decay # 15 redux ~ I never got a yacht
Thursday, April 3, 2008 at 09:00AM 
Cantaloupe with sunlight • click to embiggenYesterday, after waiting for almost an hour at the scene of what is now known as the lunch break incident for the State Police to show up and make an accident report, I walked home to eat my lunch.
In the kitchen, I found the subject of that morning's decay picturing right where I left it but it was now bathed in some streaks of direct sunlight. I liked what I saw so I pictured it again. What I like about the afternoon redux is that the light itself, independent of the quality of the light, becomes a compositional element. I also like, by the manner in which I divided the picture along a diagonal line, that a jittery unease is created by the competing areas of soft mellow tones and colors and that of the contrast-y tones and more vibrant colors.
I mention this stuff because this manner of seeing and picturing stands in stark contrast to that of my early commercial still life heyday during which the operative paradigm was a very soft single light source (no "fill" lights allowed) applied with a strong directional angle. 
The Hawken, one of my "Marcos" • click to embiggenA technique that yielded a kind of "soft" high contrast with deep but detailed shadows and delicate detailed highlights - a very "romantic" style of light that mimiced that of early Flemish still life painters.
In the era before the digital darkroom, the challenge of this technique was to achieve this look using inherently contrast-y Ektachrome transparency film which had, and still does, in difficult contrast situations, a tendency to blow out highlights and block up shadows. This was difficult in the extreme to achieve in a manner that enabled a printer (printing press printer) to put that range of tone and detail on the printed page.
The acknowledged master of the technique at that time and the photog in whose photo-technique image I fashioned myself was Phil Marco. A measure of his success in the 70s (he still at it today) was his 49 ft. yacht which was aptly named "Ektachrome". Eventually, I was both pleased and delighted to have my still life work used interchangeably with his by select group of clients.
However, I never got a yacht. I've had to settle for 4 canoes.
gravitas et nugalis
Featured Comment: Mary Dennis wrote: "Gee, I hope you have a compost pile. But if you did, we probably would have seen it photographed by now."
My response: The wife is quite certain that I am building a compost pile in the kitchen.
decay
Reader Comments (4)
You pulled that Hawken shot off on Ektachrome? Very impressive. I have just enough experience with film to realize what a bugger that would have been to pull off. My compliments.
Interesting stuff Mark. And, hey, I take a canoe over a yacht any day!
I'm really intrigued by that cantaloupe and how there's a sense of tightness about it, or a "crusting over" effect of the flesh. My skin feels that way sometimes! ;-)
Gee, I hope you have a compost pile. But if you did, we probably would have seen it photographed by now.
I think I get "Decay" now.
At first this series seemed creepy and then obsessive but there is now something I "get". Partly I think it is my recent personal revelation about "Processes of Nature".
I think the soft light makes the subject somehow more sympathetic (I'm struggling for a more appropriate word for the positive feeling here).
please provide mailing address and i will be happy to provide decaying objects to you...