 |
| Ian Davidson |
Because I am
a Platonist, a fan and believer of Plato’s philosophy, I am frequently thinking
about perfection and how in our human world what we see is only a shadow of the
real essence that was in Plato’s perfect world of ideas.
When I look
at some of my family portraits, I think that they are perfect in that I was
able to show (hate the word capture) something of my subject’s inner soul.
Because I am
a portrait photographer who was at it since 1959 until now (and I am keeping
on) I believe I may have and inside knowledge of what makes a perfect portrait.
I noticed
this portrait of architect Ian Davidson, now dead, posing with his Yves Klein
Blue sculpture. I looked at it for a while and I believe everything in it is
perfect in the sense that you cannot take anything out without diminishing (is
it possible to diminish perfection?) its perfection.
I was
feeling a real high. “Alex you were really good!” Then I was hit by some problems. The image you see here is from
a past blog, this one, so its size is not all that good. I went into my files
and I could not find Davidson, Ian. Finally I went to my “As” and his pictures
were in a section called Architects.
I was happy
until I looked into the folder and found I took 40 6x7 cm Ektachromes with
different variations of this one. There was a second one that was almost exact except
for the little triangle of light on one side of his wrist.
My guess is
that Vancouver Magazine art director Rick Staehling looked at all 40 pictures
and picked the one would have picked too.
Because this
city’s art galleries, including the VAG ignore my existence I will just sigh
and imagine this image enlarged huge on a wall. I might just happen when I meet
up with my forthcoming oblivion.
Perfection
has to wait.