Sun Prints

Sun printing relies on natural sunlight to produce an image on paper brushed with a mixture of minerals. Linda's sunprints have a mystical & elusive quality & in this modern woman's perspective we see combinations of spontaneous poses with still backgrounds; overlays & tonal changes in cyan & sepia.Such gently detailed, whimsical & earthy sights of a boy print or an amarylis; a castle reflected in its watery moat; a terrace balustrade casting sunny shadows upon snow; a stalwart cactus in a desert or a triad of lanterns on a London bridge; of lively faces & ancient hands; of birds & beaches & seasons' abundance. Meditative, heart-warming, peaceable pictures, some simply swatches of brush strokes offering glimpses of what her eyes had seen.Linda McCartney's photographs always have stories to tell & make me want to talk about them!

To photograph well is to paint with light: to see what the fall of light on common or uncommon subjects can reveal, and then to capture that image. Linda McCartney photographed mostly by natural light, and her effort to find a way of developing images in the simplest and most natural way fit in with her basic philosophy of life. I feel sure she was pleased with the notion of making what she called a "strong image" (a good "contrasty" photograph) with the sun's light, and then developing it with sunlight and non-toxic chemicals. At the beginning of her career, she photographed rock musicians with unusual insight--she captured the essential child in some of them: the wicked little girl in Janis Joplin, and the sweet, shy boy in Jimi Hendrix. By the time she was experimenting with the process described and illustrated in this book, she was able to photograph people with the same insight she had always had and to find a sort of classic beauty in the commonest household scenes and landscapes. There are a number of striking photographs here, all enhanced by the "limitations" of the developing method. Photos of her son James, at about the age of ten or eleven, reveal a sturdy elf who glows from within. Her portraits of famous and anonymous people capture their presences with enormous respect, tenderness, and some amusement. One of my favorite juxtapositions places a serious dog named Merdock opposite a shot of her husband peering through a magnifying glass. The dog has much more dignity. This is a book of photographs by a master of her art--she captures a rainbow of insights in earthy browns and true blues. I bought this book second hand for more than twice the price of the new edition. We are fortunate to have a new edition, and, if we like photography at all, real stupid not to buy it right now.