The Weekend Paper
When I have remembered I have purchased the FT when I have heard one of my photographs has been published in it. This weekend there was a portrait of Johanna Welsh, a marvellous pargetter. Before meeting her I had not known what pargetting is. I was delighted to see her craft in action. It is essentially the application, directly to the wall, of a lime plaster conconction which is then molded by using a small selection of hand tools to create a frieze-like sculptural image. Johanna has a natural fluidity and grace and the resulting depictions of a pair of frollicking hares that I saw realised within an hour or so were beautiful. I am always on the lookout for things that remind me of the wonders of Renaissance frescoes and this pargetting took my mind to that ideal place in my imagination.
On a side note I am always somewhat distressed to see my photographs anywhere displayed where I have not had absolute control in it. I follow Ansel Adams in the belief that the print is the performance whilst the negative (the digital file these days) is the score. Printed in a newspaper is not the most refined of prints by any means and the "performance" is weaker due to this. Picture editors also seem to have no compunction in cropping however they fancy or, rather, to fit the page suitably. A great deal of the photographer's art is in composition so to take this away with the heedless cropping of a photographer's work is displeasing to say the least. I'm afraid that also the colour profile of the photographic file (ProPhoto RGB) has not been converted to their CMYK colour profile which has resulted in a print colour discrepancy. Note for next time - take full control of these elements. However, needs must and I am not ungrateful of the opportunity for a wider audience to see the photographs.
Whilst we are on the subject of photographs in the FT I have taken the opportunity to show this too which featured in December 2013:
