About My Father's Great & His Small  Series

Source of the Great & Small Photographs

Over time Gregg shot a Photography Series on Clouds. He photographed clouds both before the sun cleared the horizon in the morning and after the sun went below the horizon in the evening. There is very distinctive, eye-catching lighting at these times of the day. He shot only the water vapor which gives them form and shape. There is not a single drop of dirt or a line of horizon in any of his photographs. There is cloud majesty in all of them.

He photographed from about seven different locations around Colorado Springs, CO. He would assess the cloud formations, determine the best spot to shoot from, and go there and shoot. Clouds at sunrise and sunset guided and his cameras followed. This is where and how most of the cloud photographs were captured.

In the Photography Series on Clouds, the subject matter itself approaches pure design. The diffuse, ephemeral style of clouds lends them to be freely rendered exclusively like capturing design itself. Gregg found this freedom made photographing them to capture their essence a special delight.

Over time he shot a Photography Series of the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. That is where most of the wild flower delicate nuances were captured. Shooting and releasing wild flower beauty is in a class by itself. It is also a special delight.

My Father’s Great & His Small  Concept Born

The Title Name My Father’s Great & His Small  came to me in an unexpected flash. I was out hiking on a mountain back road enjoying the forest and the northwest face of Pikes Peak when the name unexpectedly materialized for me out of the blue. The visualization of a cloud photograph, Great, over a wild flower, Small, was seen on numbered sets of prints. Interrelated Great cloud expanse design and Small wild flower delicacy design where the total is greater than the sum of the parts was seen. They would all share the same Title, My Father’s Great & His Small  and be identified by progressive numbers. They have become known by their Title #, #1, #2…#16.

The mixture of their natural beauties in each print unleashes the inter-connected beauty of the Great & Small designs. Grand design and petite design exhibit the same elements of design. The blending of design in every Great & Small duo is easily recognized. They clearly reinforce and amplify each other. They display a pleasant visual symmetry. It makes it easy and pleasurable for the eye to go back and forth between Great & Small and Small & Great. Every Great & Small resonate together and expand each other.

Putting the Great & Smalls Together

A determination has to be made in regard to which cloud and wild flower photographs to blend together. This is a delightful job. I sit down at the light box with a slide magnifier, a lupe. I proceed to go through all the cloud photographs and all the wild flower photographs and mentally file who can go with who from one side to the other. Sometimes it is a cloud that looks like it goes with a particular wild flower. Sometimes it is a wild flower that looks like it goes with a particular cloud.

Potential pairs are laid out Great over Small. The lupe goes back and forth numerous times while a combination decision is made. The biggest difficulty is there are so many to choose from it can take a moment to get back and find the right cloud or the right wild flower. The second biggest problem is there are so many to choose from there can be more than one cloud which would go with one wild flower. Also, there can be more than one wild flower which would go with one cloud. The slide magnifier goes back and forth numerous times with each possible combination.

Then the big decision has to be made of which of those best complements each other. It is a time consumptive process best done over several days. That gives time to think the combinations through and assure they show the best symmetry possible. Also, it is a very pleasurable, fun, satisfying job so there is no problem with taking the time to do it right.

Print’s Physical Properties

The prints are either 24” x 48” or 24” x 42”. A cloud photograph, the Great is on top. A wild flower photograph, the Small is underneath the Great. The Great’s are all a 22” long horizontal layout. The Small’s are all 20” long. The difference in overall print height depends upon whether the wild flower photographs are either vertical or horizontal layouts. They mostly follow the natural vertical growth flow of wild flowers and are vertical layouts. A few of them are horizontal layouts. With the vertical layouts, the prints are 48” long. With the horizontal layouts, they are 42” long. Either way, they are My Father’s Great & His Small.

The prints were designed to give each photograph enough size to fully release their beauty and to do justice to them individually and as a pair. Prints do hold up a fair sized wall.

Capture Exactly What You See and Planned Growth

The traditional photograph darkroom has turned from a darkroom to a software darkroom inside the computer. Gregg makes no composition changes, cropping, or exposure changes inside darkroom software. Everything he does he does inside the camera. He shoots to capture exactly what he sees.

All these prints were all shot on 35 mm Fuji Chrome Color slide film. They are digitized to be printed to their respective sizes. There is a deep pool of cloud and wild flower slides. There are easily enough to put around a hundred cloud/wild flower pairs together in big prints. The decision was made to start with sixteen prints. The plan is to add new Series, groups of around fifteen big prints at a time, over time. Connoisseurs have freedom of choice over which print/s they want to own. Also, the volume shows there is no question over his capability to consistently demonstrate his ability to render clouds and wild flowers individually and together with direction and purpose as Top-of-the-Line Fine Photography Art. Connoisseurs have no doubt over the deliberate quality of what they chose to take home with them.

Enjoy

Enjoy your time here. And then assure you get to enjoy them in your home and/or your business.

Sincerely,

Gregg C. Jones

Nature Design Photographer