Seaside Idyll

[Maris Rusis]

Seaside Idyll​

Gelatin-silver photograph on Agfa Classic MCCIII VC FB photographic paper, image size 21.4cm X 16.4cm, from a 4x5 Kodak Tmax 400 negative exposed in a Tachihara 45GF double extension field view camera fitted with a Voigtlander Heliar 21cm f4.5 lens. Titled and signed recto, stamped verso.

In this photograph I was pursuing a sense of enveloping light and luminosity. But those qualities by themselves can sometimes accumulate to an insipid result. Curiously, to make a thing look light it is often an effective device to put something dark next to it. In this photograph it is the ridiculously picturesque tree in the background that supplies the dark accent. The tree is burned in towards the top and becomes unnaturally black as it goes up; but who notices? The other problem that few viewers suspect was a beach lily in the background that broke the line of the shore. The lily was deliberately hidden behind the model's head. A few stray spikes and leaves emerge.

Now if sea shores were art-directed and landscape gardened these difficulties would not arise.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Seaside Idyll​

Gelatin-silver photograph on Agfa Classic MCCIII VC FB photographic paper, image size 21.4cm X 16.4cm, from a 4x5 Kodak Tmax 400 negative exposed in a Tachihara 45GF double extension field view camera fitted with a Voigtlander Heliar 21cm f4.5 lens. Titled and signed recto, stamped verso.

Maris,

I am fond of natural poses like this and also I appreciate your consideration in giving her something soft to sit on. Those wisps of the beach lilly do not disturb me at all. Once you provide the model who has gotten my empathy as a fellow human being, I forgive any trespass against tradition. I find it hard to make a perfect picture with one release of the shutter. Imagine if you were not allowed to burn anything in.

In this photograph I was pursuing a sense of enveloping light and luminosity. But those qualities by themselves can sometimes accumulate to an insipid result. Curiously, to make a thing look light it is often an effective device to put something dark next to it. In this photograph it is the ridiculously picturesque tree in the background that supplies the dark accent.

Maris,

Yes, that tree is a super-charmer, even partially seen!

I will study this idea of the enveloping light and appreciate your explanation. Would the image do as well in more contrasty paper. do you decide beforehand what paper you'd use and then stick with ithat choice and then work on dodging and burning and the like?

BTW, what's your reasoning for there being little detail in the water? Is this the design of the picture or the limitation of the lighting conditions?

Asher

 

[Maris Rusis]

Maris,

I am fond of natural poses like this and also I appreciate your consideration in giving her something soft to sit on. Those wisps of the beach lilly do not disturb me at all. Once you provide the model who has gotten my empathy as a fellow human being, I forgive any trespass against tradition. I find it hard to make a perfect picture with one release of the shutter. Imagine if you were not allowed to burn anything in.

Unclad people, left to their own comfort, tend to adopt natural poses that are easy to photograph. None of those that I know would, for example, look for opportunities to sit on an automobile in a garage. That such a picture appears in a previous thread in this category implies an agenda perhaps more exciting than celebrating a warm day at a beach. I have my limitations.

Maris,

Yes, that tree is a super-charmer, even partially seen!

I will study this idea of the enveloping light and appreciate your explanation. Would the image do as well in more contrasty paper. do you decide beforehand what paper you'd use and then stick with ithat choice and then work on dodging and burning and the like?

BTW, what's your reasoning for there being little detail in the water? Is this the design of the picture or the limitation of the lighting conditions?

Asher

I've read that California is often blessed with weather offering a high bright overcast sky; a giant soft-box in effect that refines skin tone rendition. Well, I encountered such a rare day here and consequently recalled a piece of advice from the famous (controversial?) American photographer Fred Picker. He suggested to take the photograph in the direction it wanted to go. A low contrast scene, fog for example, could be rendered as an even more low contrast photograph. A strongly contrasted scene could be stretched to a starkly graphic result. The final photograph may not be photometrically faithful to the scene but it could be aesthetically faithful to the impression of the scene. This line of thinking led me to choose the tonal rendition you see on your monitor.

The detail in the water is allowed to be just enough to say "water" but not enough to tempt the eye to linger. I wanted the photograph to be about the nude figure and the tree and took a chance in subduing other elements. Darkening the upper part of the art deco tree in pursuit of elegance risks descent into heavy handedness. If it's a mistake it's too late to correct. The photograph is already titled, signed, and uttered.