Painting, Photography & Perspectives

Having just written and blogged my essay "Why Higher Food Sufficiency Means Higher Farmer Poverty – William Dar" (27 June 2019, Journalism for Development, blogspot.com), which I share and introduce on Facebook with these words: "Why we pamper rice consumers while we pauperize rice farmers!" it strikes me that our Filipino painters, male and female, have also been pampering painting lovers with their creations and at the same time pauperizing their perspectives – I am referring to both painters and lovers of painting.

I, amateur photographer with a Lumix FZ100 digital camera with an Intelligent Auto, iA, mode, shot the photograph above on 20 January 2019. That iA mode takes care of technical details; I take care of the creative image.

That image is my way of showing that our modern painters, the ones I have seen shared on Facebook, many of them, have been giving us mostly closeups, to use the language of photography – sorry, I did not study painting, although for my amateur photography, I studied a little some world master painters like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Paul Cezanne and Vincent van Gogh. Just a little, like perspective, lighting, shadows.

What you are looking at above looks like a closeup, right? That's the problem with paintings today – they are all closeups. I remember that, if I remember right, the submissions for the "Art In Biodiversity" shown at the art gallery of UPLB Los Baños sponsored by the Asean Center for Biodiversity and featuring 100 artists of different media from different parts of the Philippines – they were all closeups. Like my photograph above, you have a limited view.

As an artist, if amateur, I have the right to present a closeup but I also have the duty to present a larger view, to show relationships. Now then, here is that wide-angle view of my camera:

Yes, your view of the farm – now you can see a farm – is constricted by the fence, but at the same time constructed by the fence that seems to stretch itself for you. That is the magic of the wide-angle lens. It allows you, nay it forces you to take the wider view of things, for your own sake.

Why can't painters paint with a wide-angle pen or paintbrush? In that "Art In Biodiversity" exhibit, there was no "wide-angle painting" at all. I could not see how one species fitted with many more of the other multiple species, only that this species or those few beloved species were very important points (VIPs) as they were, but no relationships shown. Painting or person, you cannot be properly considered a VIP if you cannot relate with others!

Look at my wide-angle photograph again. It reveals what it must, the relationships of the elements with themselves and with the rest of the world in view – without any words or signs appearing anywhere. Painting or photograph must speak of relationships – or it doesn't speak at all.

This is an amateur lover of painting and photography speaking. And yes, when I write, I always take the wide-angle view. This is a creative writer speaking.517