Taking a Look at Photography 1

I've been boning up on art photography to expand my limited--okay, my non-existent--knowledge of the medium by reading The Art of Collecting Photography, by Laura Noble. It's a good book for someone like me, who loves photography, but has never felt fully comfortable collecting it, or even discussing it with any confidence.

The book contains information on the very recent place of photography in the history of art-making, and its difficult acceptance as a fine art medium. Included are impressive works by well-known photographers, such as Dorothea Lange, Alfred Stieglitz, and Edward Steichen, as well as photographers mostly famous to those in the know. It contains a glossary that explains what's meant by those terms we see at photography exhibits but don't understand: gelatin silver print, silver bromide print, and one of my favorites, photogravure. (It sounds so esoterically old-fashioned.) There's also advice for collectors, as on any number of web sites.

My husband Joe and I saw photos by Mark Hopkins at a recent exhibit at the Concord Art Association, and were immediately drawn to his ability to render realistic objects and phenomena as abstract works of art. Take a look at Foam Aswirl, the first image above. (Note: Don't be fooled. A certain amount of lovely clarity is lost due to resizing all these images.) If I didn't know this dynamic image was of water, I might guess it represented gases floating up from some exotic planet. I love the way force and motion are captured--I rave about this wave.

Eelgrass Motion, the second image above, takes us close to the flora we see in ponds, when we take the time to look. Hopkins has a series of photos depicting frost on window panes. The third one above (Frost 12) is just one. In the original, the ice sparkles in a way that couldn't be captured, once I resized this image to fit here. The fourth image above is Pondweed, one of Joe's favorites. In the original, the colors and pronounced sense of depth in this stunning photo jump out. Yet the photo has a calming effect.

I wish I could insert more of Hopkins' photos, like the Great Blue Herons, here, but I can't. So to see more of his work, go to www.concordart.org, click on Previous Exhibits. On the next page, click on Coleman Gallery, then select Mark Hopkins, under 2009. He can also be reached at mopkins@verizon.net. All of his photos are $250 or less, framed!