Mt. Hood Study

My cropped version

Michael Kenna: Huangshen Mountains Study 47 (2010)

As I mentioned in an earlier post, this week my artistic photography class is working in black and white.  And our teacher suggested that if we had been studying artists so far, we should try studying a photographer this week.  So I am studying photographer Michael Kenna, who does very ethereal, high contrast, black and white images. There was a bright, thick fog at the Washington State campus when I returned Thursday morning, and I was particularly interested in the scene I've captured here, because fog created such a large tonal range from white to dark. That range made this a good photo to use for a Michael Kenna comparison!  It reminded me the most of the series he did from Huangshan, China, because all those images were diffused with fog and mist. I've read that his photos are often made during nighttime, with exposures up to 10 hours long!  This accounts for the dreamy quality his images achieve.  Mine certainly lacks that feel. He also shoots with a medium format camera, giving a square image, so I've cropped my photo to a more squarish format (which is against the law in my photography class, so we'll see what comes of that!)

Sunbreak in Blue and Silver: Columbia

Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Cremorne Lights
James Abbott McNeill Whistler  1872

I'm continuing to work my way through the list of artists ahead of my class this week.  Another painter who interested me was James Abbott McNeill Whistler.  He had a series of beachscape and harbor paintings where he placed the horizon pretty high up on the canvas, and mainly just painted variations in the water tone.  I thought they were really pretty, and when we were driving along the Columbia on Sunday we came upon a turnout where the light was especially beautiful on the water.  So I tried photographing the scene with the land high in the frame.  Now that I'm reading about Whistler a little, I can see that the paintings that interested me are in a style called Nocturne; he was trying to represent light at night.  I definitely wasn't trying to do that, but I do like the composition he uses. 

Tree on the Columbia

Evening: Red Tree
Piet Mondrain.  1908-1010

Tableau I
Piet Mondrain 1921

I'm still working through the list of artists in my Artistic Photography class.  I'm not really sure I'm photographing "in the style of" Piet Mondrain (see below); so far I feel like I'm just trying to copy a painting, but I suppose it's a good place to start. Mondrain's Evening: Red Tree caught my eye, and something about my tree against the Columbia had a similar feel.  The tree painting is one of his earlier works.  He was around as cubism was taking hold, and later went on to develop a style he called Neoplasticism, which is represented here by Tableau I.  For me, the general feel of all those later paintings is the side of the Partridge Family bus.  I like his earlier stuff much better. He was still simmering a painting down to the few essential elements, but hadn't oversimplified yet.  I love the red color in his tree, and I'm disappointed in how mine looks next to the painting.  I think that color variation between warm and cold is possible with a photo; I especially see it when the sun, low in the sky, breaks through the clouds after a rain.  Then the subject is warmly illuminated and the background sky is rendered a cool dark blue by the camera.  My day on the Columbia was just your plain old overcast day. Overall though, I'm happy with the shape of this tree and how it fills the photo, and I'm especially happy with the variation in blue that the overcast Columbia provides.

Farm in Vancouver Winter

Farm in Normandy Summer Aka Hattenville  1882

I started an artistic photography class this week, and for my first assignment I have to photograph in the style of a famous artist. We were given an alphabetical list of several dozen artists to study, but I didn't make it past Cezanne before heading back to the old orchard down the street to photograph it through my rainy windshield.