Top 10 List

It is Thanksgiving Day here in the United States.  Here is a list of 10 things we are thankful for here at this blog.  These are in addition to the most obvious and most important: family, friends, good health, shelter, pets etc.

10.  Women unwilling to take off their clothes for my camera.

9.    Hahnemühle Paper

8.    Adobe

7.    Ansel Adams’ Moonrise over Hernandez, NM.

6.    Silver Halides

5.    MOMA

4.    My Cameras – Hasselblad for film; Nikon for digital.

3.     Readers of this blog

2.     Women willing to take off their clothes for my camera.

1.     A land of clear light

Ruth Bernhard Photos in Art Show

Faithful readers — there is at least one, I think — will know that I am a great admirer of the work of Ruth Bernhard. Here is my earlier post about her. I am always casting about, looking for a reason to post another of her photos. I found an excuse just today when I discovered a show of modern photography at the Harn Museum at the University of Florida. According to the museum’s website, they are showing:

215 works by 77 international 20th century Modernist photographers including multiple works by masters such as Ansel Adams, Weegee, Edward Weston, Walker Evans and Ruth Bernhard, as well as less familiar innovators Jan Saudek, James Nachtwey and Marion Post-Wolcott.

The show is on now and runs until January 6, 2008. I am certain it will be worth the time to see if you live in the vicinity or will be traveling there.

Good. Now that the excuse is out of the way. . .

That is enough for one day. Stay tuned. I am certain to find more reasons for more of her photographs.

Lake Superior Nudes

Of all the photographers I know of that are working with nudes outdoors – also called “environmental nudes”, a term I think meaningless; you can’t take a human being out of the “environment” any more than you can take the land out of the “landscape” – Craig Blacklock is probably my favorite. He is better at it than anyone I know of and is far better at it than me. Blacklock is a landscape photographer who lives and works around Lake Superior. (There is something about the Upper Midwest that seems to breed photographers of the nude. More on that in subsequent posts and reviews.)

Last year he published a book entitled “A Voice Within: The Lake Superior Nudes.” You can have a look at the book here and buy it which is something I’ve been intending to do. Maybe now I will.

Here are a couple of his photos which I especially like. Notice in this one his skill in deciding what to leave out of the photo. One of the skills in composition that all great photographers develop lies in deciding what to leave out and this photo is a fine example of that.

Many of the photos in the book convey, primarily through the posing skill of his model/wife, a wonderful tranquility. But the composition of the rest of the photo contributes as well. The line of rock which occupies only the top of the photo gives way to that little rock island upon which she sits which then leads your eyes to her partial reflection then to the expanse of slightly rippled water. Note how almost all the space in the photo consists of that quiet gray water.

All the photos in the book were taken around Lake Superior and, if you think she looks a little cold in this photo, wait until you see the “ice” photos.

Ruth Bernhard

Ruth Bernhard

I mentioned Ruth Bernhard in one of the first posts on this blog and I thought I should show a few of her photographs. She lived to be 101 years old. A chance meeting with Edward Weston in the 1935 was a life changing event for her. He became her mentor and taught her the art of photography. I could go on about her and her work but better to show you a little of it and allow her to comment.

The human body represents to me the same universal innocence, timelessness and purity of all seed pods, suggesting the mother as well as the child, the parental as well as the descendant, conceived according to nature’s longings.
Ruth Bernhard (1905-2006)

If I have chosen the female form in particular, it is because beauty has been debased and exploited in our sensual 20th century. Woman has been the subject of much that is sordid and cheap, especially in photography. To raise, to elevate, to endorse with timeless reverence the image of woman has been my mission.

My quest, through the magic of light and shadow, is to isolate, to simplify and to give emphasis to form with the greatest clarity. To indicate the ideal proportion, to reveal sculptural mass and the dominating spirit is my goal.”

Ms. Bernhard worked almost exclusively in a studio. Because I work outdoors, this last photo of hers is one of my favorites. It is called Sand Dune and proves that the human body is a part of all of outdoors, even when it is temporarily inside a building.