Photography and the Creative Process » Black & White

Tom’s Wholesale Toy

Bill Gatesman — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 22:11:05 +0000

Walking the streets of D.C. more than 20 years ago, I chanced upon the street scene captured by this photograph, Tom’s Wholesale Toy. It appears from the sign in the window that Tom sold large industrial machinary in his toy store, or at least one may jump to that conclusion when viewing this photograph.

Tom’s Wholesale Toy is featured in the Still Life gallery at www.wmgphoto.com.

Questioning What is Hidden

Bill Gatesman — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 00:12:03 +0000

“Caught in the Act” is the name of an upcoming invitational art exhibit at the Northbrook Public Library and Arts Center in Northbrook, Illinois. The purpose of the show is to display artwork that “seeks the moment of the numinous, the captured instant that reveals and questions what is hidden.” My photograph, Boys at Play, reproduced in this post, will be on exhibit in that show.

The show will open with a public reception on Friday, October 3, 2008, and will continue through October 31. For more information about the show, you may visit the show’s website by clicking -HERE-. That website will be updated with an exhibition catalog on September 23.

I hope to see you at the opening reception.

“I sketch with my camera”

Bill Gatesman — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 14:05:53 +0000

At an impromptu jam session, someone handed me a sketchpad and invited me to draw. I replied, “I sketch with my camera.”

The resulting image, Pete Plays the Blues, will be exhibited at the Laurel Art Guild’s 39th Annual Open Juried Exhibition at the Montpelier Arts Center in Laurel, Maryland, March 9 through March 30, 2008.

This image was created in camera on 35mm black and white film.

Capturing Motion

Bill Gatesman — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 03:40:47 +0000

I was first exposed to photography in college in 1982 when I took a beginning photography course. Once school let out, I headed out to California to roam around. In Oakland, I chanced upon a group of drummers and starting taking pictures.

I love the way my camera captured the motion, and dare I say emotion, inherent in the players’ activity. I call this image “Drumming”.

Drumming is the latest addition to the Street Photography gallery at www.wmgphoto.com.

Serendipity and Social Commentary

Bill Gatesman — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:46:20 +0000

I came across this statue of Jesus’s face, rent asunder, in a shop selling Christian religious iconography in Los Angeles. Schism, the photograph’s title was inspired by the crack in the statue’s face, but the more I looked at the image, the more it occured to me that the other elements of the image convey the sense of schism as well.

The right side of the image is dominated by Jesus on the cross. A brother holds a child in his arms, and the child looks lovingly up at the Christ on the Cross.

The left side of the rent image of Christ is a different story altogether. On the left, higher and larger than the crucifix is a statue of a person whose arms echo the arms of Jesus on the cross, but this person’s gaze is directed not on the Lord himself, but rather on the images above, highly iconographic images of the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus. Also on the left are various statues of Mary in the different forms in which she has been depicted, including a dark-skinned virgin in the background.

Kneeling on the floor in the left foreground are two children in prayerful pose looking up. Are they looking to the statue of Jesus before them, or are they instead praying to the various images of Mary, the face of one being surrounded by a halo’s glow, and both of which seem to have been placed just ahead of the Jesus statue, and thus, closer to the praying children.

So, while the crack in the face of Jesus brought to my mind the word “schism”, the rest of the composition speaks volumes about what that word might mean in the context suggested by the religious icons on display.