The first time I posted still lives I called the post Cabin Fever. Spring Fever is the next installment. In January of 2010, I had never made a still life or printed a large color image for exhibition. And then February rolled around and I received a macro lens for my 49th birthday. I started this “project” on a lark, a few weeks after explaining portfolio requirements to my students. I decided to begin a new project (make my own portfolio) and bring fresh work to each scheduled critique, just as they would have to do. This way I could empathize with the deadlines and commiserate along the way. To be fair, I wanted to try something unfamiliar, something with the potential to really frustrate. Still life work, color and macro photography were all new to me.
A couple summers ago I visited Amsterdam where Van Gogh is the patron saint. But I was surprisingly taken with the Pieter Claesz “Vanitas” still life (lives) in the Rijksmuseum instead. As a photographer, I have long been interested in documenting the temporal. Past projects (all portraiture) focused on life’s seemingly significant quickly fleeting passages. Somehow, this still life stuff also fits into the overarching theme: All things must pass (thank you George Harrison)… a kind of Memento Mori (remember you must die) exploration.
Despite such gravitas, I’m currently, happily photographing the organic and cultural detritus that surrounds me. This includes family mementos, souvenirs, collected ephemera and artifacts, and the flowers I grow, the bones unearthed and/or discovered in my wooded back acres or the carcasses of wild things that I find on a morning walk (or my cat brings me). I have a personal connection to and there’s a story behind almost every object.
My workflow is now digital from start to finish. I shoot with a Canon 5D Mark II tethered to a Macbook. I’m using natural light with various reflectors and light diffusers and shields (and occasionally, when the exposure is long enough, a flash light). I set up and shoot anywhere and everywhere depending on the day and subject: my kitchen, in the garage, in the shade of a tall maple. No studio setups. Each shoot is a problem solving exercise and learning experience. I don’t know if this is an “ubi sant” meditation on mortality and life’s transience (I am approaching 50) or just a fascination with the color, texture and stories of the flotsam that drifts by me on daily basis. Perhaps it doesn’t matter.
I just invested in an Epson 3880 to replace my geriatric Epson 2200. I literally unpacked the box 48 hours ago. So far so good. I’m looking forward to making 14” X 21” prints. But more on that later.
