Peach, pear all in a row

Warm silver in close

Recent images in sepia and colour

Roses and th'other

i imagine the persimmon other....2

i imagine the persimmon other

Random still life

Sometimes a change....part 2

More exploration of the still life in colored drawings....

A change is good

I find if I get overloaded with my own projects, a switch is good.

Lately, I have been struggling to find a new viewpoint with the still life series, so I decided to go street shooting.
I also did some colored drawings of the subjects to try and get new insights.

Utterly subjective, I know

I continue to explore the idea of white.  My neo-baroque postings explored the Caravaggio-like light, or rather shade, of the colourful image against a dark background.  Such images can be mysterious and hold a lot of power.

I find the white background totally different.  It feels modern and abstract, in a way.

It is a totally different photographic experience for me.  Such mental stretching is probably a good thing.

NOTE to photographers: The other thing I have found is that the Fujifilm X Pro-1 camera renders files in a way that is much more in keeping with my vision than the traditional dslr cameras. I'm not sure if it is the way the sensor array captures or the lens renders.  But it is markedly different from Canon and Nikon and even Sony full frame cameras.  There actually is a film-like aura about the files that gives a subtly intuitive veracity.  Utterly subjective, I know.

Objects have to be arranged

I was feeling a bit frustrated with the water and reflection shots.  So I set up the old "cezannesque" still life again.  By that I mean the multi-layer tilted surfaces with the textured cover.  Cezanne didn't invent the idea but he made extensive use of it in his many still life paintings.

I find the various elements involved like painting a picture in many ways.  The objects have to be arranged exactly and the colour and form must be harmonized.  It's odd but a few millimetres to the left or right completely alters, and often ruins the picture. Go figure

The danger is that one can start to repeat the same theme, so the added challenge is enough change to move forward.

I change up the fruit and flowers as often as I can to modify the composition and colour.

I push the wet idea a bit

I wanted to push the wet idea a bit.  I may have wrung all the moisture out of it (for me anyhow) for the time being.  I'm going to attempt some more elaborate compositions.

Elaborate seems to provide scope for variety and modulation of form in the composition.  I'm also fiddling with the 36 megapixel Nikon D800.  Large files are slow to load but detail is interesting.

As touched as possible, as personal as possible

Ive been trying some new ideas for composition; trying to simplify where I can.  Sometimes one gets out on a limb of the unknown, which is where I feel I am now.

Over the long weekend, guests brought some wine, one bottle of which was a beautiful black  with a red seal.  I painted up two bottles to look like it.  I could have used the actual bottle,  but I wanted the Morandi paint job to add human effort to the still life: I wanted these to be as touched and modified as possible to keep them as personal as possible.

Man whacked away at mango still

I have whacked away at the mango still lifes in spite of the bone challenge.  Ironically, I prefer the work I'm doing on the side with the mangoes to the bones.

It seems a diversion can foster creativity.  Don't look now but....

As if I didn't have enough to challenge me, I upgraded to OS X Mountain Lion.  Not for the faint of heart.

If you take the plunge, it turns your laptop or desk top into an i pad interface.  Plunge best taken with internal wifi connection.

Who likes designer bones?

I took a page out of Giorgio Morandi's book and painted the bones.  I may not have the colours right.

In fact, the whole bone thing may not be working.  I wonder if the ancient Britons painted stone henge five thousand years ago?

My mangoes are now officially rotting.  They aren't going to wait for me to get the bone idea right.  The studio smells like a garbage can.

Quick, open the window.  Glad it's summer.

Pears mangoes encore.....

The mangoes have proved to be excellent companions with all my old faithful nature morte participants: pears, oranges, the painted neo-morandi ceramics.  This is much to my delight.

Oddly, I find that after a lifetime of seeing in black and white, these days I'm seeing almost entirely in colour.  I think it started when I had a surprisingly strong emotional experience in front of the Rembrandt paintings in Amsterdam earlier this year.

I don't know what it means or if it makes a difference.  But I used to prefer black and white photography for my photos and now it is colour.  It surprises me greatly but I have to just go with it, I think.

Here is another in the ongoing colour series.

Picasso said of good work at 50

I have moved to different fruit and varied the composition with this still life series.  One of the challenges is to make a new picture and not repeat.

Picasso said that anyone can produce good work when 25 years old; the trick is to still produce good work at 50.

These still lives are tending more towards the stacked themes of Cezanne and less of Morandi.  When the bones are dried out, I will return to trying the more formal and linear two-dimensional challenges set by Morandi.

Pears are Cezanne too

I read that Cezanne took so long to paint a still life that the fruit was rotting by the time he finished.  Who knows: maybe that's how he invented the multiple angled cubism that Picasso speaks of.  The fruit turned as Cezanne painted it! LOL.  But Cezanne could paint peaches.  His colours just sing.

Here is my idea of singing, sensual peaches. I used strong soft box side light to create lots of darks and I left the colours saturated from the Fujifilm X Pro 1 file, just as they came out of the camer in jpeg on the "S" setting.  I softened it a bit in LightRoom 4.

Bonehenge part 2

Here are three more images from the bones as icon series.  I popped in my Stonehenge photo with similar treatment to show where I think I'm going with this.

When we were in England, I sensed Stonehenge had gotten into my bones, but I never, frankly, imaged it was to this extent!