Hal Gage, Fine Art Photography - Ice |
halgage@alaska.net |
| Ice: a personal meditation | |
| Over the last 25 years that I have studied and practiced the art of photography, I have concentrated on trying to dig beneath the surface record that photography does so well. In choosing the landscape as my palette I have worked through thoughts and philosophies to bring me to my working method. I have found that one learns little or nothing about a place, person or object after only one encounter. Alfred Stieglitz is attributed as saying that to make a portrait of someone one needed to photograph a subject from birth throughout life and on into their children’s life. Each project, each series I work on comesfrom extended exposure to my subject; over time, over years and decades. Once a critical mass of time, experience and compositions have been accumulated, the series takes shape and work on creating the tangible record begins. |
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Although the implication of a photograph is that there was an actual “thing” that was photographed, the seduction of the subject can be set aside and the image on the wall can be considered as a drawing or even abstract painting where “what it is” is less important than how it makes you feel, the emotional vibration that comes from within. I feel that is a truer way of seeing. Composition and structure of the frame is everything in my work. The interplay of tones, relationships of shapes, the implied and implicit movement, are the cast of characters that retell the emotional story of the daily play that is constantly being acted out in the world around us. This exhibition is my document of one of those quiet dramas. Hal Gage |