Autumn Palette by: Fiamma Zanelli
Every year I anticipate, actually I should capitalize that, ANTICIPATE with excitement and desire, the arrival of fall. Maybe it's the years I spent living in Canada during my adolescent years, surrounded by color, long before I thought of taking pictures of this magnificent moment in nature. Every year I log miles looking for the famous colors and every year I come back home with decent photos but nothing which stayed in my mind or in my memory for more than an instant. I kept on looking for MY interpretation of fall colors, not just the postcard type photo which I often took just because the colors were so gorgeous and the temptation was there even though the end result was always, OK, next.
Regardless, that ANTICIPATION is always there, at the beginning of every fall season. This past year I invited my mentor, Lin, to New Hampshire. When I first met him he said, throw away the camera, throw away the tripod and walk, look for the picture and when you find it then go get the camera and maybe the tripod and take the picture. I slowly started to "look" differently.
I still took photos of gorgeous vistas and the fog on the river with the background of crimson trees but in the midst of all that, I stopped to look and think and play with the camera and the subject and the light.
These three photos are a moment in a morning on a riverbank. I call them my Monet series. I was able to capture what I was looking for, when I didn't know what I was looking for and make my own interpretation of fall. When I printed the first picture, I felt that by inverting the scene it actually became my picture of trees in fall, without looking like the trees in fall if I had shot what was above the riverbank. I called the picture, Autumn Palette, as it reminded me so much of the look of an artist's palette when all the colors are smudged and blended together. The other two are details of the same reflection.The greatest compliment came from my mentor, an accomplished photographer, who said to me, I wish they were mine.
Comment
Like Bee-bop or any acquired taste, those that know it ... know it! In college I experimented with abstract and enjoyed it. I quickly discovered I was in over my head. I admire those that are free in thought and continue to offer what seems to be different, made to look easy. Those of us that have tried ... know it's not!
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