He's Claes Oldenberg in reverse

click photo to enlarge
Many who came of age in the 1960s tend to look back on the popular music of that decade as something of a highpoint in the genre. I certainly do, though I'd cite the years between 1963 and 1971 as the best. The music of that time seemed to be constantly evolving, absorbing old ideas and giving them a new twist, as well as bringing original sounds, lyrics, melodies and instrumentation to the table. The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Fairport Convention, the Velvet Underground, the Kinks, and the Grateful Dead typify the creativity that was laid before us year after year. However, what we sometimes forget is that for every Roy Harper there was an Englebert Humperdink, for every Leonard Cohen, a Jack Jones. There were definitely troughs as well as peaks.

Then there were those artists and bands who had something to offer, but never quite enough. I 'd include the Searchers in that category. They were capable of great harmonies and 12 string guitar figures that influenced bands like The Byrds, but in their drive to be successful went too far towards commercial, anodyne pop of the "Sweets for My Sweet" sort. This tendency also afflicted The Hollies. Their harmonies were terrific - no wonder Stephen Stills and David Crosby wanted Graham Nash - but they featured in songs that were often second-rate. Successful the Hollies undoubtedly were, but they didn't, in my judgement, produce songs that have stood the test of time.

A few weeks ago I was in Springfield Festival Gardens, Spalding, looking at the pieces of sculpture set amongst the shrubs, trees and flowers, when I came upon the piece by Stephen Newby called "Cascading Water Pyramid". This features a stack of stainless steel "pillows", the largest at the bottom, gradually reducing in size to the smallest at the top. Water falls down the shiny surfaces of these metal shapes that look, for all the world, like they have been inflated. Nearby is a water-wheel with similar "inflated" pillows. As I looked at the incongruity of a steel pillow a thought about their creator crystallized in my mind that borrows from that dire Hollies' attempt at psychedelia, "King Midas in Reverse": he's Claes Oldenberg in reverse, because he makes solid that which is soft, whereas Oldenberg made soft that which was solid! And with that I took my photograph of a corner of the stack of "pillows", water dripping from them, and tried to make something of the line of corners going down the frame.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 27mm (54mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Op, Pop and The Avengers

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Here's the second of my 1960s-inspired images. The other week I bought a couple of inexpensive decorative pots for plants. One is black with white circles, the other white with black circles. My intention was to fill them with the "right" plants and display them side by side. I haven't decided what the right plants are yet - any suggestions welcome - so they are sitting in a cupboard waiting for inspiration to strike. When I was wondering what I could put into my 1960s still life these pots immediately came to mind.

I used the same pieces of black and white vinyl as in yesterday's shot, butted edge to edge, and placed one pot the right way up and the other upside down next to it. I moved them around with reference to the line in the surface they were on, and tried to get a good, asymmetrical, angular, semi-abstract composition that used the light to model the objects.

This is the best of my efforts. I've tried to achieve interest and balance. Unlike yesterday's image this one is in full colour! The image reminds me a little of the set designs that featured in the 1960s TV series, "The Avengers", with Diana Rigg (Mrs Peel) and Patrick McNee (Steed), that ran from 1965-1968. That series was particularly innovative in the way it incorporated ideas from Op Art and Pop Art into its design. The best episodes were like nothing else on TV at the time. This shot might be like nothing else you've seen on a photoblog for a while.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f16
Shutter Speed: 0.8 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Allium meets Andy (Warhol)

click photo to enlarge

One of my favourite Pop Art titles is "Donald Duck Meets Mondrian". This wacky painting is by the Scottish sculptor and painter, Eduardo Paolozzi (1924-2005). In 1947 Paolozzi created a collage, "I was a rich man's plaything" (he went in for great titles!), which is often considered to be the first piece of the Pop Art movement. In his later career the artist worked mainly on sculptures. Many will know his 1995 bronze, "Newton", at the British Library in London: others may recognise his cover for the 1973 Paul McCartney/Wings album, "Red Rose Speedway".

Of course, Paolozzi isn't the first artist that comes to mind when Pop Art is mentioned: that would undoubtedly be the American, Andy Warhol (1928-1987). His rise from commercial illustrator to film maker, record producer and painter (well silk-screen printer) of the rich and famous is well-chronicled and the subject of a number of biopics. I'm not a big fan of Warhol's work: his images, for me, are a matter of "what you see is all you get" - all surface, with no depth. But, it has to be said, the surface is interesting and distinctive, and Warhol is an artist whose style is recognisable across a whole segment of his images. The flat, strong colour, bold shapes, and variations on a theme are familiar to the layman in a way that the work of many better artists is not.

My image today is an affectionate and humorous homage to Warhol, and the title is a nod towards Paolozzi. It takes the idea of repeated versions of the same subject, say, Jackie Kennedy, depicted in loud colours, placed alongside each other. My subject is a touch more everyday than Warhol's became - an Allium from my garden!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On