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IT HAS BEEN SUGGESTED THAT EVERYTHING THAT CAN be pictured has been pictured. While that idea is not exactly true, it is close enough to be considered to be generally true. Case in point ....
In my last entry, wherein I wrote that I was rumaging around in my picture library looking for pictures for my next entry, this entry is the "next" entry to which I was referring. I was looking for pictures like the ones seen in this entry in response to my discovery of an announcement of an exhibit / book / limited edition folio of new pictures, NATURAL ORDER, from Edward Burtynsky
I admit that, when I viewed Burtynsky's NATURAL ORDER pictures, my first thought was that he had hacked into my picture library and "borrowed" some of my pictures for his project. A project which he undertook during the recent pandemic and which I have been pursuing for the last 20 years.
My second thought was that being a well known, "big name" picture maker sure makes it easy to get an exhibition along with all the attendant add-ons. I have yet to have an exhibit of my thickets & tangles work which could be due to the fact that, to date, I have not submited a porfolio of that work to any galleries...a prime example of you never get what you don't ask for.
All of that written, re: everything that can be pictured has been pictured - if a crow were to fly due west from where I live (and make pctures), in about 200 miles the crow would fly directly over the location where Burtynsky made his NATURAL ORDER pictures. So, given the nesrly identical flora-zones, it really is no surprise that our pictures are so similar-not exactly the same, but similar. Similar enough that Burtynsky could slip a few my pictures into his exhibit-and I could do likewise with a few of his pictures into my body of work-and no one would be the wiser.
As similar as our pictres might be, here's where I part ways with Burtynsky...in his Artist Statement, Burtynsky writes that his pictures are "from a place in [his] mind that aspires to wrest order out of chaos and to act as a salve in these uncertain times." He also asserts that "these images are an affirmation of ... the natural order in all things."
Unlike Burtynsky, I am not striving to wrest order out of chaos. Rather, my pictures are an attempt to illustrate and revel in-for its own sake-the visual beauty and energy to be found / seen in the disorderly / chaotic / seemingly serendipitous entanglements of selective parts of the natural world. And, my pictures are not intended to be a "salve" but rather, at least at first glance, a visual irritant.
That written, I do believe it is quite possible to be drawn into a protractive, quiet contemplation of the complex field of visual energy to be seen in both of our pictures. However, where that comtemplation might lead to is up to the viewer.