T h e B o r d e r l a n d s P h o T o g r a P h e r
Text and Photos by Murray Bolesta At this time of year, interpreting the artistic genre of the still life by the borderlands photographer can kindle many hours of expressive flame. Thanksgiving, as a harvest festival, is intimately connected with still lifes. The vibrant colors of chile peppers and other yields of nature’s bounty are fertile subjects for you, the borderlands photographer. My wife Agnès, who is French, refers to my still life images as southwestern “natures mortes”. She composes still lifes from common objects, often raw food items, and has me photograph them, sometimes labeling them “bodegones”. The latter, a Spanish translation, seems most appropriate for the borderlands. A photographer can compose a still-life image by arranging objects at home, or by going out to the back yard or nearby wild lands and finding objects already arranged naturally and artfully. In this case, Mother Nature has generously set out a composition for you to spy with your photographer’s eye. Inside one’s home, it’s more of a studio operation: you make the picture rather than take the picture. While I like to call my nature photography pure, without alteration or adulteration, a studio procedure is limitlessly creative, allowing a total free hand for composition of design elements and lighting arrangements. Outdoors in nature, the purist’s dictum is not to touch or move the subject, but to position the lens to exploit an artful The Borederlands Photographer Nature’s Bounty: Borderlands still lifes optimum of the natural composition. Here, the best lighting is often what you discover suddenly at that moment. Waiting patiently for better lighting of a close-up shot often is futile: the outdoors light that catches the eye, highlighting or framing a collection of objects, is very fleeting and one must be mindful to capture it quickly. Even so, don’t be too hasty. Setting up your equipment with a brisk deliberateness is always better than with a panicky hastiness. If you lose the shot, there’ll be others. Describing “still life” as “inanimate” is the usual practice. Webster defines “inanimate” as lacking life, spirit, consciousness or the power of motion. But in the case of the still life image, spirit is very much in evidence. Lacking motion, the still life is often serene and contemplative, with an emotional or symbolic subtext. Truly, the few requirements of a still life are: a static scene of a collection of objects within a fairly close physical range. A single object will not pass the test, since composing of a group of objects, juxtaposed to exploit their shapes, textures, colors, and relative positions, and exploiting the available light, is the whole point of still lifes. Often overlooked by photographers is the scene’s background and surface. Central subjects must be highlighted or enhanced by surrounding textures, contrasts, and colors. In still life photography, positioning objects via propping can be demanding, since optimum angles often require extreme subtlety. Another critical need is the right surface. The surface must support or contain the objects but not be so prosaic as to detract from the intended result; indeed it should augment. A special consideration for the still life photographer is depth of field. This is the area of focus that is a technical photographic constraint. A familiar aspect of still life images is one of complete focus. If you follow this rule, make sure to pay attention to the important variables affecting depth of field: distance from subject, focal length of the lens, and aperture setting. Using a tripod can be frustrating due to the demanding subtlety of still lifes, but unless you have abundant light, tripods will produce the best technical result. For subjects, nothing beats food in its raw form. Commonly, colorful crops are used to portray a southwestern or seasonal theme. Try fruit - a panoply of persimmons on a brilliant yellow plate. Try vegetables – a cornucopia of corn cobs, peppers and squash in all their glorious shapes, textures and colors. Borderlands nature, as usual, provides the best subjects: simple, found objects such as gourds, bones, and the pods of coral and mesquite beans. All of these can spark hours of creative flow from the borderlands photographer. Murray Bolesta’s CactusHuggers Photography specializes in borderland images and supports the preservation of southern Arizona’s natural, rural, and cultural heritage. Murray’s home gallery in Green Valley can be visited by appointment and he can be reached at www.CactusHuggers.com. 17 IMages: Top, left: The sunset is always the friend of the borderlands photographer, even inside the home. Here, the Bolesta house enlivened by shadows and a reflection. Middle, left: The spring waters of Aliso provide painterly shimmer to an autumn scene of sycamore and mushroom. Nature generally composed this still life. Bottom: The bounty of nature, either native to the borderlands or not, provides a visual feast when colors and shapes are harmonized. Top, right: All you need is a persimmon, a deer antler, and a few clouds to provide, in this case, a somewhat abstract still life. The Santa Rita Mountains add visual ballast. Middle, right: Objects readily found lying on the borderlands soil can form a still life. Here, two different angles of a plate with gourds, a bone, cholla spines, mesquite pods, and a pine cone. The setting sun, as always in photography, can dramatize a subject. At top, the still life in shade with a wall of sun behind, and below, the plate positioned to catch the last rays. Fruit Burro Flavor-of-the-Month is CRANBERRY And Much More Served by 3 generations of the Wisdom family using the freshest ingredients and locally grown produce whenever possible. 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