Pregnancy...

I agree. William Mortensen lives.

I was about to thrash my camera aswell when I realized its 20 years of practice and experience im looking at :)

Fantastic stuff and a very skilled application of the painting technique. Thank you for sharing. I too was confused by the Somalia reference, but de gustibus non disputandum. I do have to agree about the bright spot - I don't find it 'intriguing and mysterious'! Here's a version of it burned in.

One thing I noticed is that many or most of your titles end with ellipses "...". It seems overused to me, as though you yourself are uncertain of the title, and I think it detracts. Ellipses are overused today anyway.

For how long do you usually paint a given subject? Do you have any suggestions about how to correlate time with the meter's time reading?

Apparently I can't add an image if I edit my comment! Here it is.

Great image and technique. I am otherwise left speechless.

This is a really beautiful image. I do think that the the balance is a little off to the left of the image with the extra room on the right and none on the left but Ilike the tones and warmth. Great work.

your'e so right... I seem to overdo theese "..." - bad habit, sometimes, but regarding the titles, then yes: I AM uncertain(sometimes) I have trouble finding titles for pictures - would rather be without, mostly! I think they tend to be too obvius or too far fetched.. Sometimes, the title gives just the right meaning to it, but most of the times: A flower is a flower is a flower...

About the bright spot: As I stated before, I chosen not to remove it.. But here - in my home - is hangng a big one, made with liquid emulsion on paper. Here - with the normal use of coffee and ashes - it is not so clear, but the truth to be told: It's growing on me.. like it better and better...

about the technique: hvae you been reading my article? Maybe you will find the information you need - if not:dont hesitae to mail or write again..

http://www.98981010.dk/emil/teknik%20-%20PAINT%20WITH%20LIGHT.htm

There are 2 types of pregnancy, if I may say so... The first type is the physical fact that a woman carries a baby. Another one is the metaphysical aspect of this simple physical fact.

I have no doubt, looking at this POW, that it deals with the metaphysical aspect. Why so ? Look at these young girls at the bottom... Ask yourself what they are doing here. Ask yourself what these poses mean...

Bottom left, I see a question in the girl's eyes. As if she would be wondering what it is like to be pregnant. Second from the left: I read grace and love in her expression, as if she would be already "ready" somehow to think of having a child. (It is therefore logical that her head is the closest to the baby...) 3rd girl ? No face visible. Her pose is mysterious but her arms suggests that she's a bit lost and needs her "sister" (?), or at least her neighbour on the image, to find confidence in life. 4th girl (extreme right on the picture) looks a bit lost, as if she would suffer from being left aside, from a lack of love of some sort...

None of these girls looks actually positively happy. None of them looks at the pregnant belly either. From which I deduce, that this image is about the relation of women to love and motherhood in general. It can also be interpreted as a sad view on human misery... which connects well, for sure with the "crucified" pose after all...

All this is why I have an immense respect for this picture, and why I compared it to Gericault's painting... It is a metaphysical image, with an incredible depth, that goes far beyond the simple fact of being pregnant...

This is beautiful. The only distraction is the bright spot on the wall just behind the wrist. My eye keeps going to it

there are so many contexts to this image. i personally see a maternal almost Christlike or perhaps angelic depiction. it's about life and the woman with her arms raised is allowing all to celebrate it. wonder-full.

Emil:

 

I took a look at almost all of the photos in your portfolio a week or two back, and was really happy to see you there on the front page of photo.net under POW. (And not a single irate fundamentalist offering some tirade about nudity and the like -- It's enough to make me shed a tear in shocked surprise ).

 

I'm grateful for you taking the time to post some of your photos. (I've actually seen quite a few good Danish photographers this pasy year or so. It must be something in the water? Perhaps when I get some vacation time later this summer, I'll try to wander on over to your corner of the world. [i'm currently living in the Netherlands, anyway.])

 

I'm curious if you have an easier time doing long, manually painted exposures on 4x5 or smaller formats instead? (You seem to own both medium and large format equipment.) I'm always short on time and space these days, but I have a 4x5 myself, and guessed it might be a little easier with the larger film? Any luck trying this with Type 55 (since it isn't at all designed for longish exposures, etc. -- oh, but I see just now you made this on Type 665, same thing. Surprises abound! ;o)?

 

again ... I really appreciate that you posted so many of your photos. (Even if I think pregnancy is physically a wholly and entirely unflattering thing with 99.95% of the women in this world ).

