Ivy #1 (After Huntington Witherill). August 7, 2011. © Copyright 2011 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Ivy leaves, after Huntington Witherill.
With apologies to and inspired by Huntington Witherill, whose beautiful Photo Synthesis exhibit I saw this past weekend at the Center for Photographic Arts in Carmel, this image is the result of something I played around with yesterday.
I was not previously familiar with Witherill’s photography, neither his “classic” and very beautiful black and white work, nor the more experimental digital work of the Photo Synthesis series. It is all very compelling and tremendously varied work. The exhibit features the digital “manipulations” of flower and other plant subjects. I was fortunate to be able to attend his lecture at the opening of the show, and quite a few things struck me – more than I have time to describe here. As (yet another) photographer with a background in music, I relate to his description of a working process for the Photo Synthesis images that is, in some ways, like jazz improvisation – so I took that route with this image, which I’ll simply describe as an experiment for now. It was also fascinating to watch his animations of the sequence of steps that his source images underwent as they progressed to become the final images. I also like the way he embraces the concept of what I think of as “photographic art” without getting too hung up about whether the result is a photograph or something else. I also was intrigued by (hoping I say this in a way that makes sense and doesn’t accidentally sound offensive) the fact that he is so close to some sort of “edge” with these images that some are incredibly beautiful while a few push a boundary that I’m not quite ready to cross.
G Dan Mitchell Photography
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David, many of them seem extremely elegant to me, especially those that tend to emphasize a lot of white or pastel tones. His sense of color is wonderful. The fact that the show induced me to go home and shoot some plants and play around with ideas inspired by what I saw is proof that I was affected by his work.
A tricky thing for me is that some of the images go off in a direction that evokes a different set of associations for me. Many years ago I worked in a bookstore that had a huge science fiction and fantasy section. I became very familiar with a kind of imagery that is often associated with these genres… and familiarity did not lead to appreciation for it.
A few of Witherill’s images, especially those that he described as “extraterrestrial’ evoked a bit of the same response – and, oddly, made me see his better work in a less sympathetic way.
I’m still trying to figure how to react to that.
Dan
Dan, your take on the Photo Synthesis is similar to mine. I thought that some were incredibly beautiful. Some just didn’t push the right buttons for me.
I note that you weren’t familiar with his work. If you haven’t yet, look up his Chariots of Desire portfolio.