Behind the scenes content post on Linked In. I’m looking to both give the sense of me and give a micro dose of visual education. I’m curious what feeling you come away with. Is the hook strong enough? Thanks!

Capturing a moment, not a pose.

Last weekend I visited the Camille Claudel sculpture exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago to take in Claudel’s powerful figures and portraits. (That’s how I think of viewing a work of art — taking it into myself.)

Figurative sculpture fascinates me in how it can convey the eloquence of a gesture in three dimensions. A simple sweep of an arm or slight bend of a wrist can say so much beyond words.

And for that reason I love Camille Claudel’s work.

Long a confidant and collaborator with the older Auguste Rodin, Claudel was certainly deeply influenced by this master’s bold, massive, masculine style. But in this exhibition of sculptures from all periods of her career, you can see her own unique sensibilities at work. She was willing to explore vulnerability, submission, surrender, and intimacy –and the subtleties of power each of those express — in figurative form.

What particularly fascinated me about the exhibit was that it included rough drafts in clay of several of Claudel’s most well-known works, as well as later re-workings. From these you can see her struggles to find the exquisitely precise inflection of a particular gesture that captures the idea/feeling/being she wants to express.

For instance you can see the imploring young woman of The Age of Maturity (reworked in The Implorer below) in varying degrees of leaning into an unrequiting emptiness. A little more upright and she feels too self-possessed. A little more lean and she’d seem to be levitating. Claudel has captured her in that precise moment of utter surrender.

As a photographer I’m continually paying attention to my subjects’ body language. Some of my best photographs have come from catching the unplanned, unconscious, yet beautifully eloquent gestures of my subjects.

A great photograph too captures a moment, not a pose.

Try noticing the silent eloquence of others’ gestures today. There’s a dance of significance going on!

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