hands
studying hands
reading about hands
inspired by hands
pressing hands into medium
scanning hand
(Later: See the hand prints that followed)
February 8, 2007 in Being an Artist, Human, Photoworks by Marja-Leena
by Marja-Leena Marja-Leena Rathje
on printworks and other passions
by Marja-Leena
I’ve done entirely too much thinking about hands over the years. I’m burnt out on hands.
But feet, now…
Have a look at Leonard (Star Trek) Nimoy’s personal web site: http://www.leonardnimoyphotography.com .
He has a group of series, projects he’s done, and one is on hands. BTW, his take on the Hebrew spiritual concept Shekinah (the feminine creative force) is well worth a look, too.
Dave, heh. You know I was thinking about feet too…
I drew hands throughout art school and got pretty good at it. I’m thinking about combining some hands imagery with one or more prints I’m working on right now. I’m trying out collagraphs by using acrylic medium and pressing my hands into it – we’ll see if I can make it work.
Peter, thanks for the great link. His hands are lovely. Shekhana is a new concept for me – I love the veiled ones because they recall my own Veiled Suite series from years back.
a strong artistic practical tolerant yet determined personality that has led an eventful life – lovely!
For years I really didn’t like my hands – now they’re older I like them better…
I’ve just had an enjoyable wander through your daughter’s blog, and snipped the link to Leonard Nimoy’s site for Tom, who likes LN and studies Qabala… what a fascinating nexus you are!
Olga, you read hands, (or do a good pretense?) wow! Thanks, this is an unexpected pleasure.
Lucy, isn’t it nice that we can appreciate aspects of getting older? Actually I think my hand looks very ancient here. Increasing the contrast of the scanned image brought out all these amazing wrinkles so I kept it. Shades of the future old crone, perhaps? I’m glad you enjoyed the browse and link! And hey, being called a “nexus” blows my mind!! Have you noticed that I did a series of prints called Nexus?
I love the luminosity of that hand.
Patry, that’s an interesting observation. I wonder if that’s due to its being a black and white photo with high contrast? Hmm, thoughts on luminosity….
Black and white photography convey qualities of light impossible in colour. Some of the most moving photos I have ever seen are black and white.
Aside: a visual artist here once told me that a study was done on men and women in terms of colour perception. Women came out as able to perceive many more shades of colour than men, while men came out as able to perceive more shades of gray than women. Interestingly, gay men came out right in the middle. She also felt that the perceptions could be trained.
Peter, I haven’t heard of that study. I’m not surprised, just from my own observations, though I thought my own heightened colour perception is because of being an artist, not just female, and perhaps also because it’s trained that way in the study of art. Interesting, thanks for sharing.
I find hands fascinating. They are like flowers.