In search of Edward Hopper

Architecture, Paintings

An American painter who has inspired generations of photographers.

I came to the works of Edward Hopper (1882-1967) late in life. I say ‘late’ as I was well familiar with the great European masters while still a teenager. No, it was not until the early 1980s, when I was in my thirties, that I became aware of this American master. England was not the best place to learn about Hopper. Becoming an American fixed that.

I was traipsing up Madison Avenue on a warm summer day, when I came across what has to be the ugliest building in New York City – the Whitney Museum of Art. Whereas the Guggenheim can be thought of as an interesting building in the wrong place, flanked by stately Fifth Avenue mansions, the Whitney is just plain bad. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim should probably be in the mid-West somewhere to liven things up (please, not in downtown Chicago which boasts America’s finest buildings) but Marcel Breuer’s Whitney is nothing so much as a wrecking ball special. Not even Iowa would improve were it to be magically moved there. In any case, the city fathers would probably reject the offer.

Enough about architecture. So I was about to shuffle past, Leica insouciantly slung over one shoulder, when the poster caught my eye. No, not the iconic ‘Nighthawks’ but rather ‘Early Sunday’ which could have been painted in any number of American cities over the past fifty years.

The lighting was just so, that languorous sun ready to turn another American downtown into a cauldron. No one in sight. It is early Sunday after all. I simply had to go inside. The art was a revelation. On the one hand it played to the manic depressive Eastern European gene in my blood. On the other it spoke to the eternal loneliness of the big city. Here was a man after my own heart. Introspection and solitude permeate his painting – emotions somewhat alien to the American soul.

Over the years since, I have gazed much at Hopper’s art and it has unconsciously become a part of me. Yet, when I press the button on those special occasions, it’s the American master dancing in my head.

San Francisco. Leica M3, 90mm Apo Summicron Asph, Kodak Gold 100

San Diego. Leica M6, 90mm Apo Summicron Asph, Kodak Gold 100

Into the sun

Photographs, Photography

That approach seems to account for a high percentage of my pictures.

It’s second nature, I suppose, but somewhere up to half of my outdoor pictures seem to be taken into the sun. I just love the effects that renders. Modern near flare free lenses make things much easier than in days past of course, and even that Canon fisheye, where it’s pretty easy to end up with the sun in the frame, produces but one small flare spot, easily removed in Photoshop. Overall image contrast seems unaffected. Lenses have never been better, and in the case of many of the Canon range, more affordable.

Case in point, I just sold my Leica 90mm Apo Summicron Asph lens for more than you would pay for any but the most exotic lens from Canon. Is the Leica lens that much better? Well, you cannot tell from prints…. Whatever that great Leica lens gains in optical quality is scarificed on the altar of dated technology known as film. The full frame sensor in the 5D just holds up much better once reproduced size gets seriously large as long as you err on the side of underexposure to avoid blowing out the highlights.

Father and Child. Canon EOS 5D, 24-105mm at 70mm, ISO 200, TLR monochrome action in PS.

Fishy snapshots

Photographs

Candids with a fisheye.

Once nice thing about the Canon Fisheye is that you can take candids very close to your subject without the latter suspecting much. Further, keeping the camera at chest level on a strap makes it far easier to capture the best expression as the viewfinder is your brain, not some constrained image in a pentaprism.

With that broad angle of view, it’s kind of hard to miss your subject and with the huge depth of field, focusing is not an issue.

I was maybe two feet away from this group when I snapped the picture. ImageAlign was used to remove the barrel distortion and what you see is a full frame view with no cropping.

Obese America. Canon EOS 5D, 15mm Fisheye, ImageAlign, ISO 400.

Self, self, self

Photographs

Let’s face it. We all do it.

Show me a photographer and I will show you a self-portraitist.

Whether it’s ego, the desire to record a time in one’s life, or just the fun of taking an unusual picture, all photographers take self portraits. Some adopt the formal, camera on a tripod, delayed action wth studio lighting approach. Others the snap-bang-pray street variant. I am in the latter school.

Pictures speak louder than words so here are some bagged over the past years.

Victoria and Albert Museum, London, April, 1975. Leica M3, 50mm Elmar, TriX/D76

Eiffel Tower, Paris, September, 1977. Leica M3, 35mm Summaron, TriX/D76

Near Tombstone, Arizona. August 1996. Leicaflex SL, 50mm Summicron-R, Kodachrome 64

Cambria, California. June, 2006. Canon EOS 5D, 15mm Fisheye/ImageAlign, ISO 400

Alcatraz Gaol, California. March 2012. Nikon D700, 16-35mm @ 19mm.

As you can see, I can rarely deny a mirror or a shadow its dues. Vanity, vanity, vanity.