29 August 2016
Lens:
Spring and Summer Photomontage; Copyright © 2016 Sally W. Donatello All Rights Reserved
Click on image to enlarge, which takes you to another page. If you decide to leave a comment, please return to this page.
Pens:
28 August 2016
“Heart Lands”
Meticulously, each season unfolds into the “heart” lands. Pumping with a gentle energy that courses through the soul. Teaming with a determination to push through the earth’s layers.
Spirit, ego, disposition, behavior. Spring, summer, autumn, winter.
Each a harvest of the “heart”lands. Each a remnant of the past in the present.
A petal, a flower, a place, a time, Spatial planes reveal everything and nothing.
Questions arise, continuing, Never fully answered.
Simply inciting and instigating. ~~ Sally W. Donatello
In the Lens section is my latest experimentation with photomontage. “Heart Lands” combines spring and summer floral beauties. They become a landscape of the heart—my heart. But they also are forms and lines and symbols of the seasons–seasons whose rhythms chart our lives through the earth’s bounty.
Tip of the Week:
“I wish to blur the firm boundaries which we self-certain people tend to delineate around all we can achieve.” ~~ Hannah Höch
“[She] rejected adult-world conformity in favor of youthful nonsense (which) offered a means of circumventing the strict and serious rules that govern thought, language, and meaning.”
Nicole Rudick (managing editor of The Paris Review) on Hannah Höch
German-born Hannah Höch (1889-1978) was a photographer, specializing in photomontage. She studied art in Berlin, and later joined the Dadaists. Höch’s work was deeply embedded in the technique of photomontage, which she refined through a cut-and-paste approach. Pablo Picasso’s Cubist artwork was an influence. Mostly, it was her passion for photomontage that allowed her to speak about her ideology, both politically and socially, especially her criticism of the Weimar German Government. Her signature series was the Dadaist dolls, which echoed her views about gender roles. In many ways she was a pioneer in the early feminist movement.
The Art Story, which is a website about modern art and its style and philosophy from 1860s to the 1970s, has the following to say about the early modernist Hannah Höch:
“Höch was a key progenitor of the self-conscious practice of collaging diverse photographic elements from different sources to make art. This strategy of combining formerly unrelated images to make sometimes startling, sometimes insightful connections was one that came to be adopted by many Dada and Surrealist artists of her era, and also by later generations of ‘post-modern’ conceptual artists in other media, including sculptural installations, mixed media and moving images, as well as in still photography. Höch also helped expand the notion of what could be considered art by incorporating found elements of popular culture into “higher” art. She was one of many Dadaists to take advantage of such means, but she was both among the first, and one of the most self-consciously explicit in describing the goals and effects of doing so.” I hope that you are inspired by her philosophy and photography.
Hannah Hoch
View other entries for this week’s challenge:
https://ohmsweetohm.me/2016/08/29/
https://angelinem.wordpress.com/2016/08/29/sally-ds-mobile-photography-challenge-seeing-things/
https://artalsolife.com/2016/08/30/
https://christinejrandall.wordpress.com/2016/09/01/bees-in-equalized-colour/
https://chasinglifeandfindingdreams.wordpress.com/2016/09/01/discover-what-you-look-for/
Note:
As always I welcome comments about this post or any part of my blog. My photographs for the mobile photography challenge are taken with an iPhone 6.
****If you would like to buy a print of any of my photographs or have any questions, please view the Contact Information found on the masthead. Thank you.
If you’d like to join this Mobile Photography Challenge, please click here for details and history of the challenge. If you have any questions, please contact me. Below is a reminder of the monthly schedule with themes for upcoming challenges:
1st Monday: Nature.
2nd Monday: Macro.
3rd Monday: Black and White.
4th Monday Challenger’s Choice (Pick One: Abstraction, Animals, Architecture, Food Photography, Night Photography, Objects, Panorama, Portraiture, Photomontage, Still Life, Street Photography, and Travel).
5th Monday: Editing and Processing with Various Apps Using Themes from the Fourth Week.
Lens and Pens by Sally 
What a beautiful, poignant poem and a spectacular image.
Cybele, I’m humbled. Thanks.
So beautiful…gem feelings.
I appreciate your comment and visit.
I think your montage examples have gotten better with each one you publish Sally. I especially like this one. It can be seen so many different ways.
Tina, you’ve brought a huge smile to my day. Thanks.
A different composite photo. It’s open for many interpretations, like hope after the storm. I really like the colours—almost monochromatic.
