Discuss a Minor White Photograph

roteague said:

The day I let you or someone else define what drives my passion, is the day I will find something else to do. I know what I see, and I know what I feel when I see or look at an image, you don't. If you look, you will notice that those photographers that inspire me, are those that have a similar outlook and viewpoint to me - Jack Dykinga, Joe Cornish, Ken Duncan, John Fielder, Tom Till.

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It's not about anyone trying to "define what drives my passion" at all - far from it.

Have you ever wondered why it is you don't understand certain pictures? (which often do seem to evoke emotions from you, even if you don't happen to appreciate them)

I have visited the photo repeatedly, trying to evoke some sort of personal reaction, but, I find myself totally neutral each time I view it.

Now, I have seen other Minor White photos that evoke very specific emotions and interest, but this photo, I get nothing and cannot possibly see how it would be any better in color.

Zip, nada... I wonder why.

Tim. Sometimes people choose not to and don't need to resolve why. For themselves or especially for anyone else. Or more than likely, the understanding is there and still the attraction isn't.

As an example. Personally I like some of Fontana's images and think I understand most I've seen. In fact there are gems that really grab me. But I don't try to emulate his style or analyze it to death because generally find his work unappealing.

I think too much analysis of other photographers' image making is as unhealthy as too much own navel gazing.

By the way, I doubt it is only the image that invokes some responses that you may be referring to. Your fishing expedition is rather misdirected and loaded with assumptions.

Charles Webb said:

I believe Mr. White saw and knew exactly what he was placing on the film sheet. If he stumbled on to it, good for him. What is wrong with stumbling
on to a photo opp. To me it is very well done in all aspects, and I don't care if he made the image on Kodachrome and transferred it to B&W. I have liked this image for many years, and I haven't heard anything in this thread that is likely to make me change my mind. Bravo Minor White...........

Charlie...........................

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I'm with Charlie on this one. Minor could have happened upon it or he may have been familiar with the area and semi-planned it.

As far as IR film goes, is anyone certain that is the case? Looks to me like regular B&W with either a yellow or red filter. I've gotten similar results with just a yellow filter when the sun is getting low.

This has always been a seminal image for me. I remember my parents raving about it when it first appeared in a magazine. They were both photographers and farmers during that period, so it really resonated. Still does with me, even if I hadn't seen it as a small child. I've always thought "gee, I coulda taken that one". But I didn't, and probably won't ever do as good.

Special hidden meanings? I don't think so. Just a good scene that has strong elements for a good B&W photo. I think all this stuff about hidden messages is just something art professors tell their students.

Here's what I see; its late summer; you can tell because the grass is short and dry - its been recently cut for hay. You can see the implement tracks in the grass. The bales have been taken from the field otherwise they would be laying in straight rows in line with the implement tracks. Its late afternoon or early evening; you can tell by the shadow - long but not real long yet. The angle and height of the sun highlights the two walls of the barns making them stand out. Excellent cloud patterns.

Put it all together on the ground glass, attach the yellow filter, pull the darkslide, trip the shutter. I got it!

By the way, scenes like this were much easier to find 50 years ago than they are now. Most of the barns like these two are gone for one reason or another, or replaced with totally bland steel structures. Even the utility poles are noticeably different now.

df cardwell said:

Beautiful.

There's that moment - that you found on farms, when we had farms, and that can still be found on the prairie - when the sun is about to go - and rakes across the land. You stop and LISTEN. You never see the place like that, the unrealism of it is jarring.

I don't have a facile judgement: it's a wonderful photograph and I'd love to be able to look at it every day. A second or third look ? Faint praise. It's a landscape that rewards you every time you walk around inside it.

d

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That is a wonderful description of that late light and the quiet just at sunset in a rural location.

I suspect that White probably had seen this image before and if you could look at all his negatives you might find other versions of the same scene done at slightly different times and on different film. Then again I may be wron and it is a chance encounter. Luck favors the prepared mind they say.

That was my feeling also. That he may have revisited this arrangement more than once to perfect it. The elements of the image that make it so strong, are so very carefully arranged. No matter how many times I've seen it, there is nothing that falls short or fails to satisfy. It seems complete.

This is a classic image from a master. Personally I prefer some of his zen abstract landscapes to this image although I do like this image alot. I can't beleive someone mention Dykinga in post about a bw master photographer. However Minor did some work in color and it smokes any of the cliches I've seen imaged by Dykinga. :-0

Reflection

I’m very fond of the landscape of the western New York. White lived in Rochester when this picture was made, and the area south of the city is wonderful today. It would have been even better, then. There are any number of places where one can find a plot of land rising high enough to be illuminated by this low sun. While this is a specific setting, it it also indicative of the area. White would have seen this sort of thing often. Shoot, you can drive the Thruway and see countless places with this lighting. He was certainly familiar with the area.

