Darkness and Light

In the early eighties, painter/artist, Bob Ross, gained popularity as the guy with the full, curly hair and soft voice whose PBS television program, The Joy of Painting, made him famous. He would stand before a large, blank canvas with a big palette and a variety of brushes and tools and paints to teach viewers how to paint (or at least show how it is done). There would be episodes I would occasionally catch that had him painting and talking about “happy little trees” on the canvas. It was fun to watch the canvases transform into beautiful landscapes in his unique style. He made it look so easy, and fun. That was the idea.

Interestingly enough, in recent days I have been hearing more and more about paying attention to the darks and lights in painting. I ran across the complete quote of Bob Ross and how the concept extends beyond the canvas. Here is the unabridged version below:

Gotta have the opposites, light and dark and dark and light, in painting. It’s like in life. Gotta have a little sadness once in a while so you know when the good times come.  I’m waiting on the good times now

I’m not sure of the date of this quote, but, sadly, Bob Ross left this world at the age of 52 in 1995 due to complications from lymphoma. As he stated, there is darks and lights in art and in life. It’s in the opposites that we are able to see more and differently, to create and appreciate all of it.

A scene from the Kuerner Farm in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania

DARKNESS AND LIGHT

It is interesting to me how certain words, phrases, and concepts “appear” and call my attention to them at just the right times. It’s only in the last several months that the “darks and lights” in painting have kept popping up. When this happens, I try to pay attention and work to learn more about whatever it is. So, I did a bit of digging – not excavation, but exploration. I have no experience in painting (so far) except for that of changing wall colors, repainting furniture and other garden stuff and “paint-by-numbers. Otherwise, painting and “art” or any interest in it was occasional and topical – surface deep. I entered into the world of photography in my mid-thirties in between two diagnoses of breast cancer. (I bought my first camera at 33 or 34 and shot in “P” for several years before getting more involved.) What I knew of darkness and light came from my own life experience. I had and still have a lot to learn.

At the start, I learned just enough about metering and identifying the middle tone in a scene and what the camera was programmed to do to help me get “good” exposures. I learned about the zone system, kind of, and how that, too, would be good to know in connecting more of the dots. I learned enough about metering to get well-exposed frames, even when my compositions were not well arranged. There was so much more to learn about the subtleties and power of light and dark.

Darks and lights in Queen Anne’s Lace

LIGHT AND DARK AND COLOR

In all my years with a camera, I have fed maybe a total of six rolls of black and white film into a cannister to develop and have been in a darkroom maybe three times, including once in high school during a class. Our family has many, many black/white photos from our younger days because of my grandmother’s interest in photography. She wasn’t the best photographer, but we have her to thank for the photographs and memories. A bonus for me is that I have her old cameras as another memory. For some reason, I was not bitten by the bug until later in life, though I did love taking pictures with my point-and-shoot cameras.

Shadows, light and color in Queen Anne’s Lace

Part of the reason for my absence of interest in black/white photography was my late arrival into having a “real” camera (35mm), but also because of my love of color. I spent most of my childhood playing outside and exploring nature. That said, I know now that darks and lights play an integral part in how we see colors. Think of shadows and light and the element of “values.” It plays an important part in creating the illusion of shadows and light and dimension. Value is, in essence, the amount of light a color contains from the lightest (close to white) to the darkest (close to black). Connect those dots to the volume and density of tones/values represented on our camera’s histogram. It’s the difference and distribution that create the contrast—whether dramatic (high) or subtle (low) that help us add impact and emotion to any of our images. This happens also in how we choose to process the images.

In painting, value refers to the lightness and darkness of colors. Want dark values, add black to the color. Want light values, add white. This creates shades and hues. The darks help define edges, add depth and perspective, and can help create contrast that leads a viewer’s eyes where you want them to go. I heard one painter state recently that value adds contrast and color adds emotion. I think it’s the combination, and we need both in our art.

Queen Anne’s Lace

STALK OF CORN STUDY

I didn’t plan to do this – to put the darks and lights to a test – when I went to a wildlife refuge that offered no wildlife on my visit. However, what was there were acres and acres of corn in its early stages, most no taller than a foot and lots of green in my view. I don’t know exactly why, but I sat down in front of one stalk (actually chose that stalk) and said, “let’s see what happens.” In the 64 frames and thirty-five minutes I spent in front of this stalk of corn, I shot and “studied” the corn. I was aware of my process, studying the stalk, and my words became all about what was happening because of the darks and lights of the green corn. No one added black or white to change the shade or tint. Instead, it was me and the sun working the corn and changing not only my position and perspective but also adjusting my exposures to observe the changes made in the look and feel of each image. In one frame, I looked through my viewfinder and said out loud, “but for a sliver of light, there would be darkness.” In that frame the mood and tone shifts, clarifying for me the impact of the darks and lights and the importance of opposites. Without light, there are no shadows. Without darkness, no depth. Without either, we appreciate not much. The scene is a “flatline.”

View of corn in one direction on the refuge

FLOWER PETALS STUDY

After the corn, I came home and worked this concept a bit more with a study of peony petals and other flowers that were fading. There was a variety of colors, shapes and textures, but my attention – as best I could – was focused on the darks and lights, and the impact on what I could see through the viewfinder. The higher contrast flowers were easy studies. Yet, even in those petals that held little drama or contrast, the subtle differences had impact in what I saw and felt in the frame. As soft light skimmed the petals, details appeared along with the darks and lights. I kept my aperture wide in an added effort to highlight the sharp and the soft (easily a topic of exploration for another day). In general, I prefer my flowers to be on the soft and shallow side. In that way they are more expressive and feel better to me. Here again, as Bob Ross said, “gotta have the opposites.” I agree. They serve to highlight the differences, both good and not so good.

Peering into peony petals

EXTENDED METAPHORS AND FINAL THOUGHTS

Art and life are full of connections and extended metaphors, along with a slew of contradictions and opposites – think of black and white, happy and sad, sickness and health, and lights and darks. It’s not a huge stretch to consider the impact of darkness and light in both life and art. I often photograph similar subjects differently in response to how I feel and what is going on in my life. When all is “well,” I lean more into the light. When all is not, I lean more into the dark. When I can see things clearly as to what is ahead, I might add more focus and depth via aperture choice to my approach. When life is in a swirl, I tend to embrace the blur, the soft focus, the slender edge of focus on something, and sometimes photograph with no edges at all, emphasizing the lack of focus I feel. At the same time, there are moments when I fight against the darkness and shoot the light to fill my soul with what I cannot see.

Darks and Lights and Color

We respond to the art of others by way of their unique styles, the subjects they choose and how they present them. However, we also respond to what we are viewing based on how we feel at that particular time and where we are physically. Our response is relative. There is no singular or constant motive or response to our own art either. Each moment, each image and our approach are temporal and fleeting in nature. Perhaps they are similar, but not identical. All art is subjective and different. That’s a good thing. Yet, we all respond to the darks and lights, to the opposites. We need both, even as the scales tip heavily in one way or another. Such is life, and there is value in both.

Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.

– Walt Whitman

Because of the darks, we see the light.

Darks and lights and shapes in corn