My partner and I spent a pleasant
afternoon wandering around Henry Moore’s house and grounds in the village of
Perry Green, which is about a 30 minute drive from where I live in Royston.
Both are open to the public: we have visited before, but timed our visit this
time to coincide with an exhibition of the work of other artists and sculptors
who have been influenced by Moore. Damien Hirst’s “pickled cows” were on
display and it was interesting to note that at one point in his career Moore
and his work were criticised and lampooned by other artists who felt that he
was the “golden boy” of the establishment and that others were not getting a
“look in”.
I always take a camera on these
visits and try to look for novel subjects for the lens. Obviously just
photographing Moore’s sculptures is of little value, so I looked to investigate
the “inner space” of his works, concentrating on shape, pattern, colour and
texture. I liked and kept half a dozen of the resultant images. One in
particular caught my eye (Image):
the combination of ovals and angles, the texture of the bronze and the variety
of colour (slightly enhanced in post-production) were aesthetically appealing.
I entered an A4 mounted print of the image into Royston Photographic Society’s
2014 “Open Print” competition on 12 June 2014. Much to my surprise, it received
top marks and won the certificate for the judge’s favourite print of the
competition (out of 55 entered)!
Image
How valid as a work of art is a
photograph of a work of art? I enjoy this image purely as an abstract, just as
I would an abstract created by focussing on a detail of a piece of engineering,
such as a bridge or a clock mechanism, or focussing on a detail created by
nature, such as ripples in the sand or rock strata. Sometimes man and nature
combine (reflections of light on a canal spring to mind) to give the
photographer the opportunity to create their abstract: in my view, all are
equally valid.
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