Here is a beautiful image created by photographer Stuart Hutchinson.
One of the besetting problems for photographers (it seems to me) is that people always want to know what it is a photograph of.
This stems from two false beliefs. The first is that old myth that the camera never lies. The second is that a camera is a device for recreating the view in front of it. Both are nonsense of course. We've looked at them in previous posts. But their power is that they can stop us from seeing what has really been achieved and produced.
In this case, they can stop us seeing a truly beautiful image.
Let's look at this with fresh eyes.
What we see is a picture space divided roughly in two. Below the dividing line the space is filled with a shimmering blue. At a distance the blue is piercing but move closer and it becomes more graded and subtle. The shimmering is caused by what seems to be an unstable surface. It isn't exactly moving, but it certainly isn't static either. It is blue; it is many blues; it is blueness.
Above the line the space is filled with living colour. It has pinks and yellows and its own grades of blue as well.
A dark, spidery structure straddles the line. Its complex framework is at odds with the fields of colour. It emphasises their line of separation. The blue begins to swallow it; the yellow and pink make it stand out sharply. But there is no tension or movement; it is simply there.
We're starting to see this as a compelling composition now.
We've said it before but let's say it again. Images like this are created by an artist seeing them first, by knowing equipment and techniques, by making judgements. That's true for painting, photography, sculpture and all the rest.
Stuart Hutchinson exemplifies the photographer as artist.
Go to see his work if you can:
at Colonnade House until 1 March;
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