In Auvers, van Gogh's painting output was impressive. He became like a brother to his doctor, Gachet. He returned to his ambitions of painting the modern portrait. He walked the same streets that Daubigny and Daumier had before walked. And he wrote to his brother Theo, trying to convince him to embrace the healthy air of the countryside, "I see in it, or think I see, a Puvis de Chavannes-like peace, no factories, but a profusion of lovely, well-tended greenery."
There he painted first the old houses he passed, with the moss-covered thatched rooves, just like the ones he had loved in Brabant and painted in Saint-Rémy. I, too, walked those streets. I visited Dr. Gachet's house and Daubigney's house, and I photographed the gardens there just as van Gogh had painted them. Van Gogh had two months in Auvers-sur-Oise; I had only one day, but it was enough for me to see, and to capture, the same magic that had enchanted van Gogh.
Van Gogh said, "if you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced." I cannot paint. But . . . technology gives me a way to present my photos as if from the tip of a pen, or the bristles of a brush. In this way, I paint, and ever since France, the voice has been silenced.
Each picture is unique, like each work of visual art. They can be copied but they can't be recreated.
The steps I take to create each image vary from photo to photo, the order in which they are executed vary from photo to photo. I don't know, yet, why this is. Perhaps its the settings on the camera, perhaps the light under which the photo was taken. But I don't think it really matters. It's disappointing when I can't make something stand out from every photo, but it's also part of the fun of the photography, part of the adventure in creating, when something unexpected happens and a photo becomes a piece of art that makes my heart stop, takes my breath away.
This photo is one such piece. I've been struggling with how to continue the pen-and-ink style. Many don't work out. But when this one appeared on my computer screen I knew it was special.
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