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Curtis Hendricks

DamnPhotoArtist

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

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Magical Realm

8/21/2019

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Picture
A little bit of a reveal as today’s work is a detail of my patio/garden. I built it myself over the ground that had been home to my son’s swing set after the swing set had begun to deteriorate and my son was too old to enjoy one anymore. Bum shoulder and all, I laid down a barrier, dug out a hole for the pool and fountain, spread river rock and large stones throughout. Potted plants throughout, birds dancing around their feeders, a lovely windchime, a stone firebox, a stone coffee table, bouncy places to sit while the fountain gurgles. It’s back in enough shade that you can retreat there as late as 11a without the sun hitting you. The pots have to hold deer-resistant plants or they’re eaten down to the nub, but on the plus side it means you are visited by deer and wildlife often. Once the sun drops to the horizon a log or two in the firebox makes for a perfect spot to down a couple end-of-the-day beverages. It’s a lovely spot to chill and collect your thoughts if one actually has time to collect them, which, more days than not, I don’t seem to. The black and white photography with a fair amount of texturing and the devious little gremlin make the scene seem more like a fairytale than it really is. A dancing fire in the firebox just behind the gremlin’s head might have intuitively made an even better work, but probably have simply come out as a washed-out blob.

Photography is touted as an art that requires vast treks across the wide world, but so much of my work is captured just down the street or, in this case, right out my back door. The most rewarding creation for me is in the art of everyday things. Redefining the status quo. Reprogramming the computers in our heads. Rewriting all the if/then statements.

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NOTE: This post is part of a series examining the application of digital techniques to film photography in creating photo art, done in tribute to the closing of the last regional retail photography stores.
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    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.

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