DRAWING LIFE by fred hatt

2012/07/15

Framing Absence

Filed under: Photography: Framing — Tags: , , , — fred @ 21:13

Window Wall, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

A frame makes a picture.  A frame that is around nothing makes something of that nothing.  Most people probably never look out a window with no view, but if you take the frame’s cue and view this brick wall as a view, it is a rather intense study in texture and light.

I’ve always found something compelling in “empty” frames.  Here are a few of them.

Now Showing, 2002, photo by Fred Hatt

An empty frame is a memento mori, a reminder of mortality, a window on nothingness that tells us there was once something where now there is nothing.

Red on Blue, 2009, photo by Fred Hatt

A big red box frames something – maybe a keyhole? – and, combined with shadows from a scaffold, makes an abstract painting of a blank blue wall.

Dots, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

Here was once a fine locking glass poster case.  Then it became a community bulletin board.  Then someone pulled down the bulletins, leaving behind scraps of tape.  Now it is a sad cabinet of glass, empty inside and marred outside.  Or you can look at it as a jaunty composition of colored dots and tape on a transparent surface.

Boutique, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

This storefront once attracted window shoppers with provocatively posed mannequins in garish urban fashions.  A sagging tarp, blue and dusty, hangs there as the flag of failure.

Billboard Support, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

A vivid golden sculpture rising into the gray sky is so much more appealing than would be another commercial message.

Caution No Floor, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Everything has been done to make this once inviting store entrance forbidding:  paint splattered on the inside of the glass, a steel gate, caution tape, and a spray-painted sign that says “Caution No Floor”.  Here is the gate to hell, it would appear.

Exit ACE. 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

Peel, scrape, erase – all but a remnant of a baby’s face.

Glass Frame, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

This is a little vitrine on a Subway platform where the Transit Authority posts notifications to commuters.  Someone tagged the glass with some clearish substance, creating a piece of abstract expressionism in subtle tones of translucency on transparency, casting faint shadows on a dully reflective aluminum back plate.

Now Serving Soup!, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

This frame was not an empty frame until the clumping snow made it so.  You can still read the message “Now Serving Soup!” – just what you’d want on a blizzardy day.

Chalked Plates, 2011, photo by Fred Hatt

Some kids with street chalk clearly saw this textured steel access plate as a frame, and decided to fill it in with colors.

Wet Cardboard, 2011, photo by Fred Hatt

Here’s a double frame made of an upside-down box spring and a piece of blue-edged cardboard that maybe used to be behind a mirror or a picture.  In its demise, this piece of cardboard has finally become a picture itself, as the moisture has stained it with something that looks like a misty watercolor painting of mountains.  The hard-edged multiple framing really emphasizes the pictorial quality of the cardboard, as a fancy inset double mat might enhance a soft picture.

Triptych, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

A triple window of water-stained board becomes a holy triptych.  “And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.  And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.   And God called the firmament Heaven.  And the evening and the morning were the second day.  And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.   And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.  And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.  And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.  And the evening and the morning were the third day.”

Red Rectangle, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

Will humanity one day emulate and extend the act of creation, seeding life on Mars or other planets?  Or will we destroy ourselves in the fire of our own consumptiveness?

Blinds, 2002, photo by Fred Hatt

Someone who likes to hide in shadows got a building made for putting things on display, and so they put their depression and decay on display.

Rectangles and Diagonals, 2001, photo by Fred Hatt

The paper in these windows, raked with shadows from an awning frame, looks like a silken kimono decorated with delicate diagonal stripes.

You Us We Now, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

This scraped poster has remnants that suggest a landscape, with brown below and blue above.  The black shapes in the lower left seem to be figures sitting in the landscape.

Blue Rectangle, 2001, photo by Fred Hatt

Here on a plywood fence the artistic battle between figuration and abstraction is being waged.

White on Black, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

I almost think I can read a message in this remnant in poster paste, but it’s illegible, a distorted echo, a white shadow.

Stone, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

An artificial texture reminiscent of coral, surrounded in a bold rectilinear frame, marks this stone.  From a distance, it’s just a random pattern, like camouflage, but looked at closely it has a great writhing energy.

Empty Display, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

This storefront window between displays is the stage of a shabby rundown theater in an entertainment district the cool people no longer frequent.

