Backstage
Menu
Curtis Hendricks

DamnPhotoArtist

Photo Art* & Small Literature**
* Computer-based art that uses a photograph as a base
** Short Prose

Scroll down to find recent works

In Ruins

2/27/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Juxtaposed from the complicated techniques featured of late, sometimes the best art is the most straightforward, the simplest. In this work, great depth is achieved by the layers of light and shade provided by the forest itself. All the artist need do is extenuate the strengths of the photograph. Often the most powerful artistic technique is simply not doing anything stupid.

… or is that not as simple as it sounds … ?

* * *

This is often a difficult time of year for me because by now I’m pretty much out of good photographic captures. I find winter a lousy time of year to shoot; once the Christmas lights are down all you’ve got is a cold, dead world. The light is bad when there’s any light at all. (I actually lined up a shot while running an errand this morning, finished the errand and grabbed my camera, and discovered any semblance of decent light had vanished). I start combing through my captures from the previous summer and autumn to see if I missed something or I pull something I’d previously brushed past to see if maybe I can pull something from it.

It’s always a relief when I find something like today’s work; something that, once I’ve worked with it, is actually pretty good. I wonder if I’ve got more there.

That said, it’s time for me to grab the photo bag, make sure all the cameras are charged, get my feet moving on the pavement. I can go another week, maybe two, before I’m out of material unless I bring more home. This is when the new year truly begins.

* * *

Update: Just after writing this, while getting my Nikon ready, I discovered it contained a cache of captures from last October’s Porchfest that I’d forgotten about. The well is again full!
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Curtis Hendricks

    All my life I have had to learn to do things differently. To see the world differently.

    Art attracted me from the beginning. Almost every home in the tiny farming village where I grew up had DaVinci’s ‘Last Supper’ on the wall. I would come across modern abstract art in magazines and be absolutely fascinated by the colors and techniques.

    But there were no artists in my village. No one understood what modern art was. Or why it was. But there was an appreciation for photography.

    I began shooting with a 1960 model Agfa rangefinder fixed-lens 35mm camera and learned to use darkroom techniques to finish my work. Graduating to a single lens reflex camera I worked primarily with Kodachrome. Digital photography opened a new world. The computer became the artboard I never had; the darkroom I could never afford. I discovered there would never be a camera or a lens that could capture what I saw in my head – that, I had to learn to create on my own.

    I use the photograph the same way a painter uses a charcoal sketch – as a starting place. I squeeze out the unseen hiding between the pixels; the angels, the demons of my own imagination.

    ​Light. Color. Darkness. Perspective. Introversion. Mystery. Love.

    Archives

    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Commune
  • Consider
  • Collect
  • Communicate
  • Commune
  • Consider
  • Collect
  • Communicate