DRAWING LIFE by fred hatt

2010/11/06

Magic Squares

Filed under: Photography: Framing — Tags: , , , , , — fred @ 01:30

Sunset Construction Shed, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

A lot of writing about proportions and composition focuses on the golden ratio or phi.  Relationships based on phi appear everywhere you look in natural forms and cycles.  Artists, architects and designers frequently use the golden rectangle based on this ratio, and it’s often considered the most beautiful of all rectangles.  But it could be argued that the square is an even more harmonious quadrangular shape, and its perfect evenness has very special compositional qualities.

The 6 x 6 cm square film format became popular for magazine photography partly because square images could be cropped to either vertical or horizontal rectangles by the editor, but photographers often found that the square frame facilitated particularly bold arrangements of their subject matter.  Designers discovered the special qualities of the square frame in creating sleeves for LP records, leading to some of the most iconic graphic designs of the last century.

Here I share a selection of my images of New York City from the past decade, selected as examples of square compositions.  I don’t have a square format camera, but I find that many of my photographs are improved by cropping, and the square crop is one I frequently consider.  A criterion for choosing images for this post is that I don’t think any of these images would work as well with a vertical or horizontal frame.

The top photo in this post is a perspective through the roughly square corridor of a construction shed.  The setting sun casts long diagonal shadows of the scaffold columns, and those diagonals are countered by the thicker shape of an inclined tree trunk.  The square frame really highlights the contrast of vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines.  Here’s another example:

Oblique Light, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

A square crop can break down a unified design into an arrangement of shapes and lines.

Automotive Shapes, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

A beautiful three dimensional shape, compressed into two dimensions and framed in a square, becomes somehow even more abstractly sensuous.

Steel Helix, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

This classic bit of architecture (The Enid A. Haupt Conservatory at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx) is designed with golden ratio proportions, but a square frame really flatters it:

White Dome, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

This view from a Brooklyn rooftop shows the special properties of the square picture.  A wide image would be a panorama, focused on the horizon, and a tall image would emphasize the height of the vantage point.  The square equalizes the vertical and the horizontal, and thus shows height and depth in equilibrium.

Brooklyn Crepuscule, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

In a square frame, what is centered is idealized and what is off center is dynamic.

Heaven and Earth, 2009, photo by Fred Hatt

Straight lines and organic forms complement each other in perfect tension within the square.

Diagonals, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

Dark and light, rounded and rectangular, perpendicular and angular: Simple polarities of form spring into relief in the balanced space of the square frame.

Urban Sundown, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

Straight lines make quadrilaterals and triangles within the square, and curved forms break the rigidity.

Street Fair Decorations, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

The simplest contrasts reveal their full complexity in the square.

Piece of Gold, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

The perfect regularity and abstraction of the square can be an ideal frame for the fractal chaos of natural forms.  Any other rectangle partakes of a bit of chaos itself, but a square remains rigorously neutral.

Rainy Berries, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

The square’s geometrical balance can also highlight the gestural quality of a figure or sculpture.

Command, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

Sculptural Hands, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

The converging lines of perspective take on a special quality in a square frame, where verticals, horizontals, and  diagonals exist in egalitarian relationship.

Subway Perspective, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Fence Growth, 2007, photo by Fred Hatt

Perspective compositions are made even more interesting by the addition of curves or random angles.

Cast Iron, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

Barriers, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

The elements of a square picture rest in balanced relation to all their companion elements.

Flushing Meadows Globe, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Perfect symmetry is actually heightened by slight elements of asymmetry.   The harmonious square frame magnifies both qualities.

Church Garden, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

Stone Yard, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

A square is naturally divided into rectangles and other shapes, a la Mondrian.

Drawer Pull Display, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

Eighth Avenue, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Leaning or angular shapes have a certain natural dynamism based on their contrast with rectilinear forms.  The square composition gives these shapes their full measure of potential energy.

Angular Structure, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

In a square image, a living element can be a point of active concentration, seen off center in relation to a more abstract, more chaotic space, illustrating the tension inherent in the relation of the living being to the natural world.

Fountain Joy, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

Snow Mound, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

Wet Asphalt, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Plywood's Red Glare, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Expressions of style can be abstracted from their complex personal and cultural manifestations, to be observed in their purely formal aspects.

Mosaic, 2005, , photo by Fred Hatt

Instruments and Shoes, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Just as fractal mathematics shows the rational order underlying complexity, the square frame in photography puts the unbalanced world, snarled, tangled and scattered, into a context of perfect equilibrium, illuminating the logic of chaos.