Antidepressant, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

I think maybe this window is supposed to be a conceptual art installation, but it doesn’t look much different from the definitely unintentional depressing empty windows elsewhere in this post.  I like how the neon sign casts its shadow on the plywood – the shadow of light.  This was a storefront window in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  The artist is unknown to me – let me know if you know.

Dusty Window with Rubber Cement, 2008, photo by Fred Hatt

This dusty window depicts an encounter between a rather rigid character whose plaid slacks are seen in the lower left pane, and an angel of anunciation, descending from heaven in the middle upper frame.

Restaurant, 2001, photo by Fred Hatt

Paper is often used to block the windows of defunct businesses.  Fallen paper, rumpled and stained behind the glass, is an emblem of fragility and collapse, but the rest of the world goes on, and that outside beauty is also seen in the glass, in reflection.

Van Windows, 2002, photo by Fred Hatt

Some kind of film has been applied inside these van windows to block the interior from outside peering.  The sun (?) has caused this fascinating pattern of cracks, both dark and light, to appear in the film.  It reminds me of the tessellation of a dried lake bed.

Pink Window, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

Notice how much more cheerful satiny pink fabric is in a covered display window, compared with the dusty blinds, tarps, or collapsing paper seen in other images of this post.  But it doesn’t completely overcome the depressing aspect of a shrouded display case.  If the window showed us a colorful piñata donkey, or a tin man made of stovepipe, with the pink fabric behind, that would liven it up nicely.

Window, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

I think this one may be a bathroom window.  The glass is frosted and there seem to be little shelves and a towel up against the window.  The frames always make me see these empty windows as abstract or minimalist compositions.

Governors Island Window, 2009, photo by Fred Hatt

This is a view looking out from a window by the waterfront on New York’s Governors Island.  The simplicity of this view, with tree branches in front of silvery water, is another lovely minimalist composition, made so by its frame.

Niche, 2011, photo by Fred Hatt

Something – a bust or a plaque, perhaps, surely once occupied this niche flanked by cornucopias and wreathed with ornate floral decorations.  Now it is a beautiful monument to the mystery of the void.  The gaps are where imagination comes to life, where memory and potential coexist.  Sometimes our world is overfilled with stuff and messages and sensations.  I value the absences, the empty spaces, the shells left behind by things that are gone.  The frame around emptiness says here is art, contemplate this.  And nothing rewards contemplation as much as does no thing.

2012/05/25

A Foraging Eye

Filed under: Photography: Framing — Tags: , , , , , — fred @ 19:13

[Before getting to the subject of this post, I’m pleased to announce that my drawing is the subject of a new post by Courtney Jordan on the Artist Daily blog.  Check it out!]

Lean on Wall, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

Photography satisfies the ancient human instincts of hunting and gathering.  Armed with specialized gear, photographers go out in search of their particular quarry, chasing after it or lying in wait for it.  At just the right moment, with sure technique and trained reflexes, they shoot and they capture.  Nailing the perfectly-timed shot of an epic sports moment, a stunning nature scene, an indelible image of war’s horror, or a celebrity wardrobe malfunction is like bagging the big game.

I lack the aggressiveness and the single-mindedness it takes to be a great hunter.  I’m more of a forager.  I walk around the city a lot, and I usually carry a camera with me (a dedicated camera, not a phone).  I rarely go looking for specific images; instead, I just go about my normal business and social life, constantly scanning the environment for the kinds of images that feed me.  Usually, that means some combination of natural or cultural phenomena, contrasting forms, and striking effects of light.

I don’t think of myself as a Fine Art Photographer.  I have no concern for reaching a pinnacle of craft or making a bold statement through this work.  It is in my drawing practice that I am serious about constantly challenging myself.  Photography is a more casual pursuit, a way of gathering impressions so I can study and contemplate on them later.  The concern that unifies the drawing practice and the photography practice is an effort to hone and expand visual perception.

Here are some of the fruits I gathered in my photographic foraging in New York City since the beginning of this year, presented in random order.

Sunset Reflection, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

Because the nerves of our eyes feel light, we can touch at a distance everything the light touches.  But light does not simply show us where things are and their shapes and sizes.  Light is a mercurial substance that can be knife-sharp or misty, golden or leaden.

