#Eloquent eye how to
#Eloquent eye series

In 'Openings,' of an open doorway and a series of windows, see how brilliant light from outdoors commands your attention, but never obscures detail in the fine filigree of the window glass, nor in the deep shadows of the surrounding stone work. In particular see two of her pictures from Mont-Saint-Michel and one from Portugal: all simply wonderful images in no small part because of the skill with which they were printed. Rarely have I seen prints that so skillfully combine intense light with shadow detail, so that light through a window or off to one side of the frame becomes not a distraction but a highlight, to be considered with a wealth of other detail elsewhere. The difference between taking a picture and making one.Īs in her other work here from a 15 th century palace in Portugal, to American painter Edward Hopper's austere cottage and studio on Cape Cod, to quiet images in the cathedrals of Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres Flanders brings to each image a superb sense of composition and skill as a printer. This, Flanders says, is the difference between merely grabbing an image on the fly and 'receiving it' slowly. She used a tripod and long exposures so that the light often filtered through the surrounding trees had time to 'come in and paint on the negative.' Permission was granted and Claire wandered the halls 'just letting that place come to me.' Happenstance in the form of being back in France with the rare luxury of time gave Claire the opportunity to screw up her courage and ask for permission to photograph in the now old yet all the more beautiful mansion.

At the time caught up in wedding and other commercial photography in Washington, Flanders had remained fascinated by what lay behind the walls of the home of the late Madeleine Castaing, 'the grande dame of interior decorating,' whose home was but ten yards from the door to the school Flanders attended as a young girl.

It was Flanders' work in the village of Leves, outside of Chartres, that for the first time taught her to let images come to her. If you do not, it doesn't matter the images are universal. If you know Claire, you will know some of the people portrayed. The oldest works in Flanders' book, 'From My Mother's Garden,' are really family snaps, but beautiful ones, showing the hand of a master printer. There are elements of Paul Strand, Berenice Abbott and Eugene Atget here: all photographers capable of creating eloquence from simplicity in black and white. Someone once asked me, 'What do you think is most important in a darkroom?' and I replied (seriously), 'the wastepaper basket.'' There were lots and lots of trials and plenty of surprises, good and bad. And there the relationship continued with the questions, 'Does it work? Does it show what I saw?' My goal was to give substance to my original vision, to make it real. 'And so I began with an old enlarger and an improvised darkroom. 'I soon realized that there was a very large gap between what I got back from a photo store and what I could get if I took a second step as seriously as the first.' At first she borrowed Bill's camera and even decades later as a successful commercial photographer in Washington, her camera bag commonly boasted only a handful of old Nikons and a battered Leica.Įarly on, Flanders discovered that seeing a picture in the mind and then through the lens was only the first part. Like so many women who become photographers, the means by which Flanders made photographs was less important to her than 'the intense relationship with light and shadow' that informs the sensibility of any visual artist. 'I needed to show everything,' she says and found herself shooting just as frantically when she revisited France, so she could show her new American friends her 'French World.' This, after all, was a time (the mid-50s) when most people rarely traveled great distances for pleasure, when there was no such thing as frequent flier miles. 'My beginning as a photographer came from the need to discover my new world and share it with my French family,' Flanders writes in her preface. at age 19, married to an American, Bill, her husband of more than 45 years. The book, reflected too in a small yet lovely showing of original prints at the Troyer Gallery in Washington, describes a life that began 65 years ago in Flanders' native Belgium, and which took her to wartime France, and finally to the U.S. It is a quiet symphony by a quiet woman of grace and courage.

#Eloquent eye how to

It is a book filled with beautifully seen images, beautifully printed in black and white, that offer an object lesson in how to get the most from a negative. Camera Works: Photo Essay ()Ĭlaire Flanders's visual memoir, Claire Flanders/ Photographs, is a wonderful book that whispers at you to pay it heed.