These are the words of Sally Mann. She was describing the quality of the light and air in the south of the United States, compared to that of the north, where, in her words ‘you have this crisp and clear light’1.
Having been down through Georgia and on into the far west of Florida (below Alabama) I really feel that I understand just what she is saying. Especially where the woods mix with the lakes and swamps and the Spanish Moss hangs heavy on the trees, the air feels like you are wearing it like a kimono, almost swirling about you, heavy and oppressive. My memories are of a soporific filter, not exactly visible, more felt. As the dense trees gave way to clearings, so the air would thin and lighten the mood. Sadly my love of photography wasn’t quite so refined at the time to want to record the ‘feeling and mood’ of the place.
Sally Mann spent six years working on her book Deep South (Bullfinch, 2005). Looking through the images in this book you really get a feel for what she is trying to say and convey. Her technique/style2 lends itself well to the subject matter, using a large format camera, old beaten up lenses (that are often damaged) and processing using the collodion process. This is a slow and lengthy process, which is fine for landscape photography but requires patience on both sides of the lens when recording people!
There are many things that can affect the ‘feeling’ of the air and light and consequently, what is recorded when we press the shutter release button. This is often described as air quality. In areas where moisture is retained (usually by plants, trees, grass and general foliage), adding the heat of the sun will cause the moisture to evaporate, often turning into a mist which may be so fine that you are unable to see it, but the beauty of this for the photographer is that the rays of the sun are refracted upon hitting these tiny molecules of water.
There is also another phenomenon which creates an ethereal effect, and that is the electrical charge in the atmosphere that is created by the approach of an electrically charged storm. I don’t know that there is any science to back this up, but it can be felt in the air, and the feeling can also be captured on film.
I think my images below maybe need a little refining to convey the ‘feeling’ of the air and light qualities of the moment, but they do go some way to imparting the feel.
Another key photographer, this time from the early part of the twentieth century, Eugene Atget, spent much of his later life (he didn’t come to photography until he was forty) recording details of not only the general and mundane but also the old areas of Paris, soon to be razed to make way for the rapidly growing ‘New’ Paris through the medium of photography. He understood that shooting in the middle of the day enabled him to capture information that was, to him, a truer version of what was. That is to say, his subject matters and ultimately the images he produced were not ‘tainted’ with shadow, instead preferring to record finer details, not hidden in the shadows cast at either end of the day. One thing that I have noticed is that many of these images is that the sky is blown out, and I would attribute this to the height of the sun in the sky, leading to extreme contrasts which I believe the technology of the day was unable to cope with.
Eugene Atget, Porte d’Italie, fabricant de corbeilles 1912
In Atget’s later work we start to see a fundamental change in his photography. In the image below we can now see plenty of shadow. It was taken two years before his death, at the age of sixty eight. He took lots photo’s at the Parc de Sceaux, most of which were taken in the early part of the morning to great effect. Now Atget’s work has shifted from him being a recorder of information to somebody who is intent exploring and expressing the light and shade in ways that create more of a feeling about an image. The image below has a beautiful gothic feel to it whereas the younger Atget would probably have taken the photograph from a very different angle, possibly presenting the front of the statue.
Eugène Atget. Parc de Sceaux. June 1925
References:
1 https://www.americansuburbx.com/2013/01/interview-sally-mann-the-touch-of-an-angel-2010.html. The interview originally appeared in the November 2010 issue of Chinese Photography magazine.
I see! 