civilized ku # 525-28 ~ Asgaard Farm's emotive power implosively contained
Tuesday, June 8, 2010 at 10:34AM 
Green tractor ~ in the Adirondack PARK - Asgaard Farm - Au Sable Forks, NY • click to embiggen
Farm buildings ~ in the Adirondack PARK - Asgaard Farm - Au Sable Forks, NY • click to embiggenBy means of the simple act of substitution - my name for that of Joanne Mulberg - a brief description / critique of one of her pictures by Sally Eauclaire (from her book, the new color photography) pretty accurately conveys a brief description / critique of my work (today's pictures in particular):
Mark Hobson's square format imposes a perfect stasis upon his composition, stymying attenuation and movement ... the square and the interior verticals tend to convey a state of being, rather than the suggestion of any visual or narrative action unfolding ... Hobson carefully coordinates his scheme with the square's proportions, supplying mildly varied quantities of dark, medium, and light tonalities, which remain chromatically subdued .... [W]ithin such stabilizing confines, Hobson derives rhythmic repetitions of horizontal, vertical, and complementary diagonals from the contours of walls and angled roofs ... the image's ambience seems mildly detached, its emotive power implosively contained.
One purpose of this substitution exercise is to expand and expound upon yesterday's idea that visual appearances also play a very significant role in getting me to raise the camera to my eye and to point out that, while my awareness to and of visual appearances provides significant raise-the-camera-to-my eye impetus, it is not an acutely conscious form of awareness.
When picturing, I do not overtly conspire to seek out or to effect rhythmic repetitions of horizontal, vertical, and complementary diagonals. However, that said, it is readily apparent after the act of picturing and upon viewing a print that my pictures do, in fact, evidence a great deal of rhythmic visual content. It is also very apparent to me that this rhythmic patterning propensity is somewhat, if not completely, of the preternatural intuition variety - I simply can not explain it any other way.
Another purpose of this exercise, and perhaps the more informative / interesting one, is to comment on the idea that reading critical commentary on the work of picture makers can lead to insights about your own work - a subject that I will delve into in detail in tomorrow's entry.
Reader Comments (2)
I like the composition of the "Green Tractor" my eyes are immediately drawn down the little alley to the tractor.
... and the flash of yellow from the front wheel makes all the difference.