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Rangefinder
Magazine
November 2002
The “Four Seasons”
by David A. Williams M.Photog. FRPS AHPA
Its Passions, the Visuals It Creates, Its Elegance…
I love Vivaldi’s “The
Four Seasons”—its passions, the visuals it can create, its
elegance and its varieties. I also love women.
My interest in this type of image starts with my love of the paintings
of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792). While many a photographer claims
influence from his work, few of their photographs exhibit the life-force
that he managed to create with the comparatively slow process of paint
on canvas.
To supplement his portrait commissions and to sell to engravers, Reynolds
often painted street urchins as characters from Greek mythology (he was
popular with the kids as he apparently treated them well and didn’t
beat them like many others in the same artistic pursuit). He also was
often commissioned to paint special portraits of ladies, I guess the equivalent
of the male ‘heroic portrait,’ also as Greek goddesses—Diana
the huntress being particularly popular in Italy, France and England—shepherdesses
being the norm, but Venus, Comedy and Cleopatra featured.
This style of image eventually found its peak in the Victorian era much
later with the pre-Raphaelites and Victorian heroic painting.
Autumn
The first image I made was in the style of one of Reynolds “fancy
pictures.” It was designed to represent “Autumn.” Here
we have the goddess of Autumn dressed in faded glory and beginning to
tatter and fray. Her gaze is set—she knows the hardships to follow.
But she also has a beauty that is very different. The new Autumn is held
in her arms—a new ‘redhead’ of quiet beauty, already
aware of the approaching winter. Her brother—the previous Autumn—fades,
as do the leaves.
The device of a recognizable studio environment is not new even to 17th
century painting. It seeks to inform the viewer that this is a precise
message. The sky and clouds background supported by the gilded arms suggests
the best of Autumn, as does the cascade of green drapery changing in hue.
The little boy holds a peasant revel mask, which suggests the changing
nature of his season—at once happy, also sad.
Winter
Winter (after Sir Peter Lely 1618–1680), shows our woman as Diana
the Huntress—what an appropriate icon for the winter. Terrible is
its beauty, and merciless in its hunt. It interested me that so many vastly
intelligent women were portrayed this way, and how many were portrayed
as shepherdesses. It’s interesting that at least one of the shepherdesses
was painted to fit in with the redecoration and colour scheme of a morning
room. My feeling is that painters like Lely, (who painted Charles the
First’s wife Queen Henrietta like this) would have found much greater
intellectual stimulation with the Diana subject.
Spring
John William Waterhouse was a member of the pre-Raphaelite movement of
the Victorian era. Many of the pre-Raphaelites painted in extreme depth-of-field—that
is to say everything is in sharp relief from the foreground to the background.
Another recognizable trait was the almost obvious outline of principal
figures—sometimes giving them a cut-out look. The little boy Oscar
(the new Spring), is as he seems; blond—blue-eyed and bursting with
life. His mother Virginia (Spring) has a quiet yet strong, rich life-force
within her. The location was chosen for the way the plants seemed to echo
the shape of the mother and child.
My original plan was to photograph the background with specific focus
and then place the subjects in position—re-focus—and shoot
again, combining the two images to get that pre-Raphaelite effect. Bad
weather closed in, and forced me to photograph the subjects under a porch,
which allowed me to add a tungsten light as the life-force glow. The two
elements were then brought together later. I like to think we all have
wings as kids, we just can’t always see them.
Summer
Summer was one of those shots where I had already photographed everything
in my head in advance. The hard part was building up the courage to ask
the subject Misra (who works at our local supermarket) to pose for me.
So I prepared a plan for her, showed her my idea in sketch form, and told
her how the image was to be used.
Originally from Ethiopia, Misra and her brother Ipsa are strikingly beautiful
and graceful people. The hard part was making Misra understand that I
did not want her to smile—I wanted the “baleful glare of the
sun” in her universe.
The sun is beautiful and “terrible in its beauty”—a
challenging mistress! Misra has that effect. Her smile is devastatingly
beautiful, and in repose deeply and penetratingly so.
Again, I wanted the visible dimension of the background to create depth.
It is an interesting exercise trying to represent the heavens as a square.
The green represents earth and the role the sun plays as one of the foundations
of life, whereas the black represents fire and drought.
Gustav Klimpt took influence from Mycean tombs and many other sources
to create a monumental, and ornamental style of portraiture. He is recognized
widely for his fantasy image of the “The Kiss”—but it
was what he brought to portraiture that intrigues me. He used decorative
and patterned effects often for the sheer texture and pleasure of it.
Knowing as we do now of his energetic and ribald private life, it is easy
to see his joy of life.
Technical Stuff
The two square images were made on Hasselblad 501C with an 80mm f/2.8
lens. Both exposures were about 1/60 at f/8. I always use Kodak Portra
400 VC film when I shoot color film. Lighting was studio flash, and reflectors.
The two vertical images were made as 17.8 MB TIFF files with a FUJI Finepix
S1 digital camera. The lens in both cases was a Sigma DG 24–70mm
f/2.8 zoom lens. Exposures vary, but the outdoor image of “Spring”
was made on Auto—shutter speed, and a aperture of f/8, whereas the
indoor image “Winter” was studio lit; exposure 1/60 at f/8.
No filters were used.
The images were printed on an EPSON 1290 (U.S. model 1280) printer set
to 1440 dpi/photo paper/high speed off. The inks are Epson standard inks.
The paper itself is English Permajet Portrait Classic 300 gsm.
David Williams is an award winning portrait and wedding photographer
from Australia. He, along with Martin Schembri, will be the opening speakers
at WPPI 2003 at Bally’s Las Vegas. David will also be presenting
a MasterClass workshop at WPPI 2003, entitled “Detail Minis, A Visual
Tapestry.”
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