Monday, September 27, 2010

Summer of 2010- Aspen and California's HWY 1

"The Hills Ranch" Aspen, Colorado - © 2010 Jim McHugh



    It's been an exciting time this summer photographing and printing a variety of new pictures.  While in Colorado for an August exhibit in Aspen I was fortunate to spent several days photographing mountain landscapes with my Speed Graphic and Polaroid. My first challenge was how to approach this subject matter with my camera in a fresh way? 


"Maroon Lake" Aspen, Colorado   © 2010 Jim McHugh

   I will forever be moved and influenced by 19th. century pictoralist photography. I can almost feel the photographer at work. Because of the primitive materials and technologies available at the time, photographic results were completely unpredictable.  Polaroid is very similar, every image has a slightly different different quality.  The pictures of photographer Edweard Muybridge and landscape painter Albert Bierstadt  always fascinate me. There is so much emotion in the imagery. Muybridge is often defined by his “motion” studies, but to me his landscapes are the most stunningly. They are dark and powerfully compelling! Bierstadt’s canvases of Yosemite Valley are filled with vision! So much color and imagination. More than most contemporary photography can produce.

 With Muybridge  and other Pictoralist's work there is such a sense of struggle and triumph in the imagery. Not only must the photographer have the  "Eye" to see; but the prints themselves are so precious, difficult to make! They look three dimensional, like charcoal drawings.


"Lighthouse at Pigeon Point #1" © Jim McHugh

By merging older analog systems and digital technologies I am trying  to create in my prints a slight confusion, an uncertainty. I hope the viewer’s eye will  linger longer on the surface. More like a radio drama than a film; the listener is allowed to supply the unseen. I will be heading back to Colorado this week.
"Skeleton at Scotts Creek - Highway 1" © 2010 Jim McHugh
  

"Pigeon Point" © 2010 Jim McHugh

             


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