We’re surrounded with snapshots and phone pics. They skate across our screens. They record our histories. They are valuable accounts in our lives.
But a photograph, a piece of art created at the hand of a virtuoso who’s rocked with motion and emotion, is pure poetry.
Gwen Greenglass, master photographer, is one of those fine artists. She’s drawn to Impressionism, an art movement inspired by Claude Monet (mid-late 1800s). Monet and other Impressionists captured fleeting, atmospheric moments. The results were soft, full of feeling, condensed in such a way that subjects became more than their elements. This is why impressionistic images are renowned. They are loaded with interpretation, because they are not nailed-down with specifics.
Consider Monet’s water lilies. Are they crisp and defined? Not really. Their edges are softened. Sometimes, they disappear into the dark values, while the water’s surface pops with light reflection.
Contrast (lights and darks) is central to photography. One might say it’s the banisher of boring. Gwen embraces contrast beautifully. She had an exceptional trainer, her dad, who set up a darkroom in their home. That was the era of film processing.
Today, the darkroom, where photographers adjust contrast, etc., has become the lightroom where digital adjustments are made. Same concepts, different developments, as it were.
Take a few moments to study Gwen’s creations (gwengg.com). How does she make edges so soft that they often vanish? The most obvious technique is literally moving the camera with a slow shutter speed. The image seems to gambol and twirl, like it can’t grab-hold long enough to sharpen an edge. So you get a movement sensation. This technique also conveys a painterly look. It stops being a corporeal thing. Its thingness is now more emotional than tangible.
Gwen’s Whiteside images are particularly intriguing. We often see beautiful captures of our treasured mountain in all kinds of atmospheres. Gwen loves to play with the Plateau’s iconic images. Her treatments create a new energy of the familiar, the effect often releasing layers of mountain depths, base to summit as it nuzzles the sky.
Over the years Gwen has taken workshops that demonstrate technique-effects through subtle camera movement. Through this experience she has perfected her own, unique style.
She says, “I play with it. Move with light. Move with contrast. Move with timing. I consider it photographic painting .… painting with light.”
Not only does Gwen deliver magnificent painterly images, she often condenses her feelings into words. The result, her photographic poetry manifests in a Japanese Haiku poem. She says, “It often presents a title for my creation.”
There’s much more to learn from Gwen. Luckily, there are plenty of opportunities to meet and greet her work. Drop in The Bascom gift shop. In June she will also be teaching at The Bascom.
Visit gwengg.com; and Instagram (@gwenggphotoart); See her work at Art League of Highlands-Cashiers art shows. You can purchase works at all the above. Find her contact information at her website.
Do so, and you’re beginning to see the light!
Meet Gwen at The Laurel’s Cover Artist Celebration on Tuesday, April 7 at 5:30 P.M. at High Country Wine and Provisions.
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