Lately, I've been taken with the notion of pastiche as being the most, dare I say, palatable, description of this kind of imitative way of working. Here is an example of a pastiche that tries to reference Winn Bullock. Just as with the original photograph, my image documents an apple that has been divided in two. The image was captured on film using the Rolleiflex SL66. Still life is a much more difficult genre to work in than one might expect, but on the other hand, no two apples are exactly the same.
Here is another pastiche, inspired this time by Aaron Siskind. In Siskind's image, the branches are more filigreed and reminiscent of a painter's brush strokes. Mine is an image of Yew branches and I have tried to distance myself somewhat from a direct reference to the idea of mark making. As with the previous image, this one was photographed using the SL66.
Not sure I'd want to make a habit of working this way as a matter of course, but I have definitely learned a few things by trying to walk a few miles in other artists's shoes. One of the most valuable is coming to appreciate how hard they've had to work.