For years, I’ve driven between Michigan and New England, and Michigan and Colorado. In both cases, one transits an ‘ocean’: as different are the real topographies of New York and the Prairie, they represent to me the middle part of the journey. In either case, the characteristic sunlight is the most distinguishing element, and like the water in the sea, light becomes the element through which I travel.

White’s picture reminds me most of a scene I visited often in Colorado, a grain elevator between Ft. Collins and Sterling. During the day, with such a low horizon, high sun, and empty sky, there is a 2 dimensional feel to the place. The sensation of distance is somehow cancelled out, the viewer becomes the foreground, and everything else is the background. An occasional object rising from the Prairie floor seems to be painted onto the background. A similar, picturesque feeling can be perceived as one drives through New York.

At sunset or sunrise, however, the world changes. The blue sky blackens as it stands opposite the sun. Objects leap into the immediate foreground. They become monumental as the sun swings behind us.

White’s image holds all of this. The transiting sun is a temporary portal, briefly open. At a day's ends we can walk into this landscape.

White has jammed a chair into the portal.

Binding day and night, thinly distinct from either, White’s landscape leads us from the Transcendent to the Immanent. In this eternal moment, we can stand next to White and his camera and touch both worlds.

Did White use IR film for this ? I’ll leave that for the historians. I don’t think that it matters, the filtration effect is so intense upon the barns and sky. A relatively weak filter can have great effect with axial lighting. For technique, White often said only, “the camera was faithfully used.” That’s fine by me. He made an image that feeds my dreaming, and that’s enough.

For those familiar with Edward Hopper, the image reminds me quite a bit of some of his paintings.

Jim Chinn said:

For those familiar with Edward Hopper, the image reminds me quite a bit of some of his paintings.

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Yes. Cool connection.

df cardwell said:

Yes. Cool connection.

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Though a departure in topic, there probably are numerous instances of similarities in painting and photography.

The one that comes most to mind would be between Moran and William Henry Jackson that worked closely together for the Yellowstone Expedition and aided in the the creation of Yellowstone National Park. My understanding is that they worked fairly closely together relying on each others work.

Rich

Charles Webb said:

I believe Mr. White saw and knew exactly what he was placing on the film sheet...

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I'm another that also believes that. The careful framing, the sense of light.

One of Minor White's concepts was 'backwards visualization' by the viewer towards the photographer's state of mind at the time of exposure. Viewers are able to make that connection backwards and have the thought 'This is what MW saw, and I can see why it is exactly the way it is'.

Best,
Helen

Alex Hawley said:

Special hidden meanings? I don't think so. Just a good scene that has strong elements for a good B&W photo. I think all this stuff about hidden messages is just something art professors tell their students.

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Don't forget thouugh Minor White was that art professor and liked to have people photograph "what else the subject was"

Alex Hawley said:

Special hidden meanings? I don't think so. Just a good scene that has strong elements for a good B&W photo. I think all this stuff about hidden messages is just something art professors tell their students.

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The point is, though, they're not really hidden. They're something you can get a gut feeling about pretty quickly.

You don't really have to verbalise too much, certainly not to over-intellectualise, here (though we have to do that to some extent to talk to each other about it) - you can get the messages (if there are messages) on quite a subliminal level, without really trying.

I like the idea of working backwards to where the photographer was at - maybe that's just another way of saying take a bit of time - maybe give the picture a chance to work its magic - and don't jump in immediately with your own judgements, assumptions, and viewpoint. Try to get on the track the photographer was on.

Cate

Helen B said:

I'm another that also believes that. The careful framing, the sense of light.

One of Minor White's concepts was 'backwards visualization' by the viewer towards the photographer's state of mind at the time of exposure. Viewers are able to make that connection backwards and have the thought 'This is what MW saw, and I can see why it is exactly the way it is'.

Best,
Helen

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I agree with you Helen. I think he knew exactly what he wanted to say and us to see. I like his work immensely , especially the Abstracts.

I like this image because it is a static subjuct but very much alive. Your eye (or mine atleast) constantly wanderers around the scene especially along the telegraph pole shadow. I find it masterful and a very fulfilling image.

Phill

Early in this thread I said that I found this Minor White photo boring. I said that it was easy for him.

After all the comments and a more careful sight of the image, a second thought, I still think that it was easy for him, an easy Zen shot. Like in "Zen and The Art of Archery". When the target, the arrow, the arch and the archer are one, then the shoot is in the bull eye.

Jose A Martinez said:

Early in this thread I said that I found this Minor White photo boring. I said that it was easy for him.

After all the comments and a more careful sight of the image, a second thought, I still think that it was easy for him, an easy Zen shot. Like in "Zen and The Art of Archery". When the target, the arrow, the arch and the archer are one, then the shoot is in the bull eye.

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Jose

I beleive he had the mastery of the tools and process at his disposal, which allowed him to get the bulls-eyes. He definitely had an eye for good composition and sometimes looking outside the box.

Phill