Unseen Wilson: Motion and Color
Philip “Dutch” Bagley: Motion
Begun in Stillness
Awakened from the Lightness
Movement is Boundless
(Haiku)
‘Give me a camera and I shall move the world’, is my photographic short take on Archimedes’,’, ‘Give me a place to stand on, and I shall move the world.’, his explanation on the principle of the lever.
The universe itself is made of moving parts, whether in the form of atoms, molecules, mountains, or oceans. Motion moves my world, your world and everything on this planet that we photograph. Motion is our life. Any instant in time is a combination of everything moving. I would ask, “Does a camera really freeze that instant of time?”
About the Artist: My photographic education is a self-taught one, exploring all aspects of image making. When capturing an image, I try to create the final image print in his mind, ‘before’ pressing the shutter release button. What we observe, feel and experience forms the core of one’s life’s story. Part of the story is reflected in photographic images taken in an instant of time, in my world, that here and now. The act of processing those images allows me to express how deeply, either with awe, joy or sadness, those moments in time have affected me. The images are how I tell my story.
I have been photographing for pleasure since the 1970’s with large format cameras, building my own darkroom for film and print processing. I have photographed with older SLR’s and newer DSLR’s, incorporating the current digital processing software available today. In 2014 I joined my first camera club, which evolved into becoming a member of five clubs and associations. I frequently enter many local and national competitions and have been honored with many awards and exhibit opportunities from them. I also make photographic presentations to local clubs about my photographic style and processes.
In my work, I find inspiration in many forms of architecture, constructions and living organisms and I usually focus on the structure of those lines, shapes, and angles and how they communicate and interact with each other. But while I enjoy photographing those constructs, at the same time, I also ask myself, “what if...or how would they move, if they were set free.” Creating these images involves placing myself in a position so that I can go around, under, over and sometimes through an object with the camera as an extension of myself. Each in-camera image review shows me how to take the next exposure and often it is accompanied with a sense of pre-visualization of the final image I want to create, that will make a stronger visual impact for the viewer. Without a tripod I use body, arms, hands, and LIVE view to see it happen in real time. I become one with the camera. So, therefore I am ‘moved’ to create a new life for images that can stand on their own or comfortably reside in a community of images that share uniqueness. They are real, they are abstract and they come from within.
It was on a long trip with Bill Jordan, in 2018, when we stopped in his hometown of Wilson NC, and I created motion images from the ironworks in Whirligig Park for the day. When I returned home to Elkins Park PA and mentioned to dad that I was in Wilson, he laughed and smiled, and reminded me again of the ‘love of his life’ during WWII. These images taken in Wilson will reflect my remembrance of the stories told by my father, and the letters found after his death, about his love for a woman, who in the end, rejected his love, and eventually moved to Wilson to teach in school for the last five years of her life in Wilson NC.