Bike Cluster, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

Humans like to think of themselves as free and unencumbered like birds, but we are more like corals, building around ourselves great accretions of stuff.

Scraped, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

The constant building and tearing down, refinishing and repurposing, makes hidden layers and then sometimes reveals them, a world of palimpsests and pentimenti.

Broken Mirror, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

The world is a shattered mirror that makes the one thing look like a complicated lot of ragged striving things.

MoMA Garden in Winter, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

Organic forms and rectilinear forms go together like a bow-legged woman and a knock-kneed man.

Bench with Rings, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

The rain has cleared this park bench of sitters, the better to reveal its ring-and-spiral ironwork.

Mister Softee, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

A cop on the beat, a man with a baby stroller, a Mister Softee truck, and a steam vent in the street – a Manhattan melody.

A Frames, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

Sure, the Brooklyn Bridge is a beautiful piece of engineering, but look at all the geometry some designer put into these simple plastic barrier frames.

November, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

Another palimpsest – scraped away layers of advertising on a Subway poster frame.  Is this great abstract painting an accident, or someone’s deliberate creation?

Rust Drips, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

Water leaks in around the ironwork, leaving blood-like trickles on a concrete wall.  The roughness of the wall makes the drips scribbly and frizzy.

Orange Blue, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

At just a certain time of the evening, the deep blue of the twilight sky and the golden orange of the sodium-vapor streetlamps balance each other just so, giving magic to the most mundane features of the environment.

Gate Shadows, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

This sidewalk at night is haunted by the shadows of the old cast-iron fences and gates.

Mobile, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

Street art is exposed to the chaos of the unsecured environment.  This skull with a cell phone has flyers pasted on its forehead and is joined by a painting inspired by chemical diagrams, orange construction webbing, and some yellow caution tape that says “Screwtape” (a C. S. Lewis reference?), and then the shadows of leaves give the whole thing a mottled camouflage effect.

Wet Horsehead, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

Beads of rain bejewel this fiberglass horsey-ride painted in psychedelic colors.

Banana Peel, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

A minimalist found composition in red, green, gray and yellow.

Concave Plywood, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

These warped plywood sheets looming over the sidewalk remind me of Richard Serra’s space-bending steel walls.

Hands to Face, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

This one is definitely a deliberate bit of sabotage collage of a kind often inflicted upon the posters in the Subway stations.  The anonymous cut-and-paster has a certain surrealist flair.

Reflective Row of Cars, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

A row of parked cars has to be the dullest thing in the modern world, but even here that great conjurer light works its enchantment.

Reclining Forms, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

The rectilinear, the organic, and the circular will all lie down together.

Evening Blossoms, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

A bare tree in twilight and a blooming one in warm light, all of it crackling with the life force as it expresses itself in forms.

Night Shadows, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

Mixed light sources and the shadows of foliage give the camouflage treatment to this stack of rectangles.

Mural, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

This mural turns a plain street with a windowless wall into an 8-bit video game.

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Perspective with Lamps, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

The oblique angle and the compressed perspective of a telephoto lens emphasize color shifts across this row of windows and sconces.

Golden Female, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

A womanly figure beckons from a back-lit sign.  The golden glow and the elegant curves beckon grail-like in dim and ragtag surroundings.

Lace Curtain, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

The lights of night are seen behind the homey screen of a lace door curtain.

Embroidery, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

A tree is the earth exploring space and air by reaching and branching into it.

Chainlink Fence, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

At night a fence and a vacant lot full of weeds are a veil of mystery.  Although I used a randomizing program to put these pictures in a thoroughly mixed up order, these last three all suggest lattices that reveal nocturnal space behind them.

Compressed Stairs, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

Looking up a really long flight of stairs sometimes feels like standing at the base of a Mayan pyramid.

Fountain, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

It’s hard to get the esssence of water in a still photograph, because it is all about how it moves.  Sometimes, though, just the right kind of light and just the right amount of motion blur get the feel of movement in a still image.  Can I get that kind of energy in my drawings?

