The brief for this short exercise was interesting. In honesty Giacometti was someone I barely knew. I knew the name from the Cartier-Bresson photograph of him crossing in the rain and that’s about it – clearly a man he dearly loved.
I wasn’t sure at first that I agreed with his way of seeing but when I thought about it a little more it made perfect sense – my problem with seeing is that I concentrate too much on the whole and then forget about details (e.g a lamp post sticking out of someone head you don’t spot until later!). I think this is due to taking the photo too quickly rather than spending time actually looking.
The photograph I took for this project was on a walk to Malham Cove. Instead of taking a photo from the top of a hill I took one looking up at one. As I was looking I was reminded of Stephen Shores photographs of Montana and how your eyes move along and through the images, in his words – giving an illusion of depth.
As I came to the small scree I looked up briefly and saw a scene that I wanted to photograph for this exercise. Looking back at the rocks I slowly followed the scree to the first tree on the left and then slowly upwards until the scree ended at the rock and then onto the next tree, the natural lines lead me up until I am looking at the top of the tree lined hill where the blue sky meets the ridge. I then took in the whole scene for a second or two in the viewfinder and took the shot.
Lee Abbey OCA Photography Degree 