People often say there is nothing new under the sun in spite of Steve Jobs’s invention of the iPhone. It may apply, though to photography. Like history we photographers are doomed to repeat the past. But then it may not apply to the telephone camera generation. Many have not studied that photographic past.
I find inspiration for my photography in lots of avenues of interest like poems, novels and particularly the very good content of my daily delivered, hard copy, NYTimes.
That was exactly the case on December 19, 2022. There was an obituary for an American painter who died at age 98 called Philip Pearlstein. I was dumbfounded when I read under his double self-portrait, “Mr Pearlstein’s nudes resisted erotic interest.”
It affected me lots because after the death of my Rosemary on December 9, 2020 I have come to understand that I am no longer interested in women. My only interest is of the woman who occupied her side of our bed. I am tired of cleavage, tight yoga pant bums and what you see from the front. I smile when I see a woman in a dress.
For a photographer who has taken photographs of many women with nothing on, in my then interest in expressing eroticism, I was delighted to be challenged by the idea of an artist who painted his subjects in slump positions and even cropped limbs helter skelter. I took this as challenge.
Thanks to C, who has an office in Gastown (without a view of the Empire State Building but that of the Woodward's W), I was able to take some photographs that satisfied my curiousity.
You might note in my version the inclusion of a Mickey Mouse sweater. Pearlstein had a habit of including little Mickey Mouse posters in his paintings.
In my past blogs I have often written of inspiration from others:
Looking at the past to defy the present
With a little help from friends
The influence of art in my photography
