We’ve just returned from a 6 week journey to Texas. I had all good intentions of posting a September 1st Blog from the road. Simply put, hotel internet connections combined with little time in the evenings just didn’t allow for a regular monthly Story Behind Every Photograph. 

   This month’s image was made way back before 2000 when I began keeping track of dates.   Rebecca, Block Island was made with a borrowed 7×17″ Korona “banquet camera”.  These type panoramic cameras were used back in the early 1900’s to record large groups of people. Hence the term banquet, where it was likely to find dozens of people shoulder to shoulder posing for a long panoramic photograph. Since the late 20th century these cameras have enjoyed a resurgence amongst landscape photographers using large film for a unique horizontal perspective, a perspective I highly favor.

   Not only did I borrow this 7×17″ camera from my friend and fellow Large Format photographer Peter Bosco, the composition I choose was sublimely a result of the same owner of the camera sharing an important thought with me in September of “97. That’s how impactful this phrase was to me, I remember the exact time and place, “Steve, it’s all about filling space in the composition”.

   A bit of background on the statue and it’s origin and intent. ¹Named for the bible’s Rebekah-at-the-well, Block Island’s own “Rebecca” stands at the center of the Old Harbor traffic circle. This iconic Block Island lady was put in place in 1896 by the local Women’s Christian Temperance Movement, which hoped to curb the consumption of alcohol on Block Island. Temperance fountains were installed in hundreds of communities. The idea was to offer clean water as a healthier option to the ubiquitous refresher of the time, beer. Restoration experts have concluded that Rebecca is in fact Hebe, cupbearer to the Gods at Mt. Olympus, also goddess of youth and the wife of Hercules. Hebe was said to have diluted the wine she was tasked to serve. The white statue was recast in 2001, and it still succeeds in reminding us to consider the negative effects of alcohol consumption. 

   Some of the more important considerations for this image are the little things that likely go unnoticed, saving for fellow Large Format photographers who regularly compose an upside-down and reversed image on the back of the camera.

• Buildings and expected vertical uprights must be corrected for, and portrayed as plum
• I wanted to leave enough space above the light pole while still leaving space underneath the statue’s base
• The smallish “Gallery” sign on the extreme left hand side of the image was vital to be included
• The extreme right side of the image could not cut off any important features of the building’s architecture
• Because I only had the one borrowed focal length lens, this exact composition involved moving the camera backwards and forwards and refocusing to get the perfect relationships to all four sides of the image
• The early morning sun washing the white clap-board had to be controlled while preserving some semblance of shadow detail, long before I really understood the dramatic potential of contrast control with Black & White films.

   The above mentioned components bare out my belief, the center of interest is most times obvious and straightforward. What’s most important me, both in my own compositions, and from others who practice contemplative photography, “Where does the photograph begin and end, what information is at the borders of any given image, and why were those choices made !!