‘… the “slippage” between representation and abstraction … I photograph with the idea that what is in front of the lens is true, and I am interested in that “slippage” whereby compositional choices, framing, format, playing with the lights and darks and the contrasts can challenge our assumptions about reality.’
Sally Gall, “Sally Gall: What am I looking at?” by Leslie Wayne, on Two Coats of Paint
As a child I loved the game where you drew a square with a few lines inside it and had to guess what it was. Such as two parallel lines and a few dots was “a giraffe walking past an upstairs window”. Fast forward to the era of digital photography and being able to play with composition without having to consider the cost per photo, it’s no surprise I enjoy “what is it?” visual puzzles. That it’s real is crucial, because it’s about observation not manipulation, noticing what’s right there if only we see it.
It requires “slow looking”, zooming in on smaller sections of a scene. Taking a couple of steps to the side to notice how something looks from there.
I think still life is a route into training yourself to see beyond the object itself to the parts between and around. Set up half a dozen objects on a sheet of paper. Something with simple shapes such as bottles, mugs, bowls. Spend a little time drawing them as “normal”, as a group of objects, to get that out of your system. Now turn the sheet of paper the still life objects are sitting on a bit (so you’ve a different view of the increasingly familiar objects) and draw the negative space only, the areas between the objects. Spend 10 to 15 minutes. Don’t worry about getting the perspective perfect, this drawing isn’t about that.
Turn the still life setup again, and do another drawing of the negative space. If there are any strong shadows, put these in. Now fold the sheet of paper into quarters and tear it up. Look at each section individually.
Turn the still life setup again, and this time aim to draw small sections of shapes, lines, shadows on different sheets of paper. Zoom in, crop off extraneous parts before you draw.
