{"id":30455,"date":"2012-05-31T21:53:18","date_gmt":"2012-06-01T01:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=30455"},"modified":"2019-03-10T14:34:30","modified_gmt":"2019-03-10T18:34:30","slug":"natural-discourse-july-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=30455","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Natural Discourse&#8221; July 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On July 13, 2012, <a href=\"http:\/\/naturaldiscourse.org\/index.htm\">Natural Discourse<\/a>, the &#8220;collaborative project between the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley (UCBG) and a multidisciplinary group of artists,&#8221; will introduce the artists&#8217; installations to the public.  MB Maher has been up to some mysterious photo work in conjunction with this project involving a photographic technique known as &#8220;light painting.&#8221;  A rarely seen technique, Maher tells me it involves nothing more complex than going out after dark with a flashlight and your camera.  Light painting first came to his notice via the legendary photographer (and Maher&#8217;s personal hero) <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Paolo_Roversi\">Paolo Roversi<\/a>, who used the technique to create studio effects such as this:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<em>It is like using a pencil in a way. A writer or a painter or a composer  of  music  is  filling  a  white  canvas.  But,  for me, photography is a black canvas. And on this black page, I use the Mag-Lite to write with the light<\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i52.photobucket.com\/albums\/g23\/botanizeme\/may2012\/20000603.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\"><\/p>\n<p>When asked how he arrived at this technique, sometimes called &#8220;Roversi lighting,&#8221; Roversi explained:  &#8220;<em>Everything  in  photography  is  very  old.  Perhaps  this technique  had  not  yet  been  adapted  for  fashion  photography because  the  model  cannot  move  too  much  because  of  the  very  long exposure.  It  is  not  so  simple,  but  it  is  easy  for  me  because  I work  with  Polaroid  Film.  I  can  see  the  result  immediately.  The most difficult thing is establishing the exposure time, how long you  keep  the  light  on  the  subject.  Sometimes  it  is  difficult  to judge, and with the Mag-Lite it is a matter of a second. So you have  to  move  the  flashlight  very  quickly.  But  I  like  this  light because  it  is  completely  irregular.  You  never  know  what  will happen<\/em>.&#8221; &#8211; from &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.paoloroversi.com\/images\/pdf\/photodistrict.pdf\"><em>Paolo Roversi on the Mysteries of Light<\/em><\/a>&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Even the monumental agave takes on an ethereal cast with light painting, setting the thorn imprints aglow.  Unlike Roversi&#8217;s models, the agave is motionless and therefore gives a crisper result.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i52.photobucket.com\/albums\/g23\/botanizeme\/may2012\/_MG_6706-1.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\"><\/p>\n<p>Maher tells me he&#8217;s light-painted a gunnera too, so hopefully he&#8217;ll kick loose some more of these stunning &#8220;light paintings.&#8221;  I can&#8217;t wait to find out how this all ties in with the upcoming July 2012 opening of &#8220;Natural Discourse&#8221; at UCBG.<\/p>\n<p>Previous posts on Natural Discourse can be found <a href=\"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=26506\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=26693\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On July 13, 2012, Natural Discourse, the &#8220;collaborative project between the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley (UCBG) and a multidisciplinary group of artists,&#8221; will introduce the artists&#8217; installations to the public. MB Maher has been up to some &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/?p=30455\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[28,551,850,112,30],"tags":[1780,2070,1781,2071,4669,1778,1888,1892],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paNJ2E-7Vd","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30455"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30455"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89815,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30455\/revisions\/89815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/agrowingobsession.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}