Photography Fits
Images are powerful, and presenting them in various ways is what I do best, ultimately as a traditional Artist, but also as a casual photographer who increasingly appreciates photography as an Art form since purchasing a Canon EOS 20D in 2006. Photography fits perfectly into the large creative pocket, contributing to the way I see and compose with other media.
Taking photos is a nice change from usual work or if I’m in between projects. The camera is always conveniently on the kitchen counter and a tripod is by the door, ready for action. When traveling, the senses are bombarded with so many new and incredible things, and taking photos gives the creative energy something immediate to do with all the beauty! Once in a while I’m fortunate to be at the right place at the right time, and some days enjoy searching for it. It’s also beneficial, in fact necessary in this competitive business, to take advantage of anything that will add an edge to writing effective gallery exhibition proposals. Quality presentation is everything, so a good camera and computer scanner are valuable tools for recording decent color representation of Artwork.
The Canon EOS 20D handles varying light situations well, manually and automatically. The manual settings are better for close-ups, and the automatic feature is great for capturing fleeting weather conditions or insects that might fly away before the camera manages to focus “the old-fashioned way”. The liberty and practicality that digital cameras offer can’t be compared, not to mention the costs. No denying the growing piles of paper photos, three quarters of which were poor quality, and the very last roll of film I took was entirely of watermelon growing in the garden! In fact it was all the activity taking place in the garden that stimulated the interest to produce better photographs. I still think my old Canon AE1 was the best camera for detailed close-ups of flowers and insects, (circa 1983 - the new ones are inferior in my opinion) but despite numerous professional tune-ups and cleaning, the shutter froze randomly and became unreliable. Five years ago I finally surrendered to the vast world of digital cameras and computers, and cannot imagine being without these tools now.
With family all living in eastern and western Canada, travel back and forth between our two countries has become part of my lifestyle. It’s now my mission to see and photograph as much of North America as possible, and the experiences have also overflowed into my traditional Artwork. Paper Places the oil pastel series was inspired by travels within North America, then extended to include other countries. With each trip I appreciate how geography, climates and histories create very unique lifestyles from state to state and province to province, and how each place is unlike anywhere else, even within short distances in the same state or province.
From a technical standpoint my recent photos are best, but as resource material for other forms of Art they don’t need to be perfect; from a painters’ standpoint, memory works best anyway, and if photos are used as reference they are not copied directly. To capture a lively likeness convincingly in a painting or drawing, it’s the experiential observations that contribute the most to the work.
While on location with the camera, I’m also soaking up as many other details a possible: exploring color and form, memorizing lighting and sensations, studying values as if I were about to start painting or drawing… call it “Plein Aire Memorization”! The Painter behind the camera interprets a vision the camera cannot. Likewise, there are some things the camera captures perfectly that don’t translate well into paintings. Photos are best left as photos, but are great for inspiration, and to help remember details when painting.
Painting is my priority as far as Artwork is concerned, so to give the photography its own significance, I created a new chapter of nikkiartwork.com, Nikki’s Photography That site is still under construction, so for now it is also linked to FlickR, where I began organizing albums about a year ago. Eventually all the photographic series will be exclusive to nikkiphotography.com