High-Definition Still Life, 2016-2020
This section consists of more recent works of still life, made with a technique evolved from previous procedures. For these newer images I have been using a digital reflex camera with a much higher definition than the one I formerly used - some 50 megapixels instead of 21. This allows me to avoid, sometimes at least, having to photograph the subject in sections. For several of these compositions I have retained only the technique of photographing at many slightly different focuses and then laboriously combining the sharpest parts. This gives me the very high definition I want with somewhat less work, especially in post-production.
Depending on the depth of focus required by a given subject, there may be only about six layers in the case of a shallow subject, a dozen in the case of a subject of medium depth, and twenty or more for a very deep subject. The number of layers will also vary according to the size of the subject: small subjects require more separately-focused layers than larger ones, simply because one has to work more closely, where depth of focus is shallower and more critical.
As mentioned elsewhere, image sizes are given first in native dimension (as originally photographed and elaborated, at 300 pixels per inch), and then as reduced to fit the A3Plus format, which guarantees the highest print quality. While I have yet to establish the edition sizes
for these newer images, I expect to divide them between A3Plus and native size - that is, for an edition of eight signed and numbered prints, there will be perhaps four A3Plus prints and four at native size. (I make the A3Plus prints at home with a digital pigment printer, and make the full-sized prints as needed.) In no case will a print exceed the native dimension.
The arrangement "Untitled (Three Spheroids)" exists in two distinct, although similar, versions: a single image of the complete subject, and a triptych of the three items each photographed as a separate panel (but of course meant to be seen as a triptych). In both cases the deep-focus technique is used.
Something similar is going on with the photographs of a spider web wand. One version is of a very large file, exposed in three sections and in multiple focuses, then unified (id#1245). Another is derived from the same files, but presented in triptych form, with some overlap between neighboring panels (id#1246L-Ctr-R).
More could be said about the spider web wands (I have made two others). The webs were collected by spinning the stick or rod between fingers and thumb - always in the same direction - against the web, rolling it up onto the stick. The activity is similar to what was done for ages to produce yarn and thread by hand, using a weighted drop spindle and a distaff. My wands are comparable to the distaff, where the fibers to be spun are collected. I have not attempted to spin any spider-web thread, however. (The link is to a fine painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, "La Fileuse ", or "The Spinner".)
In eighth or ninth grade we were assigned to read W.H. Hudson's novel "Green Mansions", in which the protagonist travels to the jungles of Guyana, where he meets an exotic forest-dweller, a girl named Rima. She made a deep impression on me (but not only for the reason you'd expect in the case of a pubescent boy): Rima wore nothing but a dress made entirely of spider webs, and was in the habit of taking any spider webs she found in the forest and applying them to her dress, as a sort of constant reinforcement. (She even "milked" the spider for its web, by taking the thread and letting the spider drop down, while she drew in the line.) And every time I collect webs I think of Rima and her dress.
I do have scruples about disturbing the spiders in this way. (I like especially the so-called "tent" webs, broad and flat.) But I never take more than the outer portions of the web; I never threaten the heart, where the spider retreats when it senses what's happening to the web, and where it is no doubt waiting in a state of high alarm. And I have always noticed that the webs are completely rebuilt in a matter of days.
"Cat's Cradle", for its part, was partly inspired by the idea of the spider web, although here the result is symmetrical, rather than the classic spiral spider's web. It exists also as a sculpture, a small box about 12 x 15 cm., plus its cover. The box started life as a small cigar box.
I don't want to go deeply into the "formal" aspects of these pictures, but I clearly have a predilection for certain shapes. These are mainly simple shapes like the circle and the rectangle, and especially the spiral or helix, which you find in several of these photographs. There is also the arabesque, the sort of curled comma shape taken, for example, by a dried blossom. (We even have a torus.) Behind all this are some notions about formal harmony, and about the world revealed in mathematics.
I am often reminded of how little it means to give a year for each work. Here it means the year of the making of the definitive exposures for any given work. Some do take shape in a short time - a matter of weeks - but others have deep roots. For example, the photo of the old clothespins is something I've had slow-cooking for decades: I took these from my mother around 1990 for an eventual photo (she said it was OK to take them), and they've been sitting in this dish for several years - a dish I manipulated at some point, before finally making a final arrangement and the photograph.
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