Homage to Charlie Waite

I’ve never been ashamed to acknowledge my photographic influences.  Some influences appear more in my work than others, but I cannot deny that there are several photographers who have truly influenced how I see the world photographically.  Rarely though (read: never) do I go out with an intention to make, for example, an “Ansel Adams image.”  It doesn’t work like that.  Nonetheless, there are times where, due to subject matter, lighting conditions or whatever the reason, it does, indeed, seem as if I’m copying another photographer’s work or at least style.  Probably a better way to put it is that my photographic journey has me following their footsteps.  In any event, that just might be the case with a series of images I made during my wanderings in Vila Nova de Gaia.  

Although I had no interest in copying the imagery of Charlie Waite, it’s probably true that I would not have made these images if not for his influence.  He recently had an exhibit at the Bosham Gallery and way back in early spring, when the exhibit was announced, I purchased not only the catalog for that exhibition, but also one from an earlier exhibition Charlie had at the gallery.  Things being as they were with shutdowns due to Covid 19 (or intentional US postal service slowdowns), the books didn’t arrive until after our household goods were packed.  So the catalogs traveled with me in my check-in luggage and were the first books I looked at in our new home.  (I have since purchased, and received, a new Bruce Percy book and print!)

I call this an homage to Charlie Waite for a number of reasons.  While principally a landscape photographer, he has never shied away from the worked landscape or signs of human presence in the landscape. 

Much of his recent photography has been of the built environment.  And in Gaia, I was certainly in the built environment.

Regardless of being in the landscape or among buildings, his images always have that precision of form, light and pattern that is characteristic of his work.  He is, to use a phrase, ruthless in his quest for a flawless image.  Ann and I watched a recent YouTube video with Joe Cornish (a colleague and often co-author with Charlie Waite), who said photographers should strive for excellence, not perfection.  I’m not so sure Charlie would agree (though he would disagree in a very amiable sort of way).  Charlie Waite is the type of person who sees an image he wants to make, sets up his ladder to make the image (I’ve learned the value of a few feet of elevation from Charlie), and waits, and waits, and waits . . . for 5 days, before the lighting conditions are perfect for the image.  Knowing that he isn’t making images that whole time because the perfect conditions may be fleeting so he doesn’t want to miss this one particular image, and knowing that the odds are that the conditions would never be perfect and he would go away empty handed.  (That fifth day was his last possible day for the shot - he had to head home from France to England that evening.). Still he waited, and gladly accepted the fruits of his patience when, for several seconds, the light broke through the clouds in just the location he had waited for.

While I may spout Edward Weston’s comment about why wait even an hour for the lighting conditions to get right for a photograph when you can find a half-dozen other images to make in that hour (or that anything more than 200 yards from my car isn’t photogenic), I can’t fault Charlie’s determination to eliminate visual distractions from the frame or to want an image to be just right.*  As much as I may wait for the light to turn just right, I’m no Charlie Waite.

Vila Nova de Gaia20-08-28Gaia - Barcelos_1011427.jpg

He has certainly taught me the value of precision - of carefully examining the frame and the elements within it.  And the relationships of the forms within the frame.  And the exploiting of excellent light conditions.  Which I had with this wall for the 20 or so minutes I spent with it.  Working to find just the right image.  Or images.

But not only does the subject and imagery bring to mind Charlie’s recent work, the fact that the images were made with a point and shoot camera also harken to his latest teachings.  Charlie has long used Hasselblad cameras, photographing in a square format (he and Michael Kenna were the photographers that got me thinking about square images a couple of years ago - something that is still with me), eventually moving from slide film (Fujichrome Velvia) to digital.  However, he’s recently become an advocate of the point and shoot camera for a number of reasons.

To be brief, they are to get an idea for possible images for which you may want to pull out the “real” camera, they offer a very light weight way to get creative and to play with photography (which can expand your vision), and last, technology has become so good these days that you can make mighty fine quality images from even a base point and shoot!  That was the camera I had, and I knew it could produce excellent images.

While photographing in Vila Nova de Gaia, there were times when I missed having a tripod and the precision it affords for framing and composing images.  But can I really say I would have made this many images in 90 minutes if I’d been lugging around my Fuji camera gear and a tripod?  Probably not.

And while a lot of images were made with my arms way above my head so I could square up vertical lines, the reality is that I knew if I gave myself a bit of buffer in my framing, I could correct errors in the darkroom (read: CaptureOne).  Then again, my practice has always been to try and produce the final image in-frame and not to crop - so I was often struggling between those two conflicting concepts.

As I mentioned in the post on Vila Nova de Gaia, that afternoon was the first day of real photography for me since we’ve arrived in Portugal.  Actually, perhaps the first true day of it this year.  Where my mind was really on nothing more than seeing, and then figuring out how to convey that in an image

It seems like such a simple thing, but it isn’t.  Especially when you’ve been away from it for quite awhile, as Ann and I have been.  We’ve been out and made photographs, but not like this.  This hour and a half was like being on the beach in Bandon, Oregon.  Or the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone.  Or some unnamed place on the map in Utah when the beauty of the light is ephemeral.  It is an indescribable feeling (that the images often do not do justice to).

It unfortunately never lasts.  But it feeds your soul.  It reminds you that you are alive and that beauty is all around you.  All you have to do is see it.  And then photograph it!

It’s why, in part, we decided on Portugal.  We had hope that there would be photographic opportunities for us here, just as there were back in the US.  Only different.  That afternoon was a taste of what is to come (I hope).  And I needed it.

Thanks Charlie for everything you’ve done that helped make that afternoon happen.  I know that I’m the one that did the work, but nobody does it alone.  

*Two days after I wrote this, the following appeared on Charlie Waite’s Facebook site:

“Delve deep into your creation.  It may become an A2 print or bigger, much bigger.  All components must be evaluated. Consider everything!  Decide whether what is included plays an important part in your production.  Omit the redundant! You are the producer, art director and camera person all rolled into one.  You and you alone take responsibility.”