Adding and taking away

Adding and taking away

A vague feeling of déjà vu – but there must now be getting on for 300 of these blogs that I’ve written in the last 10 months or so. So indulge me, if you can…

Still life is one of the hardest genres, I reckon, because you start with a blank, and so everything in the frame is there because you put it there – unless you try ‘found’ still life, where you look at a shop window or a bookshelf or a pile of rubbish in a garden, and suddenly see a composition begging to be recorded. In that case, is it cheating to move something to improve the composition?

Having discovered Portrait Artist of the Year (and its companion, Landscape Artist of the Year) I’m getting the chance to see the process that some painters use to make a picture. They work the same way as a still life photographer, beginning with one thing, then adding others. Sometimes, it’s the eyes, or a rough outline: almost certainly (if you don’t draw yourself) it’s not what you’d have imagined.

Is the background an afterthought for you? Sometimes it is for the portrait painter… Even in making a studio portrait, most photographers begin with setting up a backdrop, or at least tidying away last night’s takeaway… (Hint: a supply of joss sticks is a good idea if you use your own living space as a studio. Just saying.) It was interesting, when I asked Mrs D to take my picture before I gave up my attempt to impersonate Albert Einstein’s hair, how differently she approached framing.

Of course, I’m forgetting the option of doing stuff with editing, which is a bit of a cheek given that the picture I’m aiming to post today is the result of paying a friend who has an active interest in creative photography to edit one of my pictures. She’s done a wild job, has Becky, which is just what I wanted. But this is the result of a number of hours at the computer.

Back to the direct issue: in still life you begin with a blank, and build up your picture. Grace notes and whimsicalities along the way make an image more impressive: I struggle to get beyond placing something on a third! (Maybe there’s a future blog in there?) All the rest of the time, it’s about avoiding distractions, and possibly editing out. Or maybe it’s about a slightly wild creative process: when I photograph a person, there’s a conversation, and I ask them about ideas and preferences, or let them choose a pose or two, and we build a picture together. Maybe if I start talking to ornaments, they’ll talk back, and tell me what they want placed next to them?

The rest of the time, I look for the camera position that excludes the gasometer at the edge of the frame, the lamp post sticking out of the head (obviously!), the plainer background that an unlit hedge provides, rather than brightly lit flowerbeds. (I wrote an article here a year or two back: it stemmed from my admiration of the way that Alan – whatriveristhis – works from a slice of reality to his self-contained and lovely final images.)

Have a look at his work, if you’re not familiar with it – I find that it’s a constant inspiration. And then exclude an extraneous detail today!