Linear Arrangement in Streetlight, 2007, photo by Fred Hatt

Composition in Gray, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Spilt, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

2010/09/17

Skylines

Filed under: Photography: Structure — Tags: , , — fred @ 09:14

Twilight Manhattan, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

You have to get a little outside of it to get good views of Manhattan’s famous skyline.  The view above is from a Tribeca highrise apartment balcony.  The one below is from across the East River in Brooklyn.

Dead End, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

Atop a bridge you’re both high and outside, as in this view from the approach to the Queensboro Bridge.

Bridge Approach, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

You can get a good view from under a bridge too.  Here the framing structure is the Manhattan Bridge.  The lighted arc of cables further back is the Brooklyn Bridge.

Framing Bridge, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

You can have this view from your apartment, if you are a billionaire.

Central Park View, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

The skyline is such an iconic way of seeing New York that even an image of disaster takes the form of a skyline.  This is a photomural, inside a building in lower Manhattan, of the smoldering pile of the World Trade Center following the 9/11 attack.

9/11 Mural, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

New Yorkers, used to the familiar outline of the Twin Towers, felt there was a hole in the skyline.  Every year around the anniversary, beams of light rise in place of the missing towers.

Converging Beams, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

Another type of memorial that creates a skyline is the gathering of gravestones in a cemetery.  Here, the buildings of midtown Manhattan in the background blend in with the stone slabs and columns of Queens’ Calvary Cemetery in the foreground.

Cemetery Skyline, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Taking a closer view of the contours where the buildings of Manhattan touch the sky, wooden water towers are a distinctive feature of the lower-rise portions of the city.

Water Tower Rooftops, 2007, photo by Fred Hatt

The sky silhouette seen in the outer boroughs of New York often includes church spires, clotheslines, and satellite dishes.

Laundry and Spires, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

Sometimes you can see a skyline by looking downward.

Reflected Towers, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

The mirrored skyline lends a certain quality of serenity to this view of an industrial wasteland.

Newtown Creek Skyline, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

Contrasting shapes meet the sky here where a Frank Gehry-designed office building in white glass rises next to the High Line, an elevated freight track converted into a park.

Gehry & High Line Construction, 2009, photo by Fred Hatt

Another translucent white glass building, the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory at the New York Botanical Garden, nearly blends in to the overcast sky, in the view below.  Not every skyline contour is hard and toothy.

Conservatory, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Fog can also create a soft-edged effect.

Citibank in Fog, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

In the view below, only the Empire State Building is tall enough to be seen above the trees of McCarren Park in Brooklyn, shining through the evening mist.

Ghostly Empire State, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

A ruined waterfront warehouse in the sunset has a skyline of crumbling grandeur.

Burned Warehouse, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

The warehouse’s eroded contours contrast with the thrusty ones of this neo-gothic structure, Grace Church.

Gothic Silhouette, 2007, photo by Fred Hatt

These 19th century east side townhouses have chimneys like crooked fingers.

Chimneys, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

We tend not to notice the sky contours of signs and street lamps, as they blend in to general visual clutter, but the shapes can be fantastic abstract sculpture.

Billboard & Streetlamp, 2007, photo by Fred Hatt

The gleaming towers of architects must share the skyline with the ragged juttings of infrastructure.

Tower, Poles, Wires, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

The combinations of all these elements can become glorious geometries of chaos.

Crossing Lines, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

Here, a particular angle of view brings together building, statue, lamp and tree for a composition that crackles and twists.

Central Park South, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

In buildings the supporting framework is decorously concealed, but bridges nakedly display their engineering.  Here, the towers of the Queensboro Bridge and the Roosevelt Island tramway stand side by side.

Tramway, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

New York’s first great bridge was the Brooklyn Bridge, a masterpiece of engineering and still the most beautiful of Manhattan’s bridges with its delicate cabling.

Bridge Cabling, 2009, photo by Fred Hatt

The roof of the Metropolitan Museum currently hosts this gigantic birds-nest-like structure, the architectural sculpture “Big Bambu” by the Starn brothers.

Big Bambu, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

Birds use the cables and spars over the Manhattan streets as bleachers to spectate on the human beehive, and their bodies become part of the skyline.

Pigeon Perch, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

In the outer boroughs, people toss their old sneakers onto the wires.  This one was unusually generously festooned.

