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All that's left.
I took advantage of the day and took in a small William Eggleston exhibition. I started reading Clockers on the way there and a book that commanding of my attention put me in the right frame of mind to take in the colors. And the colors were why it was there - it's called The Last Dyes because these prints, the ones I saw today, were made with the world's last materials for this kind of printmaking. Kodak decided to stop making the necessary materials for the process some decades ago. I don't know if it was for cost, environmental concerns, lack of a market, another reason, or a mix of several. What I can say is that all the critics were right: knowing that going in gave it an autumnal feeling. Something fading out.
They were also right that it's astonishing to see the colors up close. More than once I got as close as I could to take in the depth of blue or red or green, thinking that it was like seeing paint made from crushed-up gemstones. The intensity of color, the intentions of the lines and shapes. I'm happy to watch his fascinations with what makes America tick, and I was very happy to stop and look close and then step back and look far and take in all the different parts and pieces in the compositions. More than once I looked at something off in the distance and then farther in the distance and saw how it was a reflection of something in the foreground. Walls and fences at a parking lot. The swirl of a sign matching the clouds behind it. The flowers, the fence, the truck, the houses peeking out.
What really struck me was how the outdoor photographs had such good distance to them. There wasn't a horizon but there was clarity to a long ways away, and more than once I'd think that this was human influence as far as the eye could see. The tilled fields. The cars off in the far distance. The car right up in front of you that you couldn't look away from even if you wanted to see the stream just beyond it. Forcing you to pay attention to what's really there.
They were also right that it's astonishing to see the colors up close. More than once I got as close as I could to take in the depth of blue or red or green, thinking that it was like seeing paint made from crushed-up gemstones. The intensity of color, the intentions of the lines and shapes. I'm happy to watch his fascinations with what makes America tick, and I was very happy to stop and look close and then step back and look far and take in all the different parts and pieces in the compositions. More than once I looked at something off in the distance and then farther in the distance and saw how it was a reflection of something in the foreground. Walls and fences at a parking lot. The swirl of a sign matching the clouds behind it. The flowers, the fence, the truck, the houses peeking out.
What really struck me was how the outdoor photographs had such good distance to them. There wasn't a horizon but there was clarity to a long ways away, and more than once I'd think that this was human influence as far as the eye could see. The tilled fields. The cars off in the far distance. The car right up in front of you that you couldn't look away from even if you wanted to see the stream just beyond it. Forcing you to pay attention to what's really there.