vision issue 014
DESCRIPTION
Ursula Abresch paints with light, color and motion. In her impressionisticimages she tries to capture not just what she sees, but the entireexperience of the moment: thoughts, sounds, smells and touch.TRANSCRIPT
VISIONISSUE 14
by Vision Explorers
VISIONWelcome to
Ursula Abresch paints with light, color and motion. In her impressionistic
images she tries to capture not just what she sees, but the entire
experience of the moment: thoughts, sounds, smells and touch. Ursula’s
work is probably unlike anything else you have seen, and we are happy to
feature her in this first issue of VISION in 2015.
Joel, Sharon, Armand and Daniel
The Vision Explorers Team
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CALIFORNIA CALLING
Image: Silk & Steel by Steve-Maxx Landeros
VISION EXPLORERS
Coming 2016
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MOVING COLORby Ursula Abresch
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I love colour!
I often use blues/tans or blues/browns. I like using
greens mostly by themselves, but also combined with
soft tans and golds. My most intense colours tend to
be the oranges, and I love blue/white.
I get most of my inspiration for photography from the
world of painters. I sometimes like to say that I use
my camera as my brush, that I paint with my camera.
I like to experiment and tend to work spontaneously.
My colours are often intense but also soft, gentle,
delicate. I would like my images to be seen as
elegant, graceful, stylish, concise, simple, succinct,
true, personal, feminine. Colour helps me to achieve
these qualities.
Previous page: “In Late Summer” by Ursula Abresch
Following page: “Door to a Parallel Universe” by Ursula Abresch
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“Freedom” by Ursula Abresch
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“Evensong” by Ursula Abresch
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As a little girl in Valparaiso, Chile, I would walk
around with my father’s brownie camera “pretending”
I was making pictures. I was fascinated with that little
machine. But I never got to take any pictures.
When I was 17, I found a camera in a box of
discarded items that someone had given my mother. I
added babysitting money and traded this camera for
my first SLR, a Russian-made camera with one
50mm lens that I used for quite a number of years,
mainly to make pictures of places I visited, or things
my friends and I did together. Eventually I got access
to a small lab where I could make my own prints in
B&W. That was fun!
Though I was always passionate about photography,
I remember in particular the winter of 2003. I was
living in Ottawa, Ontario in Canada at the time, and
my husband gave me a Fuji Finepix point & shoot
camera. That winter was, as usual, cold and dark.
And I was rather sad. One day while walking by the
Ottawa River I thought, “All this: the snow, the murky
dark, the stark blue-gray everywhere. It is beautiful. I
want to make pictures that show how beautiful this is
— how beautiful winter is.”
That first digital camera opened a whole world to me.
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The place where I currently live, British Columbia, has
become an important source of inspiration in my
photography. It is a subject for some of my more
representational images and also for many of my
more abstract images, in which I try to reflect the
essence of a subject or where I use a subject to
express emotion. I love exploring themes, subjects,
and places over and over, to get to know them
intimately, and to try and bring out the best in them
with my photos.
When I started getting serious about photography, I
found a couple of books by Freeman Patterson.
Working my way through his books was a strong push
in the direction I ended up going into, and that’s when
I began experimenting with Intentional Camera
Movement (ICM). But mostly I have followed my own
instincts — my way of thinking and seeing and feeling
— to end up where I am now. I study and look around
continuously, not only at the work and thinking of
other artists, but also technical books. I try to be very
good at the technical side of photography so that I
don’t have to worry about it and can instead
concentrate on the artistic part.
I am rather unplanned and experimental and allow
myself to try whatever catches my fancy at the
moment.
Previous page: “Moonrise” by Ursula Abresch
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“Woman” by Ursula Abresch
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“Evening Water” by Ursula Abresch
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“There’s more to a moment than what you see with your eyes. There are the thoughts at the
time — the sounds, the smells, what you touch...and more. All these are real and
integral to my photography. It’s the sum that makes the photo.”
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“Waves 1” by Ursula Abresch
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It is so very easy to shoot a ton of ICM images, and
many look sort of good at first glance. But —and this
is a big BUT — as a quick Internet search will show
you, most ICM images are simply camera motion
studies at best. They say, “Yes, you can move the
camera and make a photo.” To go beyond that is
very difficult.
To me, the movement produced with the motion of
the camera has to underlay the story of the picture.
The most successful ICM pictures are made with
motion intended to highlight a particular
characteristic of the scene.
My style can loosely be classified as photo-
impressionism. Photo-impressionism is a tool that
allows me to get to the essence of what makes a
subject what it is. For example, a ponderosa pine
tree. What is it that makes a ponderosa a
ponderosa? What makes it “speak”, so to say? What
is the spirit of that tree that you could show as little
as possible of it and yet know, with certainty, that it is
a ponderosa?
That is an aspect of photo-impressionism that I like.
You can abstract subjects and provide much more
character than with a representational photo. Photo-
impressionism allows me to express feelings without
having to say a word. It allows me to put down
thoughts, dreams, and fleeting moments in time,
when a small change in light can make the
difference between utterly glorius and plain drab.
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Perhaps more than anything though, the concepts of
photo-impressionism make me pay attention to
colour. I play with colour and use it almost as if it
were the subject itself, which, I guess, in a way, it is,
at least in photography. Light is colour.
I like my colours saturated but not shrill. Many of my
pictures aren’t all that colourful but use a limited
colour palette.
I composite images in-camera by using the multi-
exposure feature on Nikons. I also composite images
in post-processing by combining different shots of
the same subject/scene, or different shots altogether.
I do whatever seems right for whatever photo I’m
working on to get the feeling of the photo through as
strongly as possible. I tend to not like post-
processing filters and effects too much because
often they end up being a showcase for the filter/
effect rather than aiding the picture; but if they work
for a picture, I will use them. I enjoy all of it.
Previous page: “Evening Birds” by Ursula Abresch
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“Arctic 2” by Ursula Abresch
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Technical skills are essential, but it is artistic perception that finally makes the photo.
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“So Gentle, So Furious” by Ursula Abresch
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I choose images based mainly on my instinctual first
response extended over time. When I first upload
images from a shoot, I go through them quickly, and
some stand out right away because the composition/
light/colour/focus/feeling are right. I mark them. Later
on, maybe a week, a month, or half a year later, I will
look at them again and notice which ones I keep
coming back to. Those I will then spend time with
and look at them considering both my own emotional
and technical response and also how someone else
might see it and respond, emotionally and technically.
Sometimes though I will post images online very
shortly after a shoot, simply to get a feeling for how
others might respond to it. I like strong responses. In
the end though, it is whether or not I like the final
product. It is as simple as that: if I like it.
I’m happy with an image when I can’t think of
anything I would do differently. When I can look at the
image half a year down the road, or one year down
the road, and am still satisfied that it is right just as it
is.
Following page: “Bird Island” by Ursula Abresch
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