From AAU Lens... Influenced by Dutch masters' Vanitas paintings, AAU BFA student Ian Gwinn recently completed Remains.

Says Gwinn:

Interpreting images starts with finding clues and pulling those clues together to solve the puzzle. The following image is at first glance a still life picnic.  Dive deeper and you will see it is a contemporary Vanitas. 

The momento mori is the quintessential symbol for Vanitas art.  Simply, it is the object of death in the artwork.  The symbolism of this death object is to remind the viewer of his or her mortality, the fleeting state of being.  In contemporary Vanitas, the momento mori can have an expanded interpretation to not only be the reminder of ones own mortality, but to objects associated with death as in the case of the bicycle below, which serves as a reminder of the sudden, unexpected death of a young cyclist, Lauren Davis, who was struck down while riding on a busy New York City street in Clinton Hill.

The momento mori can also be an object in nature, such as this cow skull in this contemporary Vanitas Still life below.  Here the skull is representative of the perilous relationship between human consumption and the environment. 

Iconography is the interpretation of the visual symbols and images used in art.  Have you ever looked at a photograph or painting and had no idea what the message or point of the artwork was about?  You are not alone.  Visual artists speak with pictures and without the tools to understand their symbolic meaning then it’s easy to feel lost. Vanitas still life is at its core symbolic and each object within the image has meaning.  So here are a few common objects found in Vanitas and their symbolism:

Apple – Original sin.

Extinguished candle – Life is short.

Bread – A reminder of the blessings of Christ.

Butterflies – The soul or transformation.

Human skull – A reminder that life is short.

Peeled lemon – A reminder of casual excess, and so serves as a call for moderation.

Oysters – Symbolizes the sense of taste as well as the transitory nature of sensual desire.

Walnut – The shell of the walnut symbolizes the crucifixion and the meat of the walnut symbolizes the body of Christ.

Congratulations to Jude Rae, a Sydney artist who won this year’s Bulgari Art Award for a vanitas-inspired still life of a fire extinguisher, gas cynlinders and other industrial objects arranged on a tabletop.

“Somehow, it’s like a 21st century vanitas painting,” said Rae, the fifth winner of the $80,000 Bulgari Art Award.

“That’s why I found myself wondering if I had somehow stumbled back into another trad­ition of still life: that quality of worldly excess,” said Rae.

A new exhibition of Vanitas photographs has just opened at Catherine Houard’s Gallery in Paris. Featuring the photographs of Jean-Baptiste Hugo, the great-grandson of Victor Hugo, the exhibition includes 50 photographs, many of them Vanitas-like still lifes, inspired by the Hauteville House, Victor Hugo’s home art studio.

“Vivid Images That Aren’t Old Masters — but Look Just Like Them….”  That’s the headline form a piece in the New York Times Style Magazine recently, highlighting Paulette Tavormina’s just released (April 26, 2016) new book, “Seizing Beauty” and the opening of her show at the Academy of Art Museum in Easton, Maryland. The book, exhibition and the New York Times article showcase Tavormina’s 16th and 17th Century Vanitas inspired still life photographs.

Everyone would like to have a magic wand.  And, Harold Ross, light painter extraordinaire, and his light painting partner, John Corcoran, have designed and manufactured one that you can buy for your very own use.

While Ross and Corcoran call it a light wand, it does magic with pixel dust!

I just picked one up on Etsy, and it is a dream.  You can pass the light directly in front the camera because of the solid black backing on the wand and it will not be “seen” by the camera. 

Ross has provided great guidance over the years through his blog, and he offers more intensive study through his still life light painting workshops.  But as with all light painting and most things, practice leads to improvement and light painting is definitely something that you just have to practice to get the hang of it.

photo by Harold Ross

Fensterstock and Lipman Exhibit at Wheaton College's Beard & Weil Galleries

from

Vanitas still life is a sub-genre of still life works of art that became very popular in the late 16th and early 17th century in paintings of the Dutch Masters from the Netherlands and Flanders.   

Vanitas are conceptual where the objects in the image have symbolic meaning.  The majority of the works in this genre pertain to the transient state of life including earthly possessions and pleasures. The aim of the vanitas from this time period was to remind people of their mortal state and to place their devotion in God rather than in earth bound objects, pleasure and desire. 

Vanitas paintings of this time period often include certain key symbolic objects and motifs that would be commonly understood by the people of the time as vanitas.  Motifs commonly used in vanitas paintings included a clock, a burned out candle, lemon rinds, dead flowers, human skulls, musical instruments, books and partially consumed food. 

The following is a vanitas still life painting by Pieter Claesz (Vanitas, 1625).  Vanitas is typical of the classic Dutch masters, with the human skull serving as a reminder of human mortality.

In comparing my contemporary approach to the painting above by Pieter Claesz, there are common themes of pages left behind, reflections on mortality and the pursuit of immortality through works of art. 

