Atmospheres
Sue Michael, Midnight Butcher Shop, 2002, digital photograph
The consideration of atmospheres is very, very important for artists…for they have the wonderful gift of potentially bringing those moods, and characteristics into form. Furthermore, we are fortunate to live in times when the influence of intentions has been found to be measurable in the material world, and this makes the documentation of the atmospheres of place more valuable. This midnight shop conveys a palpable sadness, as though the place requires staff and customers to allow its ‘loneliness’ to fall away. Some viewers may perceive other atmospheres, such as unnerving emptiness, or a menacing void, but it was not my intention to capture such an interpretation in this representation. Instead the lights were thought suggestive of an eagerness to begin the new day. A shop in darkness would have alternatively been closed down, and dismissive of the cleaning preparations made, already, for a new day to follow.
Words to consider when thinking about the atmosphere entwined in places:
Enticement, beguiled, hushed, serene, uncultivated, untamed.
Natural, unadorned, pure, basked in metaphorical sunlight, loosening, reposing.
That ‘something more’ feels desolate, secluded, forsaken, clear, affectively hazy, dim.
A rivulet of a place, a climb to grasp, summit, dip, tumbling experience.
It can make you feel like an operator, chauffeur-like, beholding, reaching finality, ogling, feeling like an eyewitness.
Astonishing, conspicuous, inducing peering, requiring inspection, exotic, little known, hidden.
Halcyon, imperturbable, accustomed, informal, bountiful.
Firmament, celestial, infused, overspread, expansile.
Sue Michael, Flowering Salvation Jane on the Burra Gorge hills, 2015, digital photograph.
We respond to the exterior world before we understand it intellectually. Of course we have the sights, sounds, smell, touch and pressures of that location, but we also need to consider the found orientation, motion, duration, continuity, scale, density, temperature humidity, air flow and dynamics of lighting in that place. Think of these considerations in relation to the landscape shown above. Some of these aspects may have a very strong influence in forming the local atmosphere.
Our experiences can be shared with others in these ephemeral, unfocussed and atmospheric characteristics of place.