Denis Oliver, master

I will put it right out front: I failed. And it is my favorite new thing to do. Okay... while failing may not be exactly new to me, enjoying the freedom to fail is a threshold I've crossed & am glad of it. In this particular case the failure comes in the form of not actually making much effort at all to create a new interpretation of the work of a master. I can't put his picture side by side with mine as an offering for comparison.

But, I can offer an exhibition or two by Denis Oliver (I didn't copy-n-paste his work into this blog as during my attempt to do so I received a kind message asking "please do not copy" and did NOT fail to honor it). What I allowed myself for this stage of the challenge is to start simply by letting his work inspire me, taking whatever effect it does.

The first link above is to Denis Oliver's "Nature" gallery. The first two pictures below were inspired by that gallery (particularly by "How Many Lifetimes" & "Skyflakes"). The second link is for the "Landscape" gallery and was the inspiration for the third submission.

I loved this challenge. I could not come anywhere close to reproducing/understanding how Oliver captures the sky in his landscape work. I really really want to make the claim that I just need a better camera! But that would defeat the pleasure of being a novice & flubbing. What I learned was to pay more attention to how the background looks when I'm working with shallow depths. And I had a serious lesson in the preparation (lifetime long?) for photography. When the sun came out & the clouds looked promising, I raced around town trying to find a location from which to shoot while we still had daylight! Photography, as the name implies, is light-written, but it also must be an art form controlled by the god Kronos!

I challenge myself to make a more in depth study of Oliver's work & in time, Kronos willing, I'll offer that side by side comparison.

DO NOT DENY IT

AS I REACH

ONCE, THEY SANG