs and wish everyone all the best for the summer.

David

Figure 1 – Super Moon, July 12, 2014. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

It is almost midnight here in Massachusetts.  It is just a bit sultry, but the sky is cloudless.  The moon has just risen above the trees.  The weathermen and weatherwomen have been abuzz all day about the “Super Moon.”  This is a relatively rare event, where the full moon is somewhat larger than usual because it occurs when the moon reaches perigee.  This is the point where the moon in its elliptical orbit around the Earth reaches its closest point. For those of you who missed last night, do not dispair.  The next supermoon is August 10, and it will be even closer to the Earth then.

I thought this an excellent opportunity to really put my Canon EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM to the test at its maximum extension of 400 mm, effective focal length because of the chip size is 640 mm.  I tripod mounted the lens and I turned the image stabilization off.  I am told that things get funky if you tripod mount with stabilization on.  OK.  I also choose to shift to manual focus.  I also chose manual exposure and used the old rule of thumb 1/ISO at f/16; so since the ISO was 400, I used 1/1250 at f/8.0.  The results are shown in Figure 1.  I am very pleased with the image.

And as I fended off mosquitoes and took this picture, my thoughts wandered to consider John Draper (1811 – 1882).  His first daguerreotype of the moon was taken on March 26, 1839.  I do a quick calculation to add to my wonder – 175 years ago.  That is nothing compared to Galileo Galilei, who turned the first glass to the moon over fiver hundred years ago.  And he said simply:

“It is a beautiful and delightful sight to behold the body of the Moon.”
― Galileo Galilei, The Starry Messenger, Venice 1610: “From Doubt to Astonishment”