THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF
BRUCE PANOCK INTERVIEW BY HARRYET CANDEE
Bruce, being a fine art photographer, you work closely with the natural elements: Earth, Air, Water, fire and Space. What of these elements have you found to be challenging, easy, difficult to work with? I’m not sure that there is an easiest or hardest element. My work is about photographing what I refer to as the “intimate landscape;” small spaces, as I wander in Nature. When I get back to the computer, I isolate those elements that first attracted me by masking out certain elements of the scene in the photograph. Often the message becomes clearer as I’m working on the image. It’s rare that I begin an image with the thought that I want to convey. The process is one of evolution, both of the content and the thought of the image.
PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHS BY BOBBY MILLER
I should note that at times certain features that have been previously masked out of the image are added back in later stages. Sometimes these masked-out features add back texture or movement or some other intangible that enhances the image-thought. These steps are acts of subtraction, then addition, then modification in some fashion, or just deletion altogether. It’s the image itself which helps me decide as it evolves.
to accomplish these edits using paint, or the other applications available to painters and to photographers who work using alternative processes. Photoshop enables me to accomplish quite a bit. My limitations are more about my knowledge and background. I have no formal art training, so self-study has been an important component. Yet, for all the self-study, there is still something missing which formal art training, I’m sure, would add to my foundation.
I know how much you love working with the camera, but have you ever found it has it’s limitations? I am able to accomplish quite a bit in camera. But the work that I make requires a good deal of modification. I am not able, for health reasons,
You have mentioned that it takes many prints to get to a perfect print. Can you explain what that means? There is something about the physical print which the screen just can’t compete with in the presentation of a work of art. The image is made
26 • SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2021 THE ARTFUL MIND
