Diffusion sheets as dodging devices. Frederick Sommer. Key thinker. And he was very much a thinker; about photography in the specific and in the other bigger container.
Art is not arbitrary. A fine painting is not there by accident; it is not arrived at by chance. We are sensitive to tonalities.
The smallest modification of tonality affects structure. Some things have to be rather large, but elegance is the presentation of things in their minimum dimensions
Frederick Sommer General Aesthetics, 1979
Words not spent today
buy smaller images tomorrow
Frederick Sommer(Aperture, 1962
“By using the longest lasting photographic process, I hope to speak about survival, not only of man and nature’s but to photography’s survival as well. For each print I mix ground platinum and palladium metals, making a tincture that is hand-coated onto heavy watercolor paper and exposed to light. There are many steps involved in creating the final print and these are as important to me as the capturing of the image,” said (Beth) Moon. A platinum print can last for centuries, drawing on the common theme of time and survival, pairing photographic subject and process.
How do they overlap? Subject choice. Sure, but how many subjects for the camera are there. What isn’t a prior link. How they are treated? Maybe more-so this. The sensation within me. Yep. that has it, even though that is the least transferable to you. My sensation is a limited exchange system to share.
Being able to find work, to find something to point at is one part of making work. More important to the making is being able to describe it. To translate it is a necessary part of transforming. Absorbing work may mean you don’t have to make anything similar. You don’t need to duplicate the work. That is what the Moons are for me. I don’t have to do this work, nor anything like them. These are sufficient. I can even avoid their process notes, notions, goals, ambitions. Two reasons: I don’t want to do them; I don’t have to do them.
Do I have a preference? Yes. I much prefer Sarah Moon to Beth Moon. They way they think is clear, is different to each other. Sarah talks about the experience of making pictures; the world of camera and subject. Beth Moon spends her words on technique of printing; she is about overcoming process limitations. Her world uses the world of things, but done to make something more permanent than them. Beth converts; Sarah conveys.
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