This morning I was reading one of my favorite blogs
Little Augury, where she had a wonderful
post about the photographer
Ivan Terestchenko. In reading the interview about him and then subsequently visiting Terestchenko’s
blog I was inspired to reminisce how photography has been an important aspect in my life and how it formed my early sense of design and form. This
post particularly is expressive of how I sometimes think about a composition.
{architectural details of bas-relief carvings in Spain}
Before moving into the art of drawing and painting I was a photographer. During my mid-teen years I started using my mom’s old Olympus manual SLR, at 17 I took it with me to South Africa for the year I lived in Pretoria. These initial years were mainly me snapping images that caught my attention, looking at them and deciphering what turned out and what did not, experimenting and starting to discern my personal aesthetic sense. Later I took photography classes, gained a lot of darkroom experience and continued to snap photos and record my surroundings.
While studying architecture, photography was the predominant means of gathering research information in the field while at the same time I began to support the photos with drawings. I was especially fortunate to receive two separate traveling fellowships to study vernacular architecture in Spain, providing the opportunity to travel and complete independant research for my Master's thesis. I always consider these trips to be the pivotal moment in my career where my interest in photography began to support my artistis pursuits versus being my only outlet for creativity.
{scenes that always evoke as sense of peace and serenity in my heart}
{architectural sketches in pencil on canson paper}
As the years have moved by I started to turn more and more towards drawing, then painting as a means of personal expression. I found the feeling of really understanding a place or an object after I would draw it to be more rewarding and deeply emotional versus the experience of taking a photograph and then later finding out how it would turn out after being processed and printed. In reviewing the pencil drawings above I can still feel the dry heat of the afternoon sun falling on my back and then sliding away as the time passed by while drawing, the hard dusty surfaces I would sit on, and with the most right drawing that my back was leaning against the stone wall that surrounds the Mezquita courtyard in Cordoba. While with photographs a sense of moment, of capturing the fleeting moment when my eyes would rest on something and the thought that I wanted to record it for future observation but the memory of the experience is not as strong.
This morning has been a wonderful trip down memory lane and looking at some of my archived photographs I begin to realize that what peaked my interest then, does so now, I just now use different mediums and view photography as one of many interests.
Thank you for sharing this experience and reading my thoughts. I really appreciate it.
Liz
{Visigothic column in mosque courtyard
now attached to a Baroque church in Carmona, Spain}
{detail of carved marble in-floor door hinge}
{hammam in Granada}
Slim – Trois Crayons on prepared Canson paper – 
that when one engages the right side of the brain you lose track of time and the ability to focus on shapes, values, and relationships increases. It is when the left side is dominant that one fatigues quickly of these activities and it limits your ability to draw or paint in a realistic manner.
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