First Photo Of 2009

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It's appropriate to start 2009's cavalcade of images with a picture taken on New Year's Day. As I mentioned, my wife and I went to the St. Louis Art Museum (which has the wonderful acronym SLAM) on Thursday. After we saw the Action/Abstraction special exhibit, we wandered around some of the galleries. It was pretty quiet. With no crowds and their policy allowing photography in the general galleries, I got a few good items. The picture in the background is an early work by Chuck Close, an artist I admire. The image is disconcerting, like so much of his work. The man's chin is misshapen, perhaps scarred. He gazes up, avoiding eye contact with the viewer. It looks like he is wearing about 60% of a bad wig. Close's portraits of Philip Glass, another favorite, are easier on the eyes.

More pix from SLAM in the coming days.

WHAT I'M WHINING ABOUT: every month or so I have to go to the ^#$!)%$!#@ Arch and shoot more material for both of my photoblogs. What on earth to say about it that I haven't done already? Hmmm. Think... think... Hey! How about some left-handed polarized Lensbaby shots squeezed through Photomatix into HDRs while I drag the shutter with slow flash sync? That could be really cool. Come back Thursday for Arch Series day and see if any of these cockamamie ideas worked.

TOMORROW: how many photographers can you count? Oh, and a new Arch photo on Gateway.

Almost As Realistic As A Photograph

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Looking north on 6th Street from just south of the downtown core.

My style of HDR photos has vaguely reminded of the work of some painter but I couldn't place it. It finally came to me yesterday: Richard Estes. You can see a large sample of his work through Google Images here. He is a member of the 20th Century school of (mostly) American painting known as Photorealism. Other members of the movement include Ralph Goings and Chuck Close. Close is a personal favorite but his work has gone far beyond approximations of photographs. Again, Google Images provides many examples (click here).

The link I see between some HDR photographs and photorealist paintings is this: they sort of look like conventional photos but not completely. More like paintings of photographs with detail, color and tonality modulated to suit the artist. People often see the images as hyper-real. A photographer with software like Photomatix Pro, which I use (thanks to Minneapolis CDPBer Greg for the tip), doesn't have nearly the range of options of a painter but, still, we can lift a scene like this one to something above the mundane. Plus, it just looks cool. I will now get off my soap box.

WHAT I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DO LAST NIGHT BUT DIDN'T: start an introductory yoga class. I'm 58 and have poor physical flexibility and balance - thought it might do me some good. But I left work late and was tired (whah) and didn't want another obligation. So I came home, had a bite and wrote this. And I'm happy.

TOMORROW: more HDR with the Thursday Arch Series, plus a new post on Gateway.