Erik DeBill said:
I made it out the door at 7:15 this morning and managed to catch the early morning light on Town Lake. These were all done with the large format rig and TMAX 400, but I also shot some Velvia of each of these and I'll be having that processed soonish.
It was quite cold, at least for Central Texas. Ice on my windshield. All the same, I didn't realize I'd lost the feeling in my fingers until I got back into my car and the heater made it start to return. I'm starting to get comfortable enough shooting the 4x5 that I felt like I was paying most of my attention to the shots, rather than the technical details.
Here we have the photographer's context of the picture and some of the great artistic drive to take away a measure of what he saw that cold morning.
He has shared with us the when, the "what" and the how. So here's the "what". We now know the "what" However this picture doesn't make my heart turn upside down or have me engaged nor need to return to it.
This is the beginning of the creative process where the artist has a vision and works to embed this in a physical form.
This starts the
Arc on Intent which I postulate forms the architecture of most all works of art.
Now Erik has creatively shifted his position and provided a new and remarkable perspective. Working with a large format camera and having one's fingers numb by the cold is very different than snapping with ones zoomed DSLR!
Roads, paths, rivers are all the essential feature of the overriding metaphor of all languages: the metaphor of life as a journey.
Erik has placed us in the perspective of following the road and experiencing NOT being on the road but underneath it, so we are included in the concept, but we are excluded from the journey itself we
might take if we were
above, on the road.
The last picture, like the first, shows where we were, but no longer carries to me the strength of the 2cd picture!
However it's a valuable picture for the set. It has a unique anchoring feature on the right. This structure gives us a strong sense of being present in the structure of the bridge, as if we have to stay there as observers while others go on this journey.
By putting the three pictures together as a set, we have a better idea of the location and together they help to flesh out the theme of this life’s journey by
others from where we are in major city to somewhere mysterious.
When we look at this set of work, we begin to re-experience some of what Erik saw and hopefully reinvoke some of his thoughts and an array of our own experiences to initiate maybe some adventurous thoughts of our own.
Doing thus, we have completed the "Arc of intent".
Thanks Erik for going to this effort to get the LF camera, (albeit not your Tachihara yet?) and take us with your on your adventure with film.
I am thrilled at this!
Asher
