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Seth Resnick’s Vision & Style Statements
July 4, 2014 | Comments Off on Seth Resnick’s Vision & Style Statements |
Seth Resnick’s Vision Statement
My photographs are a journey into the personal energy of each subject. As a journalist, I started out photographing people and it was difficult for me to understand why landscape became so important in my work, especially when so many times there are indeed no people. Ironically my vision statement used to say that my photographs are about breaking personal space, but I learned it wasn’t so much about breaking personal space as it was capturing energy. When I was able to realize that, it was very easy for me to see a rock or a sand dune in the same way that I saw people and that journeying into that energy is really what I find so attractive.
The camera is a bridge to the energy I feel from the subject. I don’t want to displace that energy, but rather try to capture that very energy I feel in the moment. Hopefully, the photograph can elicit that same sensation in others. A camera freezes time, but I like to think that moment isn’t frozen at all but very much alive, almost akin to suspended animation.
I don’t select objects or themes. Rather, I let my subjects lead me. I love writing down parts of dreams or free-association thoughts in the night and then going out to try to capture those thoughts and feelings. One reoccurring theme that enters into my work time and time again is optical illusion. I was a big fan of M.C. Escher as a kid and continually find that influence in my work. I love when your mind can take something as concrete as a photograph and transform it so many ways. I am also very attracted to layers and compacted space that create a certain sensuality in nature. I realize I am exploring the fantasy of nature
Even in places that are less obviously beautiful, I try to find a deeper beauty that is filled with metaphor. In the Namibian desert, I found a simple salt deposit at the bottom of a sand dune. To me, though, it was much more than a sand dune. I call the photograph the Cerebral Desert because the patterns of the salt are a metaphor for a living brain. This is one of the driest and most hostile deserts on Earth, where daytime temperatures seemingly prohibit life, and yet one can envision a brain with a heart pumping blood through its very core.
I feel that my photographs become a metaphor for life. For example, I shot some old horseshoes on a windowsill in a small pueblo outside of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I’m sure folks walked by them every day and hardly noticed them. When I saw them, though, I felt a sense of energy that was representative of the vibrancy of the barrio. Here was a community that to the naked eye seems extremely poor and depressed, but there is a strong sense of community and family richness. The bright yellow wall contrasting the horseshoes helped to portray the vitality that I felt in this environment.
I hope that viewers can use my photographs to open up their own imaginations. People often ask me if my photographs are real. I love that the images seem to be from another world and thus can’t be believed. But I capture what is really there to be captured. I try to capture what my mind’s eye sees and feels.
Style Profile
Composition
I love bold graphic and complex relationships.
Space
I love layers of elements within a very packed frame. I get in tight and try to concentrate on the energy I feel from the subject.
Color
I love bold primary colors with intense saturation of the naturally occurring colors that we rarely see because we tend to focus on the overalls instead of the details.
Contrast
I love strong contrast and many times will crunch down my blacks.
Line
I dislike squiggly lines but love s curves especially ones that become sensual. I find it intriguing that all of my sports that I love, skiing, rock climbing, surfing, One wheeling are all based on s curves.
Texture
Texture is very important to me and helps complicate and define areas that are otherwise simplistic.
Light
Light is critical to me and I am always in search of dynamic light to accentuate the energy that I feel at the time of capture.
Gesture
Gesture and peak action are also very important elements to me. They help convey emotion and freeze time.
Seth Resnick’s Style Statement
My style typically incorporates graphic boundaries in a very compacted space filling the frame. I love to use layers and both straight and curved lines travel through that space deeply exploring the energy I feel from within that space and creating a sense of depth. I am interested in both the tension and solitude that exists within the frame. I use light, texture and bold primary colors to photograph the energy that I feel from the personal experience with my subject. I love to get in tight and enjoy both high telephoto and extreme wide angle to help create optical illusions which are important to me in the exploration of what I call the fantasy of nature.
I strive to allow my style to accentuate feelings of sensuality and create illusions but at the same time emphasize our fragile environment and instill a sense of responsibility to preserve it from further destruction.
People ask me all the time what kind of photographer are you? They would typically like me to say I am a landscape photographer. Being labeled as a landscape photographer sends a shiver down my spine. I am not a landscape photographer. I am not a wildlife photographer. I am not a people photographer. Yet all of these genre can fit into my repertoire of images. I photograph something that is invisible to many folks. I capture and render the energy that I feel between my self and my subject. My images are an exploration of conscious and subconscious energy.
View more of Seth Resnick’s photographs here.
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