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Photography Portraying Sculpture
Sculptors often seek other forms of art, such as drawing, to implement their creative process. Since photography’s inception in the 1800’s it has become an invaluable asset for sculpture and the arts in general. Many visual artists use photography instead of a model as an aid to their creation or to document the work in progress. In our computer age we can access and view many sculptures throughout the world with the click of a button via the Internet—via photographs.
There are endless techniques in photographing a sculpture, just as there are endless ways of creating a portrait and so on. Sometimes the process of taking a photograph can be very confusing and mysterious; however, we can take a simple approach. In nature we have only two sources of light, the direct and the reflected. If you use more than one direct or reflected light you will alter the forms and the eye will no longer have a straightforward view of the subject. Photographers can be very ingenious in searching for the right angle of light brushing over the forms.
I sculpt and photograph my work, and find great pleasure in combining the two activities. Recently, while I was sculpting bas-reliefs, a photographer friend of mine noticed the various effects I was trying to achieve that only photography could have taught us—focal depth of field and wide angle distortion, among others.
In documenting artwork, no one doubts photography’s indispensable value. And in the case of this magazine, utilizing photography helps us communicate to a broader audience. The science of photography itself becomes a form of art as well, interpreting, in the case of sculpture, the movement of chiaro-scuro (light and dark) over the forms, giving us a new, abstracted, two-dimensional impression of the work and thus, in essence, returning to the simple pencil drawing on paper that began the process, in my point of view.
Giancarlo Biagi
Sculpture Review Magazine E - mail GP@SculptureReview.com
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