Sunday, January 20, 2008

Floral Art





Thoughts on Fine Art Photography.

While it is important that photography work should

demonstrate some finesse, if only in the care and

attention applied to detail, I have an admission to

make. Much of the work sold on the "Fine Art"

market seems morbid and even sad. I recently

declined an offer of a gift in a photograpy shop.

The extraordinary flower closups in the calendar

offered were masters of the genre. However, on a

damp drizzly Winter's day they made me stand back.

They seemed dull and dead in the grey light.
I chose some landscapes instead, which had some

colour toning and somehow seemed less

claustorphobic. Also, the thought of box upon box

of flower photos at home, snapped in a cheerful mood

in the height of Summer and which pleased me far

more, inspired my choice.

The over-fetishism of flower photography is a trap

which is very easy to avoid, once seen. While I

admire the masters greatly I somehow recoil from

twisting and twirling my subjects into projections

of my own psyche. And I wonder if that is what

they actually do.

Objectivity? Even seen through the clinical

photographic eye, I doubt more and more that it

fully exists.


That said, here is a before and after exercise,

based on a doughty little narcissus which insisted,

unseasonably, on bursting into full bloom in a pot

out of doors just a few days after Christmas. It

continues it's headlong rush towards self-

propagation on and indoors window sill.

Now there's a metaphor worth exploring...

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