Tom Reaume, photography on

This is one of my pure abstract photographs, Without yellow there is no god, 2008 created with a camera but without using Photoshop. It is not a close up image like those from Aaron Siskind and his followers.

My vision rises to the bare tree tops where distal twigs and buds evaporate like mist into the sky. Here the thin lines against the distant gray sky become too faint and airy for a grounded clarity to take hold. The twigs disappear, not abruptly like the top of a truncated building, but in jazzy botanical patterns with gaps and giggles, slashes and strokes. Here is my rich reference, for here the slightest breeze induces a lunar movement. This is where my hands are free to wander playfully with a camera along the edge of these two magical worlds. Up there I can forget the thick reality of tree trunks by Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, and the thicker, hard buildings of Hilla and Bernd Becher. I close my eyes and begin to see Jackson Pollock's Gray and Red.

Jeff Wall & Tate Modern

The above photograph is my A rant of pink, 2008 created with a camera. 

Jeff Wall is a still photographer sought after by collectors and museums. In the Tate Modern collecton is his, A Sapling Held by a Post, 2000. This baffles me. This simple photograph is the equivalent of practicing scales on a piano. It can be viewed at http://www.tate.org.uk/collection/.

His style is very photographic with the drab colors of spring. The picture is without a horizon, not even a corner of sky to relieve the monotony of the brownish image. The angle of vision is ordinary, as is his color palette. Shading is minimal, giving almost no relief to the flat images within his flat photograph.

This snapshot is something you might find in a parks manual on how to tie a sapling to a post to give it the support it needs to survive the weather. Does the noticeable white tie between the sapling and pole represent the Doctoral halo above Wall's head? Is there some hidden art history involved with this ordinary image? Is this the difinitive tree photograph? Now that Wall has taken it, can the photography community stop taking tree pictures, or will this produce a generation of copycats.

His image is the perfect example that the grain has been thrown out and the chaff is collected by some very modern museums of art. When the Tate Modern has its annual, 8 days of humor in art, Jeff Wall's sapling photo will rank among the best.

Does this photo represent love? Two people are held together by a tender white bond where the smallest details are not lost. Both the pole and sapling will outgrow each other and the unchanging pole will soon be in awe of the might oak it once held erect.

Is this an environmental snapshot to remind us of our humble start and how we must grow into our slot in society, using up nutrients, and eventually reaching our full potential if given enough early support?

Is it an image after but well before the aspen images by Ansel Adams?

May the curators at the Tate Modern return to art history 101 and practice singing, the art goes up the hill. Even upside down the sapling photo is empty. Long live the Tate and Jeff Wall.