 

kind regards,

Kevin.

http://www.ktownsend.com/medusa.htm

It really seems pretty phenomenally distasteful to compare this to Gericault's Medusa, no? It seems almost an antithesis of the sentiments of the painting, I would think, in that while Gericault was expressing his (and the publics) incredible outrage at the absurdity of so many deaths, etc. ... this seems to be much more an expression of life, and certainly outrage isn't a word that comes to mind?

Perhaps I just don't understand the comparison -- always quite possible -- but I guess I don't follow on the connection? (I do appreciate the painting a lot, though, so I'm curious to hear your explanation. Obviously it was phenomenally important not just in French art circles, but in public and politic circles as well.)

Confused, but curious: Kevin. ;o)

truely what can one say? A true photographic work of art.

Beautiful, creative, gorgeous! Great idea, good models, unusual technique...I love the brown tone and the texture is so velvet-y. Its terrific. Congrats!

My comparison with Gericault was of course not at all regarding the subject matter, but about the people's extreme poses, the drama, the way people get mixed together, the colors, and the light. Regards.

How much exposure time are we looking at? I read over the article a few times and I have a understanding of MOST of it... but I dontn quite get how long you set your exposure for... I know it depends but is there a rough amount of time u set this for? And just to make sure.. u set your light to come on by switch when u need it.. on dn than off.. than to the next part,...on and than off... right?

 

10/10 btw.. inspiring

I seem to be in a minority. At least on this site. While your painting with light is very good the final outcome seems very corny and stiff. Like a bad painting. Taste has taken one on the chin.

Although the technique is interesting, I find the result here to be far too posed, mannered and self-consciously derivative to qualify as anything but kitsch. (Although nowhere near as kitschy as that other Painter of Light, Thomas Kinkade.)

 

Having said that, some of the work in Schildts Kill your darlings folder is excellent, particularly this one:

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=903138.

 

Greetings

 

Did you use a B&W film or color?

I like the "sepia" effect.

Do you have an exhibition in Copenhagen? I will be there next week and would like to see them photos if possible

 

Cheers

 

Just like a Dream!

Such a lovely Dream!

..., and I Love it!

One of the finest photographs I have seen created. This image was built, not taken.

Rather than add to the adoration, which would be easy but superfluous, I'll add a comment prompted by the Picasso quote on the front page.

Painting was irrevocably changed by the arrival of photography. I am wondering if this (and the 'kill your darlings' work) is a inevitable reappraisal of film (concious or unconcious) as a result of the arrival of photoshop and digital 'non reality'.

It certainly reminds me of both the phantasic images of Rosemary Laing. I can't find a copy of bulletproofglass on line but one of the test images ended up on here.

Coincidently my shockingly poor memory was jolted by a Australian Financial Review magazine article pushing this exact line. For those outside its reach, it mentioned also Patricia Piccinini, Tracey Moffatt, Simryn Gill, Bill Henson and the Americans Barbara Kruger and Cindy Sherman. Most of whom I am woefully unaware of.

Photography as painting always falls short of painting as painting. What photography does best, is as a tool of discovery of beauty and relationships that already exist in the world around us and exist in a state of constant change. There is little evidence of that here. Photography is about time, among other things, and this is static, with no time feel. Like Duke said, "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing". I think that's the problem it doesn't swing. Their's no spontaneity. No serendipity. "Made" photographs of the type presented here have too much of the photographer's presence, but lack the subtle and complex nuance of the hand and the moment that painters, whether abstract or representational bring to their art. Photography is not painting, and photos that are "made" rather than "taken" ignore that which is unique and special about photography. If this is art at all, it is too much ART, too self conscious, and not what I consider the art of photography. While recognizing the skill and technique involved here, I really dislike this kind of thing. I'll add also that were it an actual painting and not a photo, it would be a poor painting at that. I can't imagine any contemporary painter wasting their time on this approach. IMO.

 

Brilliantly conceived and executed. Congrats on the POW

Gorgeous shot, with beautiful texture and light. And it's not really kitschy--though this sort of neoclassical thing is definitely not fashionable these days. I'm not sure it's going to hold up as a universally enduring artwork, but as a flamboyant, stylish portrait by an artisan it's first-rate.

 

Now that it's been named POW on its own unaltered merits, you still might want to do something about the magical basketball she's doing the over-the-shoulders trick with. It makes me think of the Harlem Globetrotters.