Big fan of the photos in general as you know - saw a show a few weeks ago of Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Lewis HIne's child laborers, etc. with newer works in a private collection and thought at one point "ah, the pre-Dinh."
This one will go down as one of my favorites. There's two zones of contrast - the area in the shadow and what's in the California sun which will be more exposed but both areas have a good color range even if they were to fill the full frame. As it happens, the pole on the right of the frame is the same color as the 'entrance' sign. That metallic color is shared by the cart, which, obscured partially by its bearer, looks from this angle to be something that, if it were in a student sculpture show, would be considered too imitative. The shadow of the bearer of the cart gives the cart and its contents a better color range. We see the bearer of the cart and the scene from his perspective, upon the 'audience' of the cart whose attentions are paid by rerouting on to the grass, placing the purse out of focus so to keep focus on the cart, the subject of the frame for both the figures in the picture and those looking at the picture. The subject matter resonates with an entire history in the visual arts of people positioned to look at an object within a composition, or, in this case, choosing to be moved by an object out of necessity but not looking at it.
2 comments:
Big fan of the photos in general as you know - saw a show a few weeks ago of Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Lewis HIne's child laborers, etc. with newer works in a private collection and thought at one point "ah, the pre-Dinh."
http://nsuartmuseum.org/exhibition/american-scene-photography-martin-z-margulies-collection/
This one will go down as one of my favorites. There's two zones of contrast - the area in the shadow and what's in the California sun which will be more exposed but both areas have a good color range even if they were to fill the full frame. As it happens, the pole on the right of the frame is the same color as the 'entrance' sign. That metallic color is shared by the cart, which, obscured partially by its bearer, looks from this angle to be something that, if it were in a student sculpture show, would be considered too imitative. The shadow of the bearer of the cart gives the cart and its contents a better color range. We see the bearer of the cart and the scene from his perspective, upon the 'audience' of the cart whose attentions are paid by rerouting on to the grass, placing the purse out of focus so to keep focus on the cart, the subject of the frame for both the figures in the picture and those looking at the picture. The subject matter resonates with an entire history in the visual arts of people positioned to look at an object within a composition, or, in this case, choosing to be moved by an object out of necessity but not looking at it.
Many thanks, Ian. I started this project in 2009 and messed up aplenty as I fumbled along. I'm constanly cringing at my screw ups, past and present.
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