Recently, while working outdoors on my studio and soon-to-be gallery, I looked up and saw a miracle. Quite often artists see miracles that other people do not. Things hidden and seldom seen. Small, organic details seem inconsequential at first, then slowly become memorable, and eventually remarkable. Remember your first dew-covered spider web as a kid? Monarch Butterfly? Garter snake? You looked carefully, but didnt touch. My recent experience was with a tiny little wood knot in the siding of my studio. It seemed so delicate I almost wished I hadnt discovered it. I was digging a trench alongside our 1850s barn that houses my studio and happened to look up at just the right time. A serendipitous moment. Whats amazing is that Ive walked past this spot hundreds of times before and never saw this detail in the wood siding. (Like all those garter snakes you missed!). Within a few hours of finding this little gem I set up my 8x10 inch view camera and exposed one b&w negative. The exposure in shade was 2 1/2 minutes. Thankfully, the building protected the camera from wind during such a long, bright daylight exposure. I developed the 8x10 inch negative and immediately fell in love with the negative image. Sometimes, traditional photographers (like me) fall in love with negatives rather than positives and print them accordingly. This means you print the negative as a negative, values the same, instead of the normal negative to positive b&w print. This image is certainly one of those cases. It resembles something cosmic like a spiral nebula. Unlike many other details, it will work visually as a large silver print simply because it looks like something otherworldly. To me it represents the microcosmic and macrocosmic aspects of this complex and looked-over world. Take a walk. Look. Enjoy.
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 02:54:00 +0000
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