More cropping

Maybe this is obvious, but the cropping frame just does what visual artists have done for a long time.

In Old Master drawings,it is not unusual to see rectangles drawn to isolate a part of a bigger composition.

The obvious thought is that photography and painting must have a lot in common in terms of the mental processes involved.

In fact, there are a few examples of people who went from one form of art to the other. Henri Cartier-Bresson started as a painter.

Mark Takamichi Miller, who taught me painting, told me he started as a photographer. He told me once that his process was to shoot random pictures, without even looking through the viewfinder. At the end of the day, he would go through the prints, and there would always be at least one perfectly composed frame.

Later, Mark did a series of paintings based on random photographs that he asked other people for in drugstores.

Mark, by the way, is a fascinating character. His way of teaching painting is all about mental process: pay attention to what happens on the canvas, and do not get carried away by what you are doing is a precept that I remember. The underlying idea, I think, is that what we imagine is not always the best idea, and the messiness of what happens will offer nuggets that we should be ready to grab. Which, I guess, is a great philosophy of life, too.

In the process of writing this post, I found out that Mark, whom I had not seen for years, now runs his own art school. I am looking forward to catching up with him again.