John Hilliard

The conceptual artist

Hello steemians!

Every follower of mine (and some of not following me) knows that I am a photographer, and furthermore, I love art. Art and street, photography and filmography. Those words are not easy to use them to reveal one category. I chose to follow street art, because I want to share and shout the true image of the road. No fake faces and smiles, no retouched bodies and for sure no "power of naked". I prefer to reveal naked the truth and not just a body.

P.S. The winner of the #3 dedication contest is @illatus

This is photography. This is me.

My dedication for this week will be for a conceptual photographer-artist, John Hilliard. I am sure you will love his work. He is not a street artist, but he is for me too an honourable artist. He uses his art to reveal the power of light and how your camera understands the chances of the light.

One of his best (and my favourite) work is the "Sixty Seconds of Light", year 1970.

In this photo, we can see one object, but several different shots.

"The photographs represent a standard photographic dark-room clock photographed in artificial light (to ensure a constant light level) against a wall. The clock is supported on nails that are not visible in the photographs. The clock belongs to John Hilliard, who bought it specially to carry out P07233 and has subsequently used it constantly. As the photographs record, the clock was set to indicate twelve different durations of time increasing by regular 5-second increments from five to sixty seconds. The clock’s indication of each time-span determined the simultaneous length of exposure of the film in Hilliard’s camera. From the resulting negatives, the enlargements used in all three versions of P07233 were exposed in the enlarger for a standard length of time. This length of time was determined by the exposure-time required to produce an accurate image from the five-second negative which was then scrupulously adhered to for the eleven further prints; this uniform exposure time was measured, during the enlarging process, by the same clock."
source

This is what you see in this picture. P07233 is the name of this image, for Tate.org.uk .

You can understand that this image reveals the light and the time. More time, more light.

There is another one art piece, that Hilliard wanted to reveal the power of light too and let the viewer study and understand the role of Aperture, speed and light.

Camera Recording its Own Condition (7 Apertures, 10 Speeds, 2 Mirrors), 1971

Here, I want to say that, those shots were made close to 1970. Those days there where no photoshot, digital cameras, or any like this. His camera was with film, medium format, and... film. Think about it. Film, means you will not be able to see what you shot, if it is net, if you managed to give the right f, or shutter speed. Everything was revealed at the dark room. This photograph, reveals those situations. What happened if you have different situations on your camera.

This (for me at least) was the beginning of what we call "conceptual photography".

What is Conceptual Photography?

It is simple. It is a type of photography that illustrates an idea. source

Hilliard as a conceptual photographer, reveals a world so different from what we can see at our first look in his art pieces. This is the conceptual's miracle. Let's make a test.
Before you see what is this picture, I would like you to click the image and watch it closely.

Ok. Now, almost everyone will say that this might be a fashion photography. Right? Maybe. Artist named his photo "Green Trousers / Red Room, 1969"

For me,it is a photograph that reveals the thoughts of a woman, a girl I would like to say. She is trapped in her thoughts, lonely with nothing more but only her body and her clothes. She is in a red room, with no furnitures, no window (you can understand this not only because there is no visible window here, but the light is very sharp, and the shadows have hard contrast revealing that the light source is very close to our object), and her body speaks to us. Look it closely. No shoes, she cannot watch the camera, she is "playing" with the carpet (look at her hand) and her look of the face (her head) reveals fear. This photography reveals a phychological condition.

Those were your first thoughts? Maybe yes, maybe not. In this question, add this. Don't forget to add the year of it's capture. 1969. Those days there was hard to manage photos like this.

John Hilliard (born 1945) was and is one of my favorite photographer. There are not many shows revealing his personality, but only his works.

This is my life. This is photography

My sources
Wikipedia - John Hilliard
Tate.org.uk
Artsy.net - John Hilliard
Youtube A really good lecture about Depth of Field

My weekly dedications
Dedication #1 - Stephen Shore
Dedication #2 - Bruce Gilden
Dedication #3 - Garry Winogrand