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Monday, December 31, 2018

THE CAPONI ART PARK - AS SEEN THROUGH THE LENS OF A LEICA




Only a few people are familiar with a gem within the metropolitan area of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, the Caponi Art Park.  It is located in the suburb of Eagan and is open daily from May through October.

In the 1950, the art park’s founder Anthony Capony, a professor of the arts at Macalester College in St. Paul, envisioned a public space where people could escape the stress of a fast-paced world and experience their connection with art and life in a natural setting.

For the next six decades Tony brought together his skills as an artist, educator, and environmentalist and embarked on a labor of love to create the Art Park.  Since the late 1970s he was joined by his wife, Cheryl, who shared his passion and commitment for the project.

The 60-acre sculptured environment was created as a work of art in itself.  The meandering trails follow the curves of the topography like contour drawings, retracted and animated by every person who walks on them.  The rock walls and shaped hills are the sculpture into which conventional works of art are integrated.

The grounds are not merely a backup for art, but an integrated environment that adds to the experience of the programs and activities in the park.  This intentional blending of man-made and natural beauty creates an atmosphere of openness and discovery that makes the arts approachable for everyone.

      Anthony Caponi

“Slow down and let your senses come into focus.
To be alive is a condition of having arrived.
Enjoy exploring the park and your deeper self.”
     




 "Walk in Outer Space"
1968
Corten steel, rebar, granite
Also the title photograph of this article
Caponi was inspired to create this piece by the first space walk when the astronauts were connected to the safety of the space capsule by only a thin umbilical cord.  In this sculpture the umbilical cord wraps around a granite Earth that provides the source of life.While modern technology has removed the need for a physical connection while in space, our connection to Mother Earth remains unchanged.


 
"Monument to a Lumberjack"
1970
Saw Blades
When Caponi first purchased this land it was impassable due to all of the fallen trees.  Before turning them into a sculpture, he used the two-person saw blades to clear the lawn and open up the woods. 


 

"Cornerstone"
1971
Red granite
Cornerstone presents the duality of humankind - the intellectual progression from cuneiform letters to musical notes in Beethoven's 5th symphony to the mathematics of Einstein's equation on one side, to the organic natural forms that still resonate with our caveman nature on the other. 


"Trinity"
1969
Field stone, railroad spikes
The rock has almost become a living thing and expresses the pain of being penetrated by the metal spikes.


 
"Dean Bryan"
1950
Hammered lead


 
"Skyroot"
1965
Recycled auto parts, stainless steel
This piece is finished with Caponi's characteristic textured surface that is created by using arc welding rods.


 
"Adam's Rib"
1957
Reinforced concrete
Caponi played with shapes as he molded this figure in clay.  He later cast it in concrete, an experiment using material that he hoped would be an affordable and permanent material for Minnesota's harsh weather.


 
"Praying Mantis"
1967
Not your father's Cadillac
This sculpture was created out of 1960s era Cadillac car parts. 


 

 "Undertow"
1965
Welded steel
Even though Caponi covered the surface of this sculpture with 300 pounds of brass, he couldn't keep the steel underneath from rusting after 50 years of exposure to the elements.  The metal has since become too brittle to be repaired.  The sculpture was moved to a safer spot so it can continue aging in place.


 
"Lovers"
1967
Limestone
This sculpture is an abstraction on the concept of love and fertility.


 
"Nugget"
1986
2-ton granite boulder
Nugget is a good example of Caponi's use of stone where the exterior is left almost untouched as he seeks to discover the variations within the stone.  The subject matter of the sculpture is the stone itself.  Marks left by the tools have become an element of the design


 
"Diamond"
1964
Welded steel


 
"Ritual of Love"
1954
Reinforced concrete


 
"Birds"
1964
Welded steel



 Anthony Caponi died on Oct. 9, 2015.  In his obituary, the Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote:

Caponi, Anthony Age 94, of Eagan, passed away on Oct. 9, 2015 A modern day Renaissance man, Anthony was an artist, civic leader and environmentalist. He was also an educator and professor emeritus of Macalester College, Saint Paul, MN where he taught and chaired the art department for more than 40 years. He brought his wealth of experience and artistic skill together in the creation of Caponi Art Park, a nonprofit cultural center in Eagan, MN. Among his many accomplishment and honors he received the Ordway Center for Performing Arts Sally Award for Commitment in recognition of lifetime achievement, contribution, and leadership in the arts.


