studio – Mary Donlan

“Après Atget”

While researching the history of photography I read 2 books on the fabulous Eugène Atget. Eugène Atget 1857-1927 by James Borcoman, (National Gallery of Canada, 1984) is about the important Atget collection at the NGC, Atget’s life and times, influences and community. Atget, an aspiring actor, quickly took to photography and became a photographer for artists – they commissioned and bought his work. He socialized with artists, impressionists and post impressionists and accompanied them on their ‘en plein air’ excursions, taking photos they could use in their studio paintings. “Paris was at this time (1850’s and 1860’s) the only place in the world where an entire group of artists, in the space of several years, changed their predominant medium to that of photography.” Even Monet had a darkroom built at Giverny to photograph his garden and water lilies. Atget’s artistic vision was wonderful and continues to influence photgraphers today. I was so captivated by his work that I purchased Eugène Atget Paris, a beautiful collection of 500 prints published by Taschen (2016). I then decided to revisit my photos of Paris taken in April 2018 so see if I could give them an Atget look. It was quite the learning experience – that albumen look is hard to achieve but here are some examples which I am calling “Après Atget”.

Après Atget. City hall, Versailles, Apr. 2018

Après Atget. Canal St Martin area, Paris, Apr. 2018

Après Atget. Chez Prune, Canal St Martin, Paris, Apr. 2018

Après Atget. Art Gallery, 6th Arr., Paris, Apr. 2018

Après Atget. Jardin des Plantes, Paris, Apr. 2018

Après Atget. Bagatelle, Bois du Bologne, Paris, April, 2018.

Fine art photography

On my quest to be a fine art photographer I have read two books produced by national galleries’ photographic collections.

Memory of Time: Contemporary Photographs at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. (Thames & Hudson, 2005). Loved the collection especially photgraphers who use 19^th century printing type techniques – albumen prints, platinum prints… Daquerre and Fox Talbot are still influencers. Camera obscura and pin hole cameras are popular. Many contemporary photographers make their own cameras and experiment with all kinds of printing techniques. Lots of inspiring images here. I really liked Uta Barth’s photos of fabic floating on the sun.

The Extended Moment: 50 years of collecting photographs in the National Gallery of Canada, 2018 This is an exhibition catalogue that outlines the philosophy that guides the collection. ‘Photography has been inextricably linked with painting’. ‘expression rather than description’, ‘not a picture of something but an object about…’ Far from being ‘realists’, photographers since the birth of photography were either artists or people who wanted to take a ‘beautiful photograph’. This book has a wonderful section describing and illustrating all the major photographic prints and processes.

I learned many things when looking at these 2 collections, most importantly that light is inextricably linked to photography. Light can be the subject of photography.

Rural Ontario #1, Feb. 2021. Southdale Rd., St Thomas

Rural Ontario #2, Feb. 2021. Morning fog, Southdale Rd., St Thomas, ON.

Rural Ontario #3, Feb. 2021. Winter sun over Southgate Rd., St Thomas, ON.

Photography

My interest in using photography as an art medium has been growing since the summer of 2020. The appeal is the complete openness of the medium; I can explore like mad, make all the moves and mistakes I want! I bought my first camera when I was 15 and my first SLR, a Canon when I was in my mid-twenties. I was pretty handy with my SLR, preferring Aperture settings. I bought a Nikon DSLR in 2014 and it took easily 2 years before I could use it comfortably. I used my camera only to document special life events or travel, not as an art medium. Then amid COVID-19, I started to think of photography differently. I was familiar with the history of photography and decided to start there for my style. Meadows and wildflowers, a subject that I have addressed since the 1990s became my subject along with a local lotus pond, my favourite place in St Thomas. I purchased the photo editing software Affinity Photo – more on that in a future blog. In October I went to see “Resolution: a century of Photographic Art” at Museum London and was further inspired by Pictorialism. I am now photographing more, studying photo editing, and watching lots of YouTube videos and tutorials. I find it very thrilling to be photographing – it gives such freedom to an artist!