One of the goals of my Sabbath Leave was to immerse myself more deeply in the history of photography and to learn more about the pivotal people and developments that have shaped the craft over the last 150 years. So in addition to all of my field work with camera in hand, both locally and abroad, I've been spending a lot of time in all of the area libraries (and Barnes & Noble stores) mining their photography sections for books and videos that tell the story of photography. I've had a whole new world open up to me with some names that were familiar before (Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Edward Weston, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Richard Avedon, Alfred Steiglitz) and many that are new to me altogether (Paul Strand, Yousef Karsh, Julia Margaret Cameron). I'm trying to absorb the meaning of famous phrases and phases (the Cartier-Bresson's "the decisive moment," Adams' "extracted" v. "abstract" images, the Pictorialism Movement that sought to transform photography into high art, etc.). It is all fascinating stuff and much like familiarizing myself with biblical texts and the interpretations of major theologians over the centuries, I feel like I am discovering a whole new canon of sacred, significant texts (and the accompanying images and image-making techniques). I know I have only scratched the surface and my connection with these icons of photography has both inspired me and rooted me in a living tradition that is much bigger than my solitary making of pictures with my camera.
Happily, I did get to do a little of that last week on the with a day and a half excursion to the Eastern Shore that began at with a very early morning at Sandy Point State Park to witness the sunrise and included stops at falling-down outbuildings, ready-for-harvest soybean fields, and watefront scenes in and around St. Michaels. Special thanks go out to the Kleinknecht's for a beautiful and welcoming place to lay my head for a night at their home just off the Miles River. Couldn't you just sit in those chairs forever?
No comments:
Post a Comment