Shoes on Wire, 2009, photo by Fred Hatt

2010/07/29

Fires of Brushwood

Filed under: Photography: Elemental Forces — Tags: , , , , — fred @ 14:49

Cone of Fire, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

I’ve just returned from a week of teaching and body painting at SummerFest, the new festival of the creative spirit at the Brushwood Folklore Center in Sherman, New York.  For many years, Brushwood has hosted Sirius Rising, Starwood (now moved to Wisteria in Ohio), and other festivals, and it’s become fertile ground for a community of artists and musicians, pagans and faeries, free spirits and freedom seekers.  I’ve been going out there since 1999, and it is one of my essential places.  I’ve previously posted some of my body art from Brushwood here, here, here and here.

The night life at Brushwood revolves around fires.  Every night there are several small fires with drum circles, didgeridoos, trance music, rituals or dancing.  The final night of every festival features a huge bonfire like the one pictured at the top of this post.  The fire shown below was the scene of quiet drumming with complex middle eastern rhythms.

Drummers' Fire, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

I can go into a quiet reverie watching the slinky, dashing movement of flames.  Fire is a difficult subject for photography, as its essence is in its movement.  A long exposure blurs the flame into smooth streaks of light.  A short exposure captures some of the remarkable fleeting shapes that appear in the flames, but often makes the fire seem smaller than it appears to the eye.

Curtain of Fire, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

Even the small campfires at Brushwood are meticulously constructed and tended with quiet vigilance by Brushwood’s legendary guild of fire tenders.  Young men and women learn the craft and safety techniques from elders with years of experience, and graduated apprentices proudly sport the emblem of their status, red suspenders worn hanging down.

Architecture of Fire, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

The way the wood is stacked and structured channels and focuses the energy being released from the wood.  The fluid forms of flame cling to, lick over, and leap from the wood that feeds them.

Energy Released, 2009, photo by Fred Hatt

Licking Flames, 2009, photo by Fred Hatt

Sometimes the shapes of the flames spark my imagination with pictures of dancing figures, faces, leaping horses, diving raptors and crashing waves.

Dancing Flame, 2009, photo by Fred Hatt

Feminine Flame, 2009, photo by Fred Hatt

Here a man decorated in a leopard pattern by body painter Vann Godfrey draws dancing energy from the flames in the drum circle enclosure called the Roundhouse.

Leopard Man, 2001, photo by Fred Hatt

During a festival week, while nightly fires burn in the roundhouse for all-night drumming and dancing, a large bonfire stack is constructed in an open field.  Here you can see the roundhouse in the background, and the bonfire stack in the foreground.

Roundhouse and Bonfire Stack, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Ignition, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

This is the bonfire from the Starwood Festival of 2004, one of the biggest fires I ever saw at Brushwood, as it is first ignited.

Growing Fire, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Sometimes the bonfires also contain fireworks.

Gold and Diamonds, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Pyrotechnic Tower, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

The final night bonfires bring together the whole Brushwood community in a mass celebration.

Summerfest Bonfire, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

Bonfire Revelers, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Fire Watchers, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

Below, a friend’s fiery red hair is illuminated by the flames as she watches the bonfire.

Firetress, 2002, photo by Fred Hatt

People dance or run in a circle around the towering conflagration.

Bonfire Dance, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Runners, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

Golden Frolic, 2001, photo by Fred Hatt

The really big fires show different patterns compared to the small fires.  The densely packed red-hot embers have blue flames dancing over their surface.

Blue Embers, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

The sheer concentration of uprushing energy produces a whirlwind of flame.  If it’s raining, you won’t get rained on if you stay near the fire, as it blows the raindrops back up into the sky.

God of Fire, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Above the fire, glowing particles swirl and sometimes surge upward in fountains of light.

Flying Embers, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

The final set of pictures in this post were taken at this year’s SummerFest bonfire.  All are fast camera exposures to capture the momentary shapes seen in the inferno, and exposed darkly enough to show the variations of brightness in the fire.

Engulfed, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

Torrent, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

Silhouette, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

Curly Horn, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

Dancers with Lights, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

Fire Dance, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

This incredible uprushing of fiery energy on Saturday evening was followed, on Sunday morning, by an incredible downrushing of lake-effect rain that caused flash flooding in all the low-lying areas of the camp – a perfect elemental balancing act!

2010/07/03

Old Glory in New York

Filed under: Photography: Signs and Displays — Tags: , , , , — fred @ 22:20

Fragmented Flag, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

For the Fourth of July, I offer a selection of images of the Stars and Stripes, as displayed in my home city of New York.