2012/02/29

Golden Hour and Blue Hour

Filed under: Photography: Light — Tags: , , , , , , — fred @ 01:14

Sunset and Twilight, 2006, photos by Fred Hatt

Photographers and Cinematographers sometimes use the term “magic hour” to refer to times of day when natural daylight takes on special qualities that beautify nearly any setting and imbue it with drama and grandeur.  Unfortunately the phrase is used inconsistently to refer to times just before or just after sunup or sundown.  I prefer the terms “golden hour” for those times when the sun is just above the horizon, and “blue hour” for the time of twilight, when the sun is below the horizon but the sky carries a hint of its glow.  Of course, “hour” is also imprecise, as the duration of the times of magical light depends on season and latitude.  The tropics may have warm weather all year round, but there the setting of the sun is abrupt.  In St. Petersburg or in Patagonia, on the other hand, the  sky can be numinously luminous all day long.

At the golden hour, the sun comes nearly sideways through the atmosphere, passing through significantly more air than when it comes from overhead.  This softens and diffuses the light, and absorbs many of the short (blue) wavelengths, giving it a warm golden or reddish tone.  The landscape is illuminated laterally, with raking shadows revealing the texture of surfaces and things.

Autumn Sundown, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Side lighting is particularly flattering to human subjects.  In stage lighting, illumination from the sides is usual for dance, as it emphasizes the shapes of the body.  The warm tone of late afternoon or early morning light has its own glamorizing effect, reducing harshness and making blemishes and wrinkles less visible.  The softer light doesn’t make people squint as harsh midday light does, nor does it cast dark shadows under their eyebrows and noses.

Photographer, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

When the light comes from behind through translucent things like leaves, grass, or hair, those objects glow with transmitted light, overpowering the ordinary reflected light by which we see opaque things.

Roebling Tea Room, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

When low in the sky, the sun casts shadows laterally, sometimes outlining the shapes of trees and people and things upright on walls, rather than beneath them on the ground or floor.

Studio Window, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

Direct lateral sunlight exposes textural contours in a reddish light, while the overhead blue light diffused through the sky provides a second, softer source of light.  At a particular time these two light sources, red from the side and blue from overhead, may be almost perfectly balanced.

White Brick, 2007, photo by Fred Hatt

A golden glint and long shadows turn the plainest structures into glittering metallic facets.

Gilt Edge, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

Buildings are shadowed by other buildings, and the red glow of the setting or rising sun selectively ignites the gridlike structures.

Tinged Red, 2001, photo by Fred Hatt

Just as the sun drops below the horizon, the level of daylight comes into balance with the level of artificial lights.  Buildings are illuminated both from without and from within.

Foggy Evening, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

At certain times, from certain angles of view, reflected light is more powerful than any direct light, outlining softly illuminated subjects against a sharp antipodal sheen.

Shiny Paint, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

Once the sun drops below the horizon, the sky retains a diffuse ultramarine glow for some time before darkness completely overtakes the celestial vault.  Artificial lights are now dominant, but the twilight glow pervades the shadows.  Now it is is the blue hour.

Blue & White, 2008, photo by Fred Hatt

The remaining light in the sky gives every unlit thing a blue glow, while interiors and places with artificial lighting shine in warmer tones.

Pay Phones, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

The sky is blue, sodium vapor streetlamps are reddish, incandescent bulbs yellowish, fluorescent lights greenish.

Manhattan Bridge Anchorage, 2009, photo by Fred Hatt

The photo below is taken while there was a twilight blue glow in the sky.  Fifteen minutes later, and the women would have been silhouettes against the artificially lit background.

Smoothies - Salads, 2012, photo by Fred Hatt

Wet streets reflect the sky, so the blue glow comes from below as well as above.

Rain & Steam, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

As night descends, the overarching dome of light that is the sky gives way to the many separate sources of light that rule the urban night – headlights, streetlights, working lights, signal lights, display lights.

Roadway Composition, 2003, photo by Fred Hatt

When the level of the long wavelength street lighting matches the level of the short wavelength twilight sky, red runs through blue like rivulets of blood in icy water.

Red Feather, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

Pomona Fountain, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

Through reflection, the golden light of incandescence penetrates the deep blue of the gloaming.

Chelsea Blue, 2011, photo by Fred Hatt

Golden Estuary, 2009, photo by Fred Hatt

The last phase of twilight is an indigo glow that barely rises above black, a memory of light, a faint resonance, a lingering echo.

