Cecil E Hayes

Artist Statement: Cecil E Hayes

Photographs:

I got my first camera in 1961 shortly before going to Europe for the summer. I took along three rolls of 35mm Kodachrome, 108 slides to cover 98 days. Today with a digital camera, I can often take one or two hundred photos per day while traveling. And I do not have to wait until I get home to have them developed. In the intervening 60+ years, I think that my percentages of successes has marginally improved. But with the massive increase in the number of attempts, I no longer have enough wall space to display the ones that I find interesting. I have opened this website in the hopes that some may find a home elsewhere.

I still take most of my pictures while traveling for two reasons. First, it is easiest to respond to the novelties of new situations. Secondly, that is usually the only time that I take my camera with me. I have largely given up on trying to capture the the grandeur of a wide panorama. Usually the sun is too high in the sky, there is a haze, or my wide angle lens is not wide enough. Instead I narrow the field of view and focus on details that are often overlooked. 

One subject that I am particularly drawn to is water in all of its natural forms. Breaking waves and cascading streams present a new pattern every second. A fast shutter speed can catch the violent action that is too quick for the eye to follow in real time. Ocean water and fresh water come in many subtle color variations of blue and green. Surface ripples modulate and distort the underlying substrate to generate abstract patterns. 

I have recently begun to use Photoshop to produce composite images that I call natural mandalas. I place a single image with flipped or rotated versions of itself at the four corners of the new image.  This results in a highly symmetric array that depends strongly on which corner has the original image. The reorientation and overriding central focus can make it difficult to identify the original image.

In general, I use Photoshop only sparsely. I try to retain the natural colors rather than ramping up the contrast and saturation to make the colors "pop." I often clip off the unused portion of the histogram.

Art Projects:

Over the past sixty or so years, I have made many small pencil drawings in several sketch books. (One of the sketch books still has the 35 cent price tag on the back.)  Most drawings are only small compositions measuring a few inches on a side. Recently have I begun to convert some of them into larger wooden constructions. I scan them into Adobe Illlustrator, enlarge them, and then trace out patterns, which I use to generate the shapes in thin plywood. I think this process maintains the spontaneity of the original, quickly drawn sketches.