Life

Art Posts

Car Posts

Stories

FEATURED POSTS
Read More...

A Million Lost Pictures

The artist described how even at his wife’s sickbed he couldn’t turn off the tendency to assess the light for painting.

All the time, I do the same.  Some days I think the artists eye should come with a switch so I can just be whatever my role is at the moment: grandpa, friend, day job worker, etc.. But it’s always on.

 

At my daughters house little Cecilia got sent to the corner. She was so cute in the fulfilling of her incarceration that I wished I had a camera or a better memory as I tried to imagine how it could work in a painting. 

The same thing happened with baby Juliette as I held her on my knee  coaxing her to grow hair. She’s bald. Her expressions were priceless. I wished I could preserve the scene forever.

 

Meanwhile the older two children were showing me a gigantic book and their interactions with each other were amusing. I looked on, framing the view in my mind as an artist does.

 

When the family is all together, it’s one Norman Rockwellish scene after another : )

 

Here’s the odd thing though, I lose hundreds upon thousands of good photographs (it feels like) even with camera in hand despite despite knowing that some of the really good pictures happen during lulls between theme sequences.  Even with all the planets aligned, a beautiful model, and a camera in hand I miss getting excellent pictures as a fleeting moment presents them and quickly passes.

 

Twice I went to see my father and brought ‘the big camera’ in hopes of doing a photo set of him but the camera never left the car because I didn’t want to trade the time for pictures.

 

Many a paid photo shoot has been squandered because I ran out of ideas at the moment and ended the shoot early. It’s like rain and sun to a farmer who may wish he could take either of them from the winter to use on a summer day when it really matters to the garden.

 

It just now occures to me why this happens. In a photo shoot there is little real context to respond to like happens in a conversation, whereas painting ideas for me always come from my response to real events. To overcome this, I script the shoot and thereby create artificial contexts in which I hope to get pictures I can use later in paintings that require the imagery of that theme.

 

My best ideas are tied to actual events and the momentary context they provide. In a photo shoot I can’t proceed without a storyline basis (illustrations) or painting context, otherwise it’s like I’m simply taking pictures of a pretty girl which for some reason feels wrong so I stop. The model continues to be beautiful, but I can make no practical use of that for the purpose of the photo shoot without applying it to a story (paintings always tell a story or illustrate a point in that story).

 

Later, concepts come to mind and I wish I’d had the idea when a model was under the lights.

 

I think when it’s all said and done, I will have lost a million excellent pictures because of this dance where opportunity comes when I’m without vision and then the resource is not available at the moment it’s needed when an idea shows up.

 

How many times would we wish we could reach back to the days of excess to pluck the bounty for lean times! Like all those Thanksgiving meals where there was simply not enough room to eat more, but it can’t be saved for the starving college days.

 

So I’ve devised a two part solution.

 

First, I’ll find a life drawing group and go. That will enhance my ability to capture imagery that no camera is available to get. It’s like playing scales on piano. There are times when a camera is just intrusive or wouldn’t help anyway because the situation is so fluid but the imagery is priceless. My current methodology is to treat painting like a written treatise, where the thoughts are carefully constructed. For some purposes it will be much better to have the fluidity of language akin to an unrehearsed conversational statement.

That is, after all, the desire for every painting I make. I don’t want it looking scripted, posed, or artificial. Right now I don’t have the skill to get there without the planning and research and props. My models are worth every penny.

 

Second, I’ll come up with better more thought out photo shoot choreographies so that if nothing else, I get a larger useful photo set.

 

So maybe I can cut the lost picture count to only half a mil!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Add a comment...

Your email is never published or shared. Required fields are marked *

Fenimore Central

ADDRESS

dennis_fenimore@hotmail.com

 

Washington, USA

 

Phone No.

Upon Inquiry. Otherwise - spammers

 

 

Hours

24 / 6

 

Contact me

Form submitted successfully, thank you.Error submitting form, please try again.