Many artists have explored the aesthetic possibilities of the U.S. flag, most famously Jasper Johns. It has a strong graphic presence that makes it stand out in nearly any setting.  The bold colors and stripes assert themselves through distortions that would render most patterns unintelligible, as in the images above and below.

Auto Reflection, 2002, photo by Fred Hatt

Here a flag in a window is seen through the reflection of another flag hanging from a building across the street.  There are additional small flag stickers in the reflected windows.  Even the stripes of the blinds and the fields of colors made by the reflected building and sky seem to echo the visual elements of the flag.

Flag in Flag, 2001, photo by Fred Hatt

Below, a gentle breeze is enough to make ripples in the water standing in the gutter, but just barely moves the flag hanging from the side of a building.

Gutter Reflection, 2004, photo by Fred HattFlag on Rusty Car, 2001, photo by Fred Hatt

I had been casually photographing things seen on the street for many years, but in 2001 I got my first digital camera, a Canon G1, and began carrying it with me nearly all the time, dramatically increasing my photographic output.  That was the year of the September 11 attack, of course, and suddenly flags were everywhere in the city, as expressions of solidarity and defiance.  When photographing in the city it became nearly impossible not to photograph flags.  At that time, it was common to see unusually large flags attached to cars:

Flag on Rusty Car, 2001, photo by Fred Hatt

The explosion in the number of flags displayed in New York City lasted for quite a few years.

Construction Shed Flag, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

In a way, the proliferation of flags showed that people felt called to respond to a terrible new reality, but didn’t know how.  This kind of symbolism was all we had.  Often, religious and national symbols are used in response to our sense of powerlessness in the face of death and history.

Headstone, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

The Union battle flag below, a veteran of the War Between the States, is on display at Grant’s Tomb in Manhattan:

Civil War Battle Flag, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

Outside the Tomb, there are columns that translate the stars and stripes into sculptural form:

Flag Column, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

Another flag in columnar form is this display on the outside of the NASDAQ MarketSite building in Times Square, a building completely covered in video billboard.

Nasdaq Flag, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

In the years following September 11, 2001, many businesses in the city displayed flags or incorporated them into their commercial displays.  Here’s the window of a Brooklyn store that sells walkers, trusses, neck braces, and the like:

Medical Supplies Flag, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

A psychic reader’s window displays symbols of power:  crystals, wizards, angels, and the flag:

Psychic's Display, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

Screaming Mimi’s is a long-time vintage clothing store in Manhattan, made famous in the 1980’s by pop singer Cyndi Lauper.  In the zeroes they got on the patriotic bandwagon too.

Screaming Mimi's Red White & Blue, 2002, photo by Fred Hatt

Here, the U.S. flag adorns an inflatable sledgehammer, perhaps a metaphor for the American Empire’s ineffective military might and bubble economics.   Or maybe it’s just a cute toy.

Inflated Toys, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

The following picture is not from Abu Ghraib, but from a Manhattan bondage club, duly expressing its patriotic sentiments in the wake of 9/11.

Bondage Club, 2001, photo by Fred Hatt

I live in an Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn, where the flag of the Mother Country is often displayed alongside that of the Land of Opportunity.

Italian America, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Country first, hamburgers second:

United States of White Castle, 2006, phot by Fred Hatt

Here the slanting winter sun gives a glow to a row of international flags and the exhaust from Manhattan’s famous network of underground steam pipes.

Flags and Steam, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

A lot of people put up flags and forget about them, letting the elements fade and tear them.

Weathered Flag, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

On this flag sticker, the stripes have completely faded away, replaced by a beautiful network of cracks like one would see on a dessicated lake bed.

God Bless America, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

Another faded sticker, another inane yellow smiley:

United We Stand, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

The wind has whipped this flag to ribbons:

Stars and Ribbons, 2007, photo by Fred Hatt

And this flag flies in a fortified industrial wasteland:

Flag and Razor Wire, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

This is getting too depressing.  Flags blowing in the wind, even if they are ripped up, can make beautiful patterns of thrilling color:

Tattered Flag, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

Flags often make interesting wriggly shapes when viewed from almost directly underneath:

Soft and Hard, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

Convulsing Stripes, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

Billowing Flag, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

And flags clustered together send the color moving in all directions:

Flag Cluster, 2008, photo by Fred Hatt

Patriotic Neighborhood, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

Here, a building shrouded for renovation work still displays its flag in golden crepuscular light:

Sunset Flag, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

As a complement to this post, you may want to check out my earlier post, “9/11:  Signs in the Aftermath“, which shows many flags and other kinds of displays that sprouted in New York City in response to the catastrophe of September 11, 2001.

