TECHNICAL DETAILS
Jean Pierre Jacquet, Master Stone Carver, Burnsville, Minnesota, 2019
Sony A7iii
Sony Zeiss 16-35 f/4 G OSS
ISO 50, 16mm at various exposures
MASTER STONE CARVER
My Creative Spaces project has been growing beyond what I initially imagined. I’m thrilled to have landed a showing for this series of portraits of working artists at a major gallery for late fall this year. But OMG… the pressure is on to shoot enough to fill out the exhibit! It’s been a delightful process of making connections in the arts community to find a selection of artists willing to collaborate on this portrait series. And it is definitely collaboration. I’ve been shooting all of the portraits for this series as composites, often employing extensive focus stacking and exposure blending to achieve the look I’m after. So there is a lot of setup and positioning involved. I generally shoot the working space first, then bring the artist into the scene and capture images specifically targeting the person in the scene, without having to worry about what’s going on in the background. And this facilitates a very deliberate and contemplative approach to composing the image, certainly more so than a traditional single-frame capture. The artists have responded to this enthusiastically. Because I shoot these tethered to a computer, the working captures are immediately visible, as is the view from the camera during setup. The artists have been embracing the opportunity to place tools carefully, inspect elements in the scene, and collaborate with suggestions on what to include. And after all, they are artists. The sensibilities they bring to composing the scene makes these images ever so much stronger.
This past week I spent a delightful late afternoon and early evening to make a portrait of Jean Pierre Jacquet, a Master Stone Carver from Avignon, France, who now works and resides in Burnsville, Minnesota. I became aware of Jean Pierre and his extraordinary stone work through social media posts by his wife, who happens to be a high school classmate of mine. Though we had not stayed in touch, really, we connected in the lead-up to a recent class reunion, and I had the pleasure of meeting them there last summer. After work one afternoon last week, I drove out to their lovely, wooded house in Burnsville, where I found Jean Pierre moving around some large blocks of stone in their driveway. One bay of the garage is full of stone-working tools and equipment, and a section of the driveway was full of raw stone blocks, pieces in the queue for restoration, items nearing completion, as well as pallet jacks, dollies, and other supports for working with the massive and weighty materials. It was an afternoon of intermittent bright sun and intense showers, so it was immediately obvious that we’d be shooting from inside the garage studio. The perspective and contrast between the darker, warmly-lit interior and the lush, wet exterior was an obvious element to include. We pulled the red, wheeled work table into the center of the shop space so I could use the garage wall and workbench as a backdrop, while taking in the sweep of light to the outside space.
A couple of the artists I’ve done for this series wanted to bring a personal element or two into the scene, and Jean Pierre had a few choice pieces to include. Growing up in the stone carving trade in Europe, he had apprenticed with Masters from several different regions for more than a decade before he earned the top designation himself. And with that achievement, he was awarded the symbolic regalia of a true Master: a staff and a shawl. The staff is made of special, flexible wood, with a metal appointed end and a carved ivory top piece, fitted to align with his heart when he stands in front of it. While real ivory is no longer used for these, his was bestowed before such bans came into place. Some of the tools around the piece were handed down from his Grandfather. And rich with symbolism, a stole is draped over his leg in the final version. The thin, gold-toned cloth is like an academic shawl, adorned with symbols and historic in its implication for having attained the credential. His mastery of stonework is much in demand, and he continues to work on both original commissioned pieces and historical restoration work all over the map.
Saundra, my classmate, circled the edge of the scene as we were putting the portrait together, capturing some photos—and even a video snippet—of her own to document the goings on. After, she created a marvelous simple meal of greens, cheeses, fresh vegetables and bread, which we shared as we reminisced and explored the many experiences that brought us all together on that date. I was delighted with the images captured, and the process of putting the final portrait together brought the vision to its final presentation.
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