Otto, I appreciate your comment. Thanks.
Gorgeous and evocative!
Christine, I’m humbled. Thanks.
Gorgeous shot, Sally. The photomontage works perfectly here. We feel like we are witnessing the passage of time over a short summer. Lovely!
Patti, thanks so much for your response. I truly enjoyed your interpretation. Thanks.
love the photo – and some of my favorite words from today are:
Spirit, ego, disposition, behavior.
Spring, summer, autumn, winter.
❤
I appreciate that your response to the post, especially the poem.
Interesting photomontage! Love the colors and blend of images. Perfect. I have never heard of Hannah either. Thank you again for broadening my knowledge of the photography world and all its interesting history!
Nato, it’s my pleasure. Thank yo for your response to my image.
Like most others here, I’d not heard of Hannah Höch, even though I’m familiar with some of the other Dadaists. When I read that she criticized the Weimar Republic, I thought with irony of the regime that succeeded it. From Wikipedia I learned that “Höch spent the years of the Third Reich in Berlin, Germany, keeping a low profile. She lived in Berlin-Heiligensee, a remote area on the outskirts of Berlin, hiding in a small garden house.”
Steve, yes, she managed to keep a low profile. The Dadaists had few women–not unusual in the men’s club of art. She was the most known and famous of that art movement.
Beautiful Sally. The colours and flow of your image are both soothing and mysterious. Thanks for the introduction to Hannah Hoch; I’ve been looking at Dadaist dolls as part of a doll-making project I’m working on, and I’m ashamed to say, I hadn’t made the connection.
Su, that’s happenstance. Glad that you can now make that connection. Thanks so much for your comment.
So beautiful Sally! I especially love the poem. How long did you spend editing and creating the image in photo montage? It is really beautiful!
Nicole, honestly, it was a matter of discovering the images that work well together. Selection is the most difficult part of the process. I have combined from two to five images. I never want it to appear contrived. I’m finding that 2 is optimum, but will go further to experiment. Usually, I will know when the photomontage has it center, so to speak. Nicole, happy to answer any other questions.
I’ve never heard of Hannah Höch, I will have to go and find out more about her – thank you.
hope that you are inspired by her work.
Love the image Sally!
Thank you so much.
Lovely image, colors, and poem. What more can I say? 🙂
janet
Janet, you brought much sunshine to my afternoon.
I love your colour and the textures. It brings to mind desolate landscapes for some reason.
Raewyn, yes, I even see mountain ranges. Thanks so much for your comment.
Gosh, what a lovely image and thanks for the great article on Hannah Hoch. I enjoyed it immensely and it has inspired me. I’ll be back later with my response. Thanks again for the intellectual and photographic inspiration. It’s just what I need right now.
Suzanne, thanks for your thoughtful comment. Will await your entry.
So gorgeous, Sally. The color is the first to draw me in, then as I continue to look at the photo, I think that it is the dream of a flower I am seeing here.
Angeline, I’m humbled. Thank you.
Wow, Sally, what a wondefull pic (the first one)
thanks for sharing
Ulli
Illi,lovely to hear from you. Thanks so much.
To find as well Hannah Höch in you posting was a big joy, too- maybe you saw my article about her?
I didn’t see your article about her. Will visit to read it. Thanks.
Dear Sally, here comes the link:
https://cafeweltenall.wordpress.com/2016/08/12/hannah-hoech-in-mannheim/
Three weeks ago I visited in “Mannheim”, a city near bye, an exhibition of Hannah Höch, it was so brilliant! In this case it is really a pitty, you can`t read my text, but you can see some paintings and one collage of her. She was such a great artist!
I would love to see her work in person. What a treat it must have been. Thanks for the link.
https://cafeweltenall.wordpress.com/2016/08/12/hannah-hoech-in-mannheim/
I know from the link that to truly understand her work, it must be seen in person. It’s complex and interwoven with various themes that may not be as obvious on the internet.
Thats true, Sally, it was such a difference to see the pictures and read the book, which is correspondending with her Collage: self-portrait – she was working on this book, too. I like to read her own words, instead of interpretations of others-
I agree.
Wish that I could read your posts.
Fabulous, I love the colour ❤
I appreciate your comment and visit. Thanks so much.
I love this combination of spring and summer; a fascinating montage.
Lovely to hear from you. I appreciate your comment. Thanks.
The color and textures work well together, Sally.
Ω
Allan, thanks.
Beautifully artistic. Love it.
Thank you so much.