A wedding photograph that looks like a Vermeer. Not a bad thing.
The STROBIST had a post recently of a make believe interview with Flemish artist Johannes Vermeer (make believe because he lived about 300+ years ago). His work rocks on! He’s the artist the movie “Girl with a Pearl Earring” was based on.
Anyway, the interview goes on about how he was a master of painting with light and shadows and if you know anything about painting, that’s what painting is pretty much about.
The idea of bringing up Vermeer was rather interesting because as a teenage art student, he was one of several masters I came across that profoundly influenced me.
So much so, that one day,. back in ye old film days, I was photographing a wedding when I spied one of the wait staff pouring champagne into awaiting glasses and something struck me as “hmmm, this looks like something!”
I captured the image, and only later did it sink in the waitress going about her chores very much resembled Vermeer’s “The Milkmaid”.
That’s when it also dawned on me that one of the things my art training and hours in the museum studying painting did, was to register scenes in my mind that would subtly influence me later in life… I suppose as all education does.
It appears that Vermeer’s influence on me, in turn, influenced me to make this photo.
Strange, isn’t it, that this photograph, thought taken sometime in the 1990′s, actually had its origin in 1660.
Since then, I realize I’ve gotten several Rembrandts, Degas, Monet and yes, a Norman Rockwell.
Vermeer’s “The Milkmaid”
And, my “champagne maid” Separated at birth?:
click here to see my wedding website.