Park Road, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

Central Park at Dark, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

2011/11/22

Abstraction by Shadows

Filed under: Photography: Light — Tags: , , , , , — fred @ 00:12

Texture in Gray and Tan, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

I don’t usually think of my urban landscape photos as Fine Art Photography.  They’re just visual impressions, casually collected by technological means.  Unless it’s a job, I rarely go out specifically to make photographs.  If I’m going to the kind of event I think will attract a lot of shutterbugs, I’ll deliberately leave my camera at home.  But when I’m going about my business around town, provided I’m not too rushed or carrying too much other stuff, I often carry a camera with me.  Looking for pictures in the world around me is an exercise in seeing the world abstractly.  I like patterns and geometry, randomness (chaos) and design (order), elemental and optical phenomena.

Sometimes the patterns of shadows and light, when framed in the viewfinder, look like abstract expressionist paintings, especially when organic scatterings come together with rectilinear structures, as in the above image of mottled tree shadows falling across subtle bands of colored stucco and concrete.  In the picture below, the mottled pattern is light reflected from the windows of another building, a towering projection of fire in the middle of a monolithic shadow.

Light Within Shadow, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

Decorative ironwork makes the stark necessity of security an occasion for creative design, and the visual layering of the black iron and the dark shadows in afternoon sunlight make a complex tessellation.

Cracquelure, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

At night, multiple light sources, of different colors, come from different directions, creating subtle patterns.

Stair Shadows, 2011, photo by Fred Hatt

Here, the sun shines through windows of beveled glass onto a tile floor perhaps inspired by Piet Mondrian.

Sunlight Through Leaded Glass, 2011, photo by Fred Hatt

A geometrical arrangement in red, beige, and dark gray frames an adumbral totem of modernity.

Cobra, 2007, photo by Fred Hatt

Another signpost is the figure on a ground of stippled gold and teal.

Park and Adelphi, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

In a shadowy corridor, a beam of light shining through a skylight gives this brass number a soft aura.

Three, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

In early morning sunlight, shadows and reflections from chrome architectural fixtures play like wild luminous graffiti across this stodgy corporate structure.

Plaza, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

I think of this one as a study in polyrhythms, as the different repeating intervals of light and dark, thick and thin, angled and perpendicular, come together.

Interval Variations, 2005, photo by Fred Hatt

This composition of perspective and piebald is held together by the patch of bright orange netting in the corner.

Under a Scaffold, 2011, photo by Fred Hatt

Here, shadows of trees cast directly by the sun overlap shadows cast by the sun bouncing off of greenish glass, a vision worthy of a great abstract colorist like Joan Mitchell.

Shadows in Green and Gray, 2009, photo by Fred Hatt

Two lamps cast cones of light like sentries guarding this Romanesque arch.

Lamps and Arch, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

This porch light in the late day sun projects a robotic face on the wall.

Daytime Nightlight, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

Someone tried to relieve the ennui-producing rigidity of this building façade by putting the vinyl siding on at a 45 degree angle, but the venous shadows of bare trees are what finally do the trick.

Winter Composition, 2006, photo by Fred Hatt

Don’t rectangles and organic branching patterns complement each other wonderfully?

Storefront, 2011, photo by Fred Hatt

In this nighttime shot, the shadow of a cluster of signs and the crosswalk markings add their jagged geometry to a well-worn street corner.

Bold Stripes, 2008, photo by Fred Hatt

On this wall beneath an iron grating, two white lights and one yellow one create a network of stripes over the masonry.

White and Yellow Light, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

Light reflecting from (I think)  a bowl of water in the sun throws this ghost on an old tin ceiling, with a bit of a rainbow forming about the lower left edge.

Refractive Projection, 2004, photo by Fred Hatt

The cable installers never seem much concerned about neatness, and the angled sun turns their tangle into an art brut scrawl.

Coaxial Cluster, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

The columns in this neoclassical temple are cast concrete, but sunlight and bare trees give them the veined patterns of Carrara marble.

Fluted Columns, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

Here the crepuscular rays of a car’s headlights cross the sidewalk slabs from one angle, while the elongated shadow of a bicycle, cast by a sodium-vapor streetlight, cross at another angle.

