Photography, my new obsession is all about the emotion it brings out in me. Seeing the world in more detail, feeling the light or seeing faces rather than just a mass of people resonates in the membrane. It’s great to be naive... not understanding composition, just liking the vibe an image gives me rather than being critical for the sake of it, my default mindset. Still, if I want consistency, then it will have to become more than looking and then pressing a button.
This weekend I was in Dublin for work and had an afternoon to myself. Wow, time to play with the new camera....but, it just didn’t happen. There was too much to take in to be able to concentrate about getting a good image or ten. Then, I turned a corner and it was there, The Gallery of Photography. Well worth a look.
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| Richard Mosse 'vintage violence', North Kivu, Eastern Congo, |
The ground floor was a book shop, an amazing one at that. The first book I picked up was Richard Mosse's “Infra” ...a stunning story of The People's Republic of Congo. He had used Kodak Aerochrome which renders leaves n stuff in bright pinks, oranges and reds but skin-tones normal. If it had been half the price I may have bought it but at 60 euro it was a bit much.
I had no expectations of the exhibition up in the galleries upstairs. An exhibition called Amazon was showing by Sebastiao Saigado and Per-Anders Pettersson. Stunning..... funny, sad and very human. The exhibition told the story of the beauty of the State of Acre in Brazil.....and the tragedy of its deforestation. Saigodo's stunningly "lit" black and white images of two indigenous tribes, the Alto Xingu and Zo'e showed humanity as it was designed to be before it was corrupted by want.
Two images stood out....one a baby breastfeeding and another of a hunter jumping from tree to tree chasing his prey. Saigodo caught the movement, human legs swinging like a gibbon's in the way only a great artist could. Light, motion, life itself but captured in a still. Every creationist should look at this image! Evolution captured in 1/1000th of a second. In a talk by Misha Henner, a few months ago at The Whitworth, I was saddened. He discussed being disillusioned by documentary photography. Maybe he should have this picture on his wall.
Pettersson’s images didn’t have the same impact. They were in colour. He showed the macro of the deforestation in the region. Trees with empty spaces, people in small villages with western type clothing on. It was somehow more familiar, nothing exceptional but far more easy to overlook. Without Saigodo’s work the floor below, the pictures wouldn’t have meant much to me. But, they were essential to complete the story.....evolution doesn’t necessarily mean progress. Maybe it demonstrates that evolution is a circular process!