2010/05/21

Depth Perception

New Leaves, 2010, stereo photo by Fred Hatt

The image above may appear a mild abstraction on a natural scene, some curling leaves fringed in red and blue.  But put on a pair of old-fashioned 3-D glasses, with a red filter over the left eye and a cyan filter over the right eye, and a window opens up in your monitor, offering a view down upon a sensuous early spring plant, reaching towards you from a vivid texture of dirt and twigs.

Last year’s post, Shapes of Things, featured stereoscopic photographs I took seventeen years ago, in 1993.  This year I’ve been taking new ones, now using the Canon G11 that I usually carry with me as I move about the city going to jobs and visiting friends.  To take a 3D or stereo photograph, I just take one shot, then move the camera a few inches to the right and take another.  I use free software called Stereo Photo Maker to align them and to convert them to various viewing formats.  For these samples on the blog, I’ve chosen to use the “gray anaglyph” format, for viewing with traditional anaglyphic 3D glasses.  If you don’t have a pair, you can get one for free at this site.  Ask for Red/Cyan Anaglyph 3D Glasses.

Snow Tree, 2010, stereo photo by Fred Hatt

Here, a snow-covered winter tree spreads elegantly in front of an apartment building, while below a bare tree adds its complexity to an otherwise geometrical landscape.  The branching patterns of trees resemble the neurons in the brain, as well as the patterns formed by electrical discharges such as lightning.  Although they form much more slowly, trees express the same motion of formation as these examples of instant impulse.

Treeburst, 2010, stereo photo by Fred Hatt

Old trees can express as much character in their trunks as in their branches or leaves.  This one’s had  the initials of generations carved into it.

Elder Tree, 2010, stereo photo by Fred Hatt

Below is an early, tripartite stage of something that might one day fuse into something as majestically bumpy as the one above.

Trunk Trio, 2010, stereo photo by Fred Hatt

Here’s an old tree that has been hollowed by rot into a sort of vertical canoe form.

Tree Shell, 2010, stereo photo by Fred Hatt

Rolling hills and trees reaching and leaning in all directions create a dynamic spatial environment that makes the experience of walking through woods invigorating in any season.

Downhill, 2010, stereo photo by Fred Hatt

Garden, 2010, stereo photo by Fred Hatt

Here you can see the form of a hedge in early spring.  Last year’s leaves are broad and flat, dark and shiny.  Newer leaves, lighter and much smaller, sprout in clusters from among the old leaves.

Sprouting Hedge, 2010, stereo photo by Fred Hatt

We’ll turn now to the shapes of man-made things, letting this shop window with potted plants behind a neon sign serve as a segue.

Qi Gong Tui-Na, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

Shop windows are a natural subject for stereo photography, since we look through them into enclosed places where objects have been composed in spatial arrangement.

Pastry Shop, 2010, stereo photo by Fred Hatt

Lamp Store, 2010, stereo photo by Fred Hatt

The window below has been decorated with a huge transparent photographic image, which we look through to see a dress on display within the open space of the store.

Calvin Klein Store, 2010, stereo photo by Fred Hatt

This antique store has arranged a family of wooden manikins on a leather upholstered bench.

Manikins, 2010, stereo photo by Fred Hatt

Instead of looking through a glass window, we can look through a steel mesh gate to see the receding space of a narrow passageway.

Passageway, 2010, stereo photo by Fred Hatt

This chain-link fence slides on a track to let trucks in and out of a loading dock.  The framework of the gate produces a beautiful geometric shadow.

Rolling Gate, 2010, stereo photo by Fred Hatt

This frame was put up to support multiple billboards.  It’s now being a bit under-utilized.

Sign Frame, 2010, stereo photo by Fred Hatt

Here, a huge, mottled block supports a cast-iron bannister for a set of brownstone steps adorned with a ratty carpet.

Stoop Steps, 2010, stereo photo by Fred Hatt

A construction shovel is another rough form on a residential street.

Shovel, 2010, stereo photo by Fred Hatt

The rough form below reminded me of an aging roué with a young mistress.

Beauty and the Beast, 2010, stereo photo by Fred Hatt

I find that looking at 3D photographs makes me more aware of three dimensional form and texture, and the topological complexity of the landscape, aspects of the world we may often overlook.

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