It's All About Color!

MEG member Susan Meyers shares some insights into her new series, It's All About Color, as well as some thoughts on getting out of your comfort zone with your photography. It's All About Color is on view at Multiple Exposures Gallery through May 6, 2013.

Your new show It’s All About Color has been described as a real departure for you. How so?  This work is different for me in two ways. First, it’s intensely colorful, which is something I’ve never presented before. Pre-digital, I worked mostly in black-and-white with some subtle hand coloring. I never did any color darkroom work. Since converting to digital photography, my photographs have been in color, but in most instances, still strongly monochrome with maybe a few pops of color.

Second, the images are much more abstract than anything I have done in the past. My comfort zone has been capturing images of places and things. Moving to the abstract was a big change.

(c) Susan Meyers

(c) Susan Meyers

What sparked this creative shift? During a visit to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, I saw an exhibition of work by glass artist Dale Chihuly and was taken by the beauty of his work. I knew my two-dimensional camera wasn’t capable of capturing the full complexity of his three-dimensional work, but I still wanted to convey what my mind’s eye was seeing. Rather than simply record the installations, I focused on the color, light, movement, shape and texture of small sections within the larger whole to capture what I was feeling.
Now that you’ve ventured into intense color and abstracts, will you do more work in this area? I hope so.  But this series came as a total surprise to me.  I had no idea that the Chihuly show would have this impact on me when we decided to drive to Richmond for the day.  A friend went to see the show and came back with many positive things to say about it and my sister-in-law has been working in glass for many years.  So the trip to see the show just sort of evolved into a family outing.

Once there, I just went with it.  Some of the installations took up entire rooms. From the start, I knew I’d be focusing on small areas. Because it was a low-light situation, the movement and flow in the pictures just came naturally.  There are additional photographs from that day that I haven’t had time to work with yet, so I still need to go back  and see what other little “treasures” I might have hiding.  This is also the first time I’ve used some of the special effects available in Photoshop in any serious way (only two images in the current show were manipulated).
 
I don’t like to use a tripod, and find that the more equipment I carry and the heavier it is, the fewer photographs I take.  So, this type of work seems like a natural progression for me.

What advice can you give photographers interested in moving out of their comfort zones?  What is the benefit of trying something new?  We’re living in an exciting time in the history of photography.  It has never been easier to experiment or try new ideas.  Once you have a camera and a chip, the sky’s the limit.  

(c) Susan Meyers

I’m especially excited for the kids of today.  Many of us had cameras as children, but in my case, and I’m sure many others, I was dependent on how much my parents were willing and able to support my interest.  We were limited by how many rolls of film our parents would buy and pay to process.  Now, most families have computers and once you have a basic set up, there is no limit to the number of pictures you can make at a very low or no cost.  And, because it costs nothing, there's no reason not to experiment. 

Try some crazy idea.  If it doesn't work you don't have to show it to anyone.  Just as photography emancipated painters and gave us Picasso and Dali and Pollock, I wonder who digital photography will give us.