Not my shot, wish it was! “Batstars” by Art Wolfe
- July 6th, 2010
- Posted in Not my shot, wish it was!
- By Edie
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OK, OK, so I’m utterly ignorant of contemporary photographers. I’ll chalk it up to not owning a television this time. Oh, sure, PBS is a great station, but to be frank, I’d rather spend my time in front of the TV I can talk back to than the boob tube. Deirdre Skillman, Art’s Stock Photo Manager responded to my request to use this image (Hi, Deirdre!) and sent me the embed code. Sorry folks on the iPad, it’s Flash based, but you take what you’re given with gratitude. I’ve asked Deirdre for a plain old jpg URL, and hopefully she can provide. (Puppy-dog eyes in Deirdre’s direction)
I first heard of Art Wolfe in an article by Scott Bourne on finding good criticism: He said “If you want to comment on my photography, and you’re Art Wolfe, I’ll gladly listen to what you have to say. You see Art Wolfe has the standing to criticize my work. He has the credibility and the authority to give me advice that I care about.”
O-Kay. Who the hell is Art Wolfe? Google is my friend. Holy carpe diem. Yeah, if Art Wolfe were to offer critiques of my work, I’d definitely sit up and listen. The guy definitely has the chops. Like, totally. Ok, enough with the Valley Girl speak. He’s a shit-hot photog with the talent *and* the technical skills to really make a name for himself.
And he has.
Art hosts “Travels To The Edge”, a public television program. Man, sometimes I wish I had a TV. Then I remember I have the internets…
(googlegooglegoogle) Ah… here we go: Travels to the Edge with Art Wolfe.
Not only that, but he’s successful enough to hire a “stock photo manager”. Damn.
The reason I chose to include the above image is because lately I’ve found myself frustrated with color photography. You may have noticed that my images have been rather monochromatic, and that’s because color has not really called to me lately. But Art’s “Batstars” really has made me re-think color work, and to not be afraid of color. I think my problem is that right now the Sierra is lacking this kind of vibrancy for me.
Thank you, Art and Deirdre.
About color…
I, too, sometimes just feel more like working in BW than in color. To some extent, you might want to just go with that flow a bit when it happens, Edie. Not every photograph is necessarily better in color, and some subjects – or at least certain ways of seeing them – seem to “want” to be BW.
Part of the difficulty of color, at least sometimes, is that it is more difficult to create a photograph that can be seen as something that transcends simple (he laughs) reality, and which can also be viewed as a sort of abstract thing as well. Your Art Wolfe image is, I think, a fine and obvious example of this. I know that I’m looking at a “real” thing in that photograph, but that really isn’t what interests me most about it – I’m drawn to the forms and the arrangement of the stars and to the color relationships among them and so forth.
Anyway, keep shooting!
Dan