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| 'Willem DeKooning' - 1978 snake |
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| 'Jackson Pollock' - 1979 snake |
Pollock &
DeKooning. As a senior in high school, I was still learning about photographic
composition. I really didn’t know anything about abstract or symmetrical forms,
outside of the concepts of leading lines and contrast that my teacher spoke
about. I certainly didn’t know of the masters of Abstract Expressionism, Jackson
Pollock or Willem DeKooning (though I did see Pollock’s work ‘Lavender Mist’, which for some reason I hated,
in a kid’s game called Masterpiece).
In spite of the early experience, Pollock and DeKooning became my 2 favorite painters
and I see now, how some of my nature shots resemble their work.
I have learned, through photographing with a full, 35mm
frame, that there is a lot of ‘noise’ in the rectangle of the viewfinder. Your
eye must constantly look for the composition to appear in the frame. Similarly,
a bowhunter looks through the maze of branches, briars and bushes to find a
perfectly camouflaged deer, always carefully concentrating on its chest, to
send an arrow through the vital organs for a quick, humane kill.
Just as one can look at Pollock’s compositions and find the
harmony within the lines, so does a bowhunter look through the abstract lines
of nature to find the harmony in the shape of a whitetail.
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