A Play on Seascapes

Leigh Perry, Car Park

Here's the commentary posted when we first published this week's print sale picture, way back in 2011. The first sentence by Mike, the rest by Leigh:

Leigh, of Sydney, Australia, shot his minimalist masterpiece with an Ebony 45SU 4x5-inch view camera on Fuji Astia, his favorite transparency film, under "glorious fluorescent lighting."

"The commenters who speculated that my photograph was a joke were right," writes Leigh. "It was conceived as a pun on the minimal seascapes I had taken before it. The idea gradually formed itself while I stood for a couple of minutes each day waiting for my car to come out of a car stacker. I eventually became aware that the carpark contained all the elements that would have attracted me to a composition on the coast in the early morning.

"The photograph is typical and atypical of my work in equal measure. I've always been obsessed with symmetry (as a kid, if I stubbed a toe, I'd have to do the same on the other foot!), and this reveals itself in my compositions. You'll see from my other portfolios on my website a consistent obsession with geometric layers splitting the frame into halves or thirds. I can't ascribe any credit to [Andreas] Gursky, although I am a fan of the Düsseldorf School. [Hiroshi] Sugimoto, however, was an influence on the seascapes of mine that morphed into this.

"Although most of my subject matter involves landscape, particularly on the coast, I don't particularly consider myself a landscape photographer. I just shoot what is to hand here in Sydney."

When I asked him to share a bit more about who he is for us, he wrote, "I have worked as a software engineer in Sydney for over 30 years. I find that software creation shares some of the same features as the other obsessions of my life—music and photography. Each of these involves aspects of science and art—both sides of the brain—although some people might be surprised to hear that software does too."

[UPDATE: Sale ended at 12 noon Pacific Time on August 20th. Thanks to everyone who participated! —Ed.]

Mike

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Amazon.com • Amazon UK • Amazon Canada
Amazon Germany • B&H Photo • Adorama

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Chas: "While I’ve frequently been tempted to comment on this site—long time lurker, as they say—I’m moved to do so, having viewed Leigh’s seascapes (through the link provided). Simply beautiful! Although I too gravitate towards symmetry, it’s the wonderful, soft pastel colours and the abstract elements (if you will) that knocked my socks off! Nothing but admiration here."

Comments

[Richard Alan Fox]

After earning a Masters in Photography from San Francisco State University I became a COBOL programmer and served in that capacity for thirty years

Creating software and pre-visualization in the days of film both concerned the creation of an invisible construct.

Making an image based on the intensity and color of light in a black box and then interpreting the negative has great similarities to writing source code and running it through a compile.

Great photo by Leigh Perry and a shout out to any COBOL Cowboys reading this post.

[John Krill]

Here in Palm Springs they have taken an old bank building and one day on a long walk I stop to see what's showing. No shows that day.
The large open space was empty so I took a picture of the floor and the far wall. It was OK but I was never happy with the WB. I put it up on flickr and it got a lot of views. More than thought the photo deserved. I finally removed it.

Now comes your picture sale and it looks like I stole his idea. Except the two little markings on the wall and floor. Magic.

Next time I see a nice wall/floor ripe for a photo I'll make sure I take a Magic Marker.

It has to be magic.

[Frank]

Minimalistic, ok, but not 'magic'???. A computer screen is not the right place to see these photos, on paper they will look much better, I hope ... But I can not make a good appraisal from looking at the tumbnails on his site.

[robert quiet photographer]

A great example of "less is more". I like it very much. Never thought about the analogy between code writing and analog photography, interesting!

[Casey Bisson]

Slightly tangential: what's the name for the viewing hood on Leigh's camera as shown in that picture? I've recently started exploring large format photography myself, and that looks like a wonderful alternative to ducking under a cape.