All photographs were taken by Heinz Richter with a Leica M8 and various Leica lenses.



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Sunday, December 30, 2018

HOW WAS THIS DONE?



No automatic alt text available. 

I have often been asked how this photograph was done  The execution was not complicated or particularly difficult, but it definitely required an in- depth knowledge of lighting and exposure control.  No automatic features of a camera, regardless of how sophisticated, would be of any help here.

 I have always been fascinated with the types photography where the photographer has to do everything, create the set and execute the proper lighting before any photographs could even be taken.  Then of course, there is the correct exposure control and finally, when all is done correctly, the final result, the photograph.

 I had the idea of this shot for quite a while; it was just a matter of taking the time to set it up.  But how to get to the point of triggering the shutter to take the photograph?

I wanted the items in the photograph to sit on a reflective surface with a blue background.  But I also wanted a light fall off of the blue toward the bottom of the photograph and the corners.
I started with a polished piece of black Plexiglas.  The gears and the raspberries were relatively easy to arrange.

Direct lighting for the blue background is impossible in this situation because it would show a reflected image of the actual light source.  Instead I used a dark grey, flat material and lit it with a blue gel attached to the light.  The trick was to arrange the grey material and its illumination in a manner that the reflection off the Plexiglas was visible in the viewfinder of the camera.  Once that was achieved, the shape of the blue illumination was varied to show fall off to the corners and the bottom.  A soft spot light makes that quite easy by varying the distance of the spot light from the dark grey surface.

The camera’s lightmeter would only work of it had a spot reading function.  In cases like this I prefer to use a hand held lightmeter with a spot attachment.  For the basic exposure setting I used an underexposure of 1 ½ stops to achieve the intense blue color.

Even though the Plexiglass was black, its shiny surface reflected substantially more light than the subjects in the photograph and no nominal blue light exposure would show with the exception of some areas of the gears.

Would a white surface for the blue light have worked?  Possibly, but it has been my experience that a darker surface, even a black material, makes it a lot easier to show the desired light fall off. 

Next it was necessary to light the gears and the raspberries.  This was done with a small soft box (an umbrella light would work just as well), also positioned behind the set, but off to the right to avoid any reflection of the light to be visible on the Plexiglas.

Since the exposure settings of the camera were determined by the blue light, it was now necessary to match the intensity of the light from the soft box to that of the blue light.  Again a handheld lightmeter with a spot attachment was used.  Taking a spot reading of the three raspberries in the background allowed to set the light intensity such that the light shining through the raspberries would be one stop underexposed to render the intense read colors.

The light from the softbox had the additional advantage of partially reflecting off the metal gears, rendering a warm reflection besides some of the blue light from the background.

Normal daylight film or daylight setting for the white light balance works well as long as an incandescent light source is used for the subject lighting.  That will result in the intense blue along with a warm rendering of the subject exposure. 

Could a white surface have been used instead of the Plexiglas?  Of course, but the effect of the lights and the overall look of the photograph would have been quite different.  Especially the reflection of the metal gears and the raspberries off the Plexiglas would not have been visible.

Since both light sources were behind the subject matter, the reflections have the advantage of being almost black, thus not distracting from the subject matter itself, but still adding an extra element to the overall photograph.

Only a small section of the gear to the right shows some of the warm side light being reflected.  In addition there is the extra dimension of  the cold blue as well as the warm reflections of the two light sources.

Any project like this is not for anyone in a hurry.  It takes a fair amount of time to set up, the subjects as well as the lighting.  But the end results can be very rewarding.




For other articles on this blog please click on Blog Archive in the column to the right

To comment or to read comments please scroll past the ads below.

All ads present items of interest to Leica owners.

_______________________________________________________________________
 www.leicastoremiami.com  
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Buy vintage Leica cameras from 
America's premier Leica specialist 
www.tamarkin.com

                          
           http://www.tamarkinauctions.com/               http://www.tamarkin.com/leicagallery/upcoming-show

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