So many years ago. Such a different presentation, but still you. There is something quite painterly about this. If you lean back away from the screen some distance, it almost looks like one of Renoir’s portraits of young girls but staged like the Monet painting of the young woman and her umbrella that he painted as if she were on a sea bluff and he looking up at her against that incredible French blue and white clouded sky. It’s certainly more distinct than the impressionists would have painted it, but still I think the similarity is quite striking.
Greg couldn’t have said it better! Very lovely!
Thanks Greg and Alex,
Greg, I was finding my way when I photographed this. (I still am.)
It’s definitely “me” but the image was arrived at accidentally (or perhaps instinctively), rather than intentionally. Funny enough, I could learn something from this, because it was created in harsh light, as opposed to the “golden hour” light I favour these days.
Thanks again,
—Peter.
I’ve gone back in and looked at this image again just now, and Greg you have nailed it. Initially was hard to pin down the attributes of the image I liked but there was (and is :-)) something there. Hence coming back again.
How you must look at this Peter and reflect! The years just move so quickly.
You, at least recently, have a propensity for shadowed faces and closed eyes that suggest deep meditation. Here the scudding clouds are a metaphor, perhaps for troubles her closed eyes conceal. Those puffs of clouds upon the blue also evoke the vaporous, passing nature of a child’s attack of melancholy. Did you at least vaguely intuit all this when you undertook the photo? Or were you mostly motivated by formal factors?
I remember this moment very well. A melancholy was deep within me when I photographed her, yet I sensed it in the people around me too. Or, I suppose I may have been projecting that – who knows? The image-creating “process” was motivated by technical factors, including framing her within the space in the clouds, capturing her as the breeze lifted her strands of hair, etc… It was only when I arrived home and reviewed the image that I recognized the “cloudy”-ness in it… in her face.
Her head is centered, both within the frame and a small circle of blue sky. It also seems to be partially illuminated by direct sunlight. All this reinforces the the suggestion that her melancholy is but fleeting.
Peter,
I’m fairly new to your site, but it’s the only one I look to anymore for inspiration. I just stumbled across it one day and so glad I did. You mentioned that, “melancholy was deep within me”. Was this taken soon after your wife passed away?
This is one of your most beautiful photos, I think. So that’s all that needs to be said.
But… as soon as I saw it, I thought, “Is this from the M240?” You’re training us all to be discerning about sensor output. 🙂
Prosophos 
So many years ago. Such a different presentation, but still you. There is something quite painterly about this. If you lean back away from the screen some distance, it almost looks like one of Renoir’s portraits of young girls but staged like the Monet painting of the young woman and her umbrella that he painted as if she were on a sea bluff and he looking up at her against that incredible French blue and white clouded sky. It’s certainly more distinct than the impressionists would have painted it, but still I think the similarity is quite striking.
Greg couldn’t have said it better! Very lovely!
Thanks Greg and Alex,
Greg, I was finding my way when I photographed this. (I still am.)
It’s definitely “me” but the image was arrived at accidentally (or perhaps instinctively), rather than intentionally. Funny enough, I could learn something from this, because it was created in harsh light, as opposed to the “golden hour” light I favour these days.
Thanks again,
—Peter.
I’ve gone back in and looked at this image again just now, and Greg you have nailed it. Initially was hard to pin down the attributes of the image I liked but there was (and is :-)) something there. Hence coming back again.
How you must look at this Peter and reflect! The years just move so quickly.
You, at least recently, have a propensity for shadowed faces and closed eyes that suggest deep meditation. Here the scudding clouds are a metaphor, perhaps for troubles her closed eyes conceal. Those puffs of clouds upon the blue also evoke the vaporous, passing nature of a child’s attack of melancholy. Did you at least vaguely intuit all this when you undertook the photo? Or were you mostly motivated by formal factors?
I remember this moment very well. A melancholy was deep within me when I photographed her, yet I sensed it in the people around me too. Or, I suppose I may have been projecting that – who knows? The image-creating “process” was motivated by technical factors, including framing her within the space in the clouds, capturing her as the breeze lifted her strands of hair, etc… It was only when I arrived home and reviewed the image that I recognized the “cloudy”-ness in it… in her face.
Her head is centered, both within the frame and a small circle of blue sky. It also seems to be partially illuminated by direct sunlight. All this reinforces the the suggestion that her melancholy is but fleeting.
Peter,
I’m fairly new to your site, but it’s the only one I look to anymore for inspiration. I just stumbled across it one day and so glad I did. You mentioned that, “melancholy was deep within me”. Was this taken soon after your wife passed away?
This is one of your most beautiful photos, I think. So that’s all that needs to be said.
But… as soon as I saw it, I thought, “Is this from the M240?” You’re training us all to be discerning about sensor output. 🙂