Artists are in many ways drawn unconsciously towards this idea of permanence in a quest for immortality through their works.  In my series “The Remains,” I look at the life that lived through the beauty of the remains.  Symbolism of the objects in vanitas are part of what makes creating and interpreting work in this genre so much fun and profoundly personal to each viewer.

Light painting is a great alternative to the use of strobes and hot lights to make images.  In light painting, generally, you use nothing more than a flashlight in total darkness to achieve the correct exposure for your image.

 The first thing you need is a good focusing LED flashlight. You can go high end or low end, spending less than $50 or more than $200. On the low end, I use a Coast flashlight that I picked up at Lowes and on the higher end, I use a SureFire flashlight purchased from B&H. Both work well, and I use one or the other based upon the look I am trying to achieve.

 Next, you need a dark room.  For still life images, I use a basement studio, which allows complete darkness, day or night.

Above image was light painted by Ian Gwinn

Then, you need to adjust the settings on your camera. Start by putting your ISO at the lowest possible level. I set my Nikon D800e at ISO 50. Then, set your set your shutter speed to bulb, your f stop at the highest level possible for the lens you are using, and attach to your camera whatever remote shutter release system you use.  Finally, tether your camera to your computer. It will be much easier to see the results of your light painting on the computer than on the tiny LCD monitor on the back of your camera.

Now, to shooting your images. In total darkness, trigger the shutter and begin painting the object that you want to photograph with your flashlight.  Don’t just flood the image with light, focus the light on the areas you want to expose. Use the focusing ring of the flashlight and your hand to pin point the light on the area you want to expose. You can also use a rolled up tube of paper or you can purchase light-focusing and light-painting tools from Harold Ross, one of the most widely recognized photographers using light painting.  Release the shutter and take a look at your image.  Then, it’s trial and error, until you achieve the desired effect.

The Nikon 85 mm f/1.4G lens is the best lens I have ever used.  It is an excellent portrait lens with the ability to create terrific bokeh.  And it provides incredible sharpness and color rendition all the way up to f16.  There is no sharper lens in the Nikon arsenal and it is my new favorite, go-to lens.  Nikon, which makes the sharpest glass in the industry, has outdone itself with the 85 mm f/1.4 G.

 The lens includes Nikon Super Integrated Coating and Nano Crystal Coat, which are at the heart of how to lens produces such phenomenal, uniform color balance and contrast.

I do not use the lens in anything other than manual mode, but the lens includes Nikon’s Silent Wave Motor, which allows this lens to operate in autofocus mode with great precision and speed.

Image above from the March issue of the National Geographic magazine.

The March 2016 issue of the National Geographic Magazine featured ugly fruits and vegetables that go to waste around the globe because grocery stores refuse to sell imperfect food as consumers will only purchase food that they have been preconditioned to believe is good based on its looks.

This recent issue brings attention to this food waste and the potential for this wasted food to be used to address world hunger. According to the article, about one-third of the planet’s food goes to waste. Now, as an organic gardener and farmer’s market vendor, I can personally attest to this problem of food waste. Consumers have been preconditioned to believe that they should only buy and eat food that is perfectly shaped without blemishes.

I regularly tell my market customers that a “two legged carrot taste just the same as a single carrot, but many people will only purchase these mutants if the price is substantially reduced. In thinking about this issue of global food waste in National Geographic, I am reminded of the focus of vanitas still life photography to call attention to the overabundance of our throwaway existence and collection of things. How can photography help to enrich our relationship to the planet and our food resources? This is one aim of my still life vanitas images.

When I was a kid I used to collect all kinds of stuff, from coins, to rocks, to action figures, to shells, etc.  I never once thought about what I was supposed to do with all of these items when I no longer needed or wanted them. But as I have been working in vanitas still life in my photography, I have become increasingly appalled at the consumer culture of unnecessary and excessive consumption, particularly the unnecessary bric-a-brac, that ends up all too quickly in heaps of garbage.

The award winning image above by French photographer Valerie Belin, reminds me all too well of the stuff I have found in the back of my closet. 

Belin won the “Prix Pictet” photography competition with her vanitas inspired photos that show how consumers, according to Belin, are “slowly killing the planet.” As you can see in the above image, she constructed elaborate vanitas style scenes constructed of cheap, plastic goods (toys, flowers, slinkies, masks, statues, and other knick-knacks) along with mannequin heads (instead of a human skull found in typical vanitas paintings), to highlight consumer excess.

Belin’s series of eight photographs, called Still Life 2014, echo classical vanitas paintings.  What’s interesting however, is that five of the photos are in black and white. The three that are colorized and unnatural in appearance.  I think this strengthens the message of the images that life and all that we accumulate is temporary.

What Harm Comes from all of this Waste?

“These still lifes offer a jarring commentary on the effects of our obsession with cheap objects,” said Belin, “for not only is their material – plastic – emblematic of the wasteful use of raw materials, but it also represents a grotesque kind of immortality because of its non-biodegradable nature. That immortality, one could say, is slowly killing the planet.”