Recently, Susan and I went to see “Mr. Turner,” a movie that I have been dying to see, about the great 19th-century British painter, J.M.W. Turner. The movie was odd–with occasionally impenetrable dialogue and almost no exposition whatsoever–yet I found it compelling and thought-provoking in the end.[1. In a nutshell: if you could figure what was being said, riddle out out who was who (and who was really important to the story), and not be driven crazy by the random dissonance of the soundtrack, you very well might be fascinated by the lengthy character study of an eccentric, seemingly misogynistic man who also happened to be a genius painter. Not a qualified rave, but I am glad that I saw it.]
Thinking about the movie brought me back to a series of images I made early last year on Sauvie Island with Hudson (I’ve posted two photos: cormorants, sauvie island and love and fearlessness). I love the fog and the diffuse light that it often brings with it, and I had tried to work up a few landscapes that incorporated the river, the distant bank, and the clearing fog. I never really did anything with those shots, but last week, thinking about the light on that day, I decided to go back and view the series with a fresh set of eyes. Here’s one view…[2. I’m not equating myself with Turner; it’s more that I have always loved the way he dealt with light, detail and the vastness of a landscape, and he’s one of the artists that has inspired me. And, thinking about painting when looking at a scene with a camera is never a bad thing, in my opinion. I wasn’t channeling him when I was in the field here, but I do have a vision of creating photos in the fog that have both painterly and photographic qualities.]
