Developing My Language

These past few days I have been experimenting with a new approach (new for me, that is) to photography and thinking about where the first 300 days of photographing and blipping could be pointing me to. There are many, many pictures among these 300 that I love. But during the last 100 or so I felt that something was missing – clarity about what I wanted, I guess.
Before I even met my wife, I saw one of her paintings. I was living in Switzerland back then, and a colleague at work was married to a Brazilian who happened to be Carla’s best friend. She had told me that Carla was a painter, and I asked if she had any pictures of her paintings. She had one. When I saw it, I fell in love with it. And when I heard that Carla would have an exposition, I took a few days off and flew to Rio de Janeiro. The rest is history.
Carla introduced me to Abstract Expressionism, and I was immediately hooked. Back in Switzerland, I visited many Swiss museums that had works by Rothko, Clifford Still, and others. From there, I went on to explore Rauschenberg, Richard Diebenkorn and other American painters.
I was especially drawn to color fields and basic forms. I suspect that a more conceptual approach to photography like the one I explore on my leftovers-journal rekindled my love for abstract art. I wondered if there was a way of translating that artistic language into photography, or – to put it in other words – if I could find my language as a photographer if I concentrated on simple forms and color fields while – at the same time – taking full advantage of all photography has to offer: light and shadows, textures, colors vs. mono, etc.

I have been experimenting for a few days now, and today’s blip is my first presentable picture. I will continue to work in this direction and see where it takes me. (This doesn’t mean that I will stop photographing people or doing street photography, but I will be concentrating on developing and exploring my “language” or style. Life is a risky thing and so is photography.)