Kevin Imper: Beach Finds

While walking the beach at Fort Worden I picked up a small unidentifiable bone a few days back, and yesterday found an intact cockle clam shell. They were cool enough they went straight to the “pool room.” Actually, they went straight to the studio for an attempt at a still life.

A number of exposures later I got a few I like. A rare thing around here since the camera has been gathering dust along with everything else. Plus, I have an inbuilt loathing of sea shell still lifes. Getting a photo of the finds that doesn’t want to make me or anyone else ill was a main priority. A tall order, but I am hopeful these shots - overshot.

Beach Find Iteration #1

Photo by Kevin Imper

Beach Find Iteration #2

Photo by Kevin Imper

Why do I react negatively when confronted with beach gleanings – collections and photos? Shells and other miscellaneous beach residue have always excited me at the moment of discovery. But that excitement is always short-lived once the moist richness of the beach environment is left behind. Drawer bottoms become littered with treasured mementos - sand dollars, clam shells, sea glass, and colored smooth stones, all having become dull and lifeless. So different from the conditions of their vibrant discovery. Found treasures are ultimately tossed out with the thought, “why did I ever collect that?” Artistic renderings of the same usually fall short of success and only serve to remind me of the bottom of my junk drawer, with all of its dusty lint-covered, once treasured, pathetic, underperforming mementos of once-rich times.

So, how can we respond with fresh eyes to the once fascinating objects found on the beach? We could try to ignore the just-found associations. Maybe use the objects to express something newer, or something bigger. Present the finds to represent a theme of the oceanfront experience rather than the objects themselves. Many aspects of that unique boundary have a universal draw for humans, creating for some an overwhelming reverence. Just being on the edge of mystery and the power of nature’s force can truly amplify our senses while at the shore. The sense of power that pushes secrets of that marine world up onto the beach for the beachcomber to find, revealing alien life at its end, or the living dwellers of the intertidal space.

Possibly the artist can expand the theme by using the objects to express the vastness of the forces and of time itself as a way to illustrate human’s fleeting and minor place not only in the world we exist in, but in the universe. Humbling, eh? Andrew Wyeth put the elements that draw us to the timeless aspects of our shores into many of his paintings. They are powerful, both abstract and deceptively realistic.

River Cove - Andrew Wyeth 1958

I was going to import an image of his 1975 painting called Flint but copyright issues got in the way. Here is a link if you would like to check it out:

https://images.app.goo.gl/DVZP7vVTDCNedMqh7

Found objects might also be used to express the overwhelming organic nature of the shore, the gloriously fecund richness of the earth, and of life’s organizing forces at work throughout time. In this case I am talking about the self-conscious monkey {us) viewing and interpreting this environment using our own monkey experiences as the key to visual presentation. Our esthetic sense that naturally puts mankind at the center of all things. Edward Weston’s photographs of his shell grouping, and his Chambered Nautilus are more in this vein, provoking wonder but depending on our subconscious cues for meaning.

Shells - Edward Weston 1927

My short series of the recent beach finds are all about exploring this Weston esthetic.

This next image includes two of the props from the earlier photos, but adds a third one, another flint stone gathered in England at some point. Probably gleaned while walking the rocky beach along the Thames Estuary.

Seeking to avoid earlier accusations of obscenity in the first two images, I flipped the cockle.

Beach Find Iteration #3

Photo by Kevin Imper

Beach Find Iteration #4

Photo by Kevin Imper

Beach Find Iteration #5

Photo by Kevin Imper

It has been several months since I posted this photo of the clam shell chorus line. I like the photo but it hasn’t been wearing well. It is time to play with the composition and cropping. Analyzing the original post it is easy to imagine the image without the uppermost clam shell. Being brighter it conflicts with the march of the shells out of the void and also fights with the foreground for the viewer’s attention. So let’s eliminate it.

When cropping, I find my personal preference seldom agrees with that of the most common cropping suggestions of photo editing programs. But the program presets are a good starting point, even if usually ignored. They are offered up with the weight of three-hundred years of historical analysis and should at least be considered.

Here is my rethought composition: