Wild Callahan

-
Callahan Trees

Walking in the winter with Diana and Brendan; I'm not going to not see the Callahan trees surrounding me. Automatic. Can't help it. I know it's cliche. Sorry about that.

But there's history here too. The contrast, the sequence, the rhythm, the simplicity. Those Callahan pictures from the 1950s resonate for me; they come to back to me from my earliest thoughts of pictures and photography.

Do an image google if you're not sure what I'm talking about.

And do you remember the conversation that's in the background, especially of the series of weeds in snow?

The story as I recall it is around Callahan's introduction to photography at a workshop in Detroit by Ansel Adams. Apparently there was a long discussion about how to expose properly for snow — how to keep the detail in the negative but not underexpose, how to compensate in the developing, how to print it just down enough to make it feel bright but not too bright.

Even if you've never done the wet process you know that bright scenes can cause such a headache.

Anyway, the story goes, after that long lecture Callahan returns with his famous results — weeds in snow — and flat empty space, white of the paper, featureless, blank. What was Ansel's reaction? I want to remember that he was amazed and proud: the student exceeds the vision and experience of the teacher by breaking the rules...this is what every teacher waits for.

But frankly I'm not sure what happened next. And I can't find the reference to that story. Maybe I'm dreaming it. Anyone?

Perhaps never mind for now. Visual echoes inspire me to keep making pictures, to keep paying attention. Can you feel the shape of the continuity? Get up, go outside, join the conversation.

Learn about Harry Callahan and be inspired too. Eastman House. Brown University. Wikipedia. Masters of Photography.

Chicago, 1950, copyright Harry Callahan, from George Eastman House (Still Image Archives)

Comments

canan said…
thanks for reminding me of these photo's. any other photographers pictures i should look at? they are beautiful!
9:06 PM
canan said…
thanks for reminding me of these photo's. any other photographers pictures i should look at? they are beautiful!
9:08 PM
canan said…
thanks for reminding me of these photo's. any other photographers pictures i should look at? they are beautiful!
9:08 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tech Thoughts on Teaching & Learning

-
Image
© 2011 Doyeon Kim A question we keep coming back to: how do we balance skill-learning and skill-teaching within the multifaceted conversation about ideas, history, and practice that makes up art education? If you're studying photography, design, new media, or art in any of a dozen guises, this question is at the core of what you're doing — whether you explicitly ask it or not (because the folks who run your course have asked and answered it for you). And if you're teaching photography, design, etc., it's even more critical — because your answer affects, de facto , the lives of everyone who studies with you. There are several ways to divide this up, and many different rationales for arguing this side or that side, but the equation basically comes down to two options: either skill is more important than history and theory, or vice versa. And perhaps a third option — oops, almost forgot — skill, history, and theory might be equally important. Abandoned © 2011 Yar
Read more

Connecting the Learning Process

-
Image
photo by Becky Olstad We're zooming through another session of intro and intermediate photography at the ICP and the avalanche of worry and frustration is beginning to feel overwhelming. Apertures, shutter speeds, focus modes, flash ratios, bias controls, clipping indicators, framing options, not to mention working with the scene, feet on the ground, paying attention to light, texture, detail -- and how about actually talking to your subjects? Forgetaboutit. Lightroom? Photoshop? Printing? C'mon.... What are we learning when we learn photography? Let's back it up a bit and take a breath. photo by Colleen Mullins I recently reconnected with a friend from a previous orbit whom I haven't seen in a long time. Colleen Mullins directs the photography program at Art Institutes International Minnesota and we caught up with each other at the Photolucida reviews last month. Her story inspires me to keep inventing the process, to keep challenging the norms. At root she wants to
Read more

Tree Project, Winter

-
Image
Tree Project, Winter My gingko is asleep. Last month all the leaves turned, finally, and winter crept inside. We're connected; the cycle reaches through us. At first I wondered if, somehow, my small tree was somehow exempt from the gray hibernation settling on the neighborhood. In fact, I was worried that maybe keeping a gingko in the house had somehow ripped it from the seasonal fabric that it needed in order to survive. I didn't think it could be so, but week after week the small leaves remained green, long after all the trees outside had become bare. Now the transformation is complete, finally, or nearly so. That is, the gingko leaves never dropped, though winter's desiccation appears complete. I'm watching the snow melt outside and anticipating the first new buds of spring, which I know will emerge in about a month, and I'm hoping that this small tree is, in fact, asleep, merely, and that it will awake when the cycle turns through again. For more, se
Read more