This photograph was in the WSJ. "More Than Fun And Games" article. I'm not sure if that click-able link will work, because we are subscribed. And it may not work for publication on a blog.
Anyway, I was mesmerized by this photograph. And it seems, that is as it should be. That was the photographer's desire.
"When Clarence H. White staged and shot “The Ring Toss” in 1899, he was on a mission............George Eastman had introduced his Kodak camera for the masses,........They avidly captured everyday scenes, sent the camera off to Kodak for processing, and enjoyed the snapshots that came back."
"White (1871-1925), a self-taught photographer from Newark, Ohio, had higher aspirations for the medium.."
"He believed that photography was a fine art form on par with painting."
"he would rise early and, before going to work as a bookkeeper, he would spend time choreographing and shooting his photographs, often drafting and dressing friends and family as his models."
"Later, in the darkroom, he would deploy various development and printing processes to achieve effects that no strictly mechanical operation could deliver."
"“The Ring Toss”............White worked as hard as a painter or sculptor............He arranged his three daughters in the “posing room” of his home, catching the eldest in action, ready to toss a ring, while her sisters watch from a bench behind her. Light, diffused by a white curtain, streams through the rear window (a common device for White); a window on the right side that has been cropped out adds to the highlighting glow of the eldest girl’s left side. In the right background is a Japanese screen."
"In White’s composition, too, the floor is slightly upturned in modernist fashion, much like Edgar Degas’s painting of dancers “In Rehearsal” (c. 1873-78),"
"At first glance, White’s photograph is reminiscent of John Singer Sargent’s “The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit ” at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (which itself refers to Velázquez’s “Las Meninas)."
-smile- I doubt if many read this whole thing. But that's fine. I do hope, that you looked closely at the photograph though. And found it delightful...
And appreciate what this man was doing, long before the photo manipulating, which we almost take for granted today.
~
~
10 comments:
Interesting..thanks..Everything has a starting place!!
It is a great old photo.
I read every word and found it fascinating, as the picture most certainly is. I love and have studied the paintings and artists you mention, and have seen many of their pictures in person. I spend a significant amount of time every day on Shorpy dot com, enlarging the photos and drinking them in edge to edge. I appreciate your interest in this topic (as photography is a love of mine) and thank you for taking the time to write such a post! xoxo
Well, it does look like a fine painting! He was a photographng genius. How hot those girls must have been in those outfits in the summer!
The link DID work.
Wonder what he would think of all the pictures people take now a days!!
Read it all and was fascinated by it. Makes you wonder how more creative he would have been if born in a different time with more technology available.
Betty
The link worked! I read every word of this and found it so interesting. I love photography and enjoyed reading about this photographer who was ahead of his time.
I wonder if those girls said - "Dad - not another photo!"
Interesting ritual on how he captured this photo ... And, if I hadn't read it, it just wouldn't have registered on the work involved
I believe he was right, photography is a wonderful artform!
Thanks for sharing!
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing. I'm sure he would be amazed at the technology at our fingertips with photography now.
Post a Comment