Shades of meaning in a Monochrome view
Daphne Carlyle often draws people into her photo-art with displays of the luxuriant colours and the gorgeous shapes of flowers, but in her Symphony in Black and White show, at the Rainforest Arts gallery, Sept. 30 to Nov.15, it will be the absence of colour and an emphasis on the forms of nature that captures your imagination.
Like all her works, “you don’t see a lot of straight lines” in this exhibit. But in these studies, Carlyle wanted to digitally remove the ‘distraction’ of colour to bring out the form of her subjects and settings. Nature is revealed as a monochrome composition of curves, texture, and shadows. “Colour brings out a different feeling, you’re captured right away by the colour,” she said. When you render an image in black and white, “You get to see the structure of things.”
The images are all shot in colour. But Carlyle’s ‘brushes’ are the tools available in her computerized workspace, and techniques like ‘burning’ to increase the exposure in an area of a photo, or dodging, to decrease exposure, are especially effective in monochrome images, which gives photo-artists finely calibrated means of enhancing their works. The process of adjusting imagery to match a vision is central to Carlyle’s art. “I no longer like to call myself a photographer; I’m an artist. My tools are a camera and the computer; those are my tools.” Photo-artists are not bound by an undeviating effort to make their pictures accurate renditions of something ‘real.’ What they saw through the viewfinder isn’t necessarily what you get on the gallery wall; it’s what they chose to emphasize and express. Monochrome images offer a new take on nature. “You cannot see in black and white,” Carlyle said. “This gives them a vision that they never ever actually see. You see the structure of it, you see the bones of it, and the lines that contribute to its beauty.”
Carlyle’s Symphony in Black and White show will be on display at Rainforest Arts until Nov. 15. She will hold a meet and greet Oct. 4 from 1pm-3pm. The gallery, located at 9781 Willow Street in Chemainus, is open Tuesday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.