2009/12/19
IN THE world of digital imaging, megapixels and full frame sensors, there’s a woman whose vision, soul and passion for life and photography will make you take a deep breath and bring you down to earth again.
World-renowned fine art photographer Marlene Neumann does what the majority of us don’t do; she’s constantly aware of everything around her.
This inner journey and continual search is defined in her photographic masterpieces.
It’s the magic of black and white film that inspires her to follow in the footsteps of the old masters like Alfred Stieglitz.
In fact her work and her Centre for Photography and Light, in Vincent, East London, is dedicated to this American-born photographer who died in the 1940s.
Neumann admits she is in no way anti-digital as it has allowed so many people to express themselves, but for her it’s all about light and her deep respect for how photography originated.
“I’m seeking what they (Stieglitz and others) were searching for. Photography is about light and spirit. Digital is digital imaging, not photography,” she says with a laugh, and wonders what the old masters would say.
As we look through some of her earlier work from her student days, Neumann describes how she captured the spirit of fish in an image using a Pentax K1000 all-manual film camera.
No autofocus, no LCD screen, no live view, no megapixels. It’s a beautiful image that would leave digital diehards gasping in wonder.
“It was never about fancy cameras. If I went digital I would go back to being a spirit with a camera. It’s about getting in touch with ourselves. What we can’t see is more real than what we can see,” she says.
Between photographic commissions and spending time in her tranquil art garden, Neumann’s love for teaching continues. After spending 20years lecturing art and design, her new students are reaping the rewards of her experience.
Some advice she offers is to allow the object to show itself to you; what we photograph is who we are inside, how we feel. It has nothing to do with software and how we learn the programs.
“People are not curious enough. They want to know how many megapixels, and this and that about the camera, rather than about the subjects themselves,” she says.
As a bit of a techno-digital freak, using 21megapixel cameras with f1.4 lenses, I begin to feel Neumann’s passion and magic rubbing off onto me, almost as if I’ve been sprinkled with pixie dust. I feel great, inspired, motivated and eager to dig out my old film body and shoot from the heart. I’m excited about light again as I read a quote on Neumann’s wall by another photographer:
“Amateurs worry about equipment. Professionals worry about money. Masters worry about light.”
View Neumann’s work at www.marleneneumann.com - By ALAN EASON
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