BSHAPIRO PHOTOGRAPHY: November 2011

Minto-Brown Park, in Salem is nearly 900 naturally open and wooded acres. There are paths that hug the banks of the Willamette River and from certain perspectives, it looks, for all the world, as if the location has never been touched by the 150+ years since Isaac "Whiskey" Brown settled on what became known as Brown Island. The park is a wonderful treasure, one I have only just recently become familiar with. It is where I decided to inaugurate my new Tamron 17mm-270mm super-zoom. As is often the case, I tend to shoot in the jpg + RAW mode, in the monochrome setting. That way, I get black and white jpg's and the RAW files in color. On occasion, the RAW files so overwhelm me that I decide to process them in as faithful color rendition as I can. The two images of the Willamette are examples where the color was so compelling to me that I shot them that way, and not in monochrome.

The Willamette River, from Minto-Brown Park, looking West–10.22.2011

The Willamette River, from Minto-Brown Park, looking East–10.22.2011

While I marvel at the color and the natural splendor of these images, I almost cringe at them. Through some minimal Photoshop work, I emphasized the beauty and tranquility, the autumn colors and so on, resulting in nothing less than what probably appears as picture postcard pretty.

There is a photographer I know in Salem who shoots large-format, black & white exclusively. I had arranged for him to exhibit his work at the June Drake Center that I was running in Silverton. We got into a bit of an issue of the exhibit, space allotment and so on. The space was named for June Drake, who was a commercial photographer in Silverton and had used his photography as a way to petition for the establishment of Silver Falls State Park-- the largest in Oregon. I had considered part of the permanent display on Drake were three of his photos of the falls that he had taken, printed and hand-colored. This photographer had taken issue to these images, relegating them to a little closet that contained little more than a water heater, so that he had more exhibit space for his work. He had referred to them pejoratively as "idealized and romanticized 'pretty pictures'." My response then had been one of outrage as in "How dare you?" Thinking that when his photography can champion the creation of a state park then he would have the right to criticize and demean such 100 year-old images.

Which is a kind of a roundabout way to raise the issue of aesthetics. Is a work of art that is "pretty"-- that pleases the eye of lesser validity than one that pokes the eye? The above images are unambiguous in their "prettiness." They are completely different in monotone:

The Willamette River, from Minto-Brown Park, looking East–10.22.2011

On one hand, I don't feel I need to defend my decision to render the river-scape in color, and in the other, well...

Color photography has never been accepted in context of traditional fine art photography. Eliot Porter's name comes to mind, but is overwhelmed by the countless art photographers who have shot exclusively in black & white. I tend to shoot in monochrome both because it admittedly represents a perception of more serious work and also, on a very practical level, it is less distracting than color.

The black & white rendition of the the Willamette River, from Minto-Brown Park, looking East is, to me wholly and totally different from the color version. Not better or worse... different. They are both valid and truly make different statements.

I took some other photographs that day--ones I had envisioned in black & white, and remained that way...