Crossing Light and Dark, 2011, photo by Fred Hatt

Here the shadows of decorative ironwork dance across the treads and risers of a New York brownstone stoop.

Filigreed Steps, 2008, photo by Fred Hatt

White stripes, orange splotches, dark windows, a looming presence.

Night House, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

A tree’s narrow leaves make the shadows on this security gate, but it looks like the work of a berserk calligrapher.  The sky blue and pink paint on the wall are the colors of baby announcements, but what kind of world are they being born into?

Shadow Gate, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

The shadow of an ornate carved wooden cross at a Lithuanian church breaks as it falls across a stepped wall.

Segmented Cross, 2010, photo by Fred Hatt

When multiple light sources of different colors cast shadows of a single object, the colors neutralize in the bright areas but intensify in the shadows, especially where light of only one color falls.

Tinted Lines, 2011, photo by Fred Hatt

The city is designed and constructed of plane surfaces, but without the organic forms of trees and people in motion, it would be nothing.

Sidewalk Shadows, 2011, photo by Fred Hatt

 

2011/09/29

Pluvial Polyrhythms

Filed under: Video: Natural Phenomena — Tags: , , , — fred @ 13:15

Still from "Driving Rain", 2008, video by Fred Hatt

Before I get into this week’s material, I’d like to urge my readers to click over to Museworthy, where my friend, model, and blogging mentor Claudia is celebrating four years of her entertaining, inspiring, and enlightening blog about artists, models, and her life as an artists’ model.  Every Museworthy blogaversary post has featured a photo of Claudia by me.  Check out this year’s shot at the link!  And here are the shots for years one, two, and three.

Still from "Driving Rain", 2008, video by Fred Hatt

I’m continuing to develop my own approach to watercolor painting, but I’ll wait to post on that again until I have a wider selection of examples to share.  Today’s post, though, does feature colors running in water, as well as optical phenomena of distortion and reflection, so you could see it as a continuation of themes.

Still from "Driving Rain", 2008, video by Fred Hatt

The stills here are from “Driving Rain”, a video made in the spring of 2008.  This is one of my experiments in minimal cinema, using the video camera to capture fleeting phenomena of light and motion.  We are used to seeing moving image media used to present narrative, to entertain, educate, persuade, or manipulate.  I’m interested in stripping all of that away, to see the moving image as simply an image of movement.  We appreciate still pictures for their aesthetic and formal qualities, for their ability to show us the world through another’s awakened eye.  I believe video can do the same, separate from its rhetorical dimensions.  (For other “minimal cinema” efforts, see here and here.)

Still from "Driving Rain", 2008, video by Fred Hatt

The video is nothing but a shot through the windshield of a vehicle during a pelting downpour, driving across the Williamsburg Bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan, through the streets of the Lower East Side, and up the FDR Drive along the East River waterfront of Manhattan.  There is no music, there are no voices, and there are no edits until nine minutes into the total eleven-minute running time.  Sounds boring as hell, you say?  It is, unless you give in to the film’s narrative blankness and start appreciating the peculiar complexities of the images and sounds.

Still from "Driving Rain", 2008, video by Fred Hatt

There is the mechanical beating of the windshield wipers, the deluge’s waves of white noise, and the roar of the engine.  There’s the stop-and-go flow of traffic and the relentless flow of water from the sky.  The world is seen through a refractive surface of water droplets and rivulets.  Droplets are drawn downward by gravity, shoved aside by the wiper, and blown upward by the wind.

Still from "Driving Rain", 2008, video by Fred Hatt

Because you aren’t actually driving in this monsoon, you are free to enjoy the musical phases of its various rhythmic elements, to marvel at the complexity of the movements of water on glass, to appreciate the impressionist scattering of light and color that the wet windshield introduces to the world beyond it.

Still from "Driving Rain", 2008, video by Fred Hatt

The video is embedded below (unless you receive the blog by email), but I suggest following this link to see the video in full screen and HD resolution.  If your computer or connection isn’t up to that, or if you’re reading this blog on your phone, don’t bother – just enjoy the stills.  This video was conceived with the idea of projecting it in high definition on a large screen, and it works best that way.

If you appreciate the beauty of rain as I do, you might also enjoy this earlier post, featuring still pictures of rain in the city.

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