PHOTO SKETCH

Digital sketches 1995-2005

The idea that works of art are created effortlessly is a romantic assumption of the naive outsider. Art based on an elegant gesture is only real for a limited group of artists. Of course, at all levels there are artists for whom the merit of a work lies in its uncomplicated genesis, but there are probably many more for whom the significance lies in the repeated attempts to get things right.

The outsider should know this. The popular image of a Japanese artist may be one of a person who creates a marvellous picture with a minimum of perfect brushstrokes, but the film cliché of a writer is much more realistic. Here we see someone who sits at a typewriter, grappling with his opus magnum, a wastepaper basket full of crumpled pages at his feet. Of course, our Japanese artist did not acquire his skill without investment. The elegance he is now able to demonstrate is founded upon years of development, of trial and error, hidden from the public eye, just as is the case with musicians and dancers, for example.

Ruud van Empel resembles the writer. His strategy: keep on trying until it is perfect. This is no idle process when you remember that compiling one assembly can take a hundred and twenty hours, and this book, which is certainly not an exhaustive representation of his work, presents no fewer than several hundreds of these images. Van Empel’s days consist of repeating, repeating, repeating. Lengthy series of men at their desks, men next to windows, endless series of views, shop windows, forest vistas, women set in a variety of backgrounds, children in woods, children in ponds. In each series, only a small percentage offers the appropriate palette of emotions. These are the pictures that travel all over the world.

Why isn’t an artist successful at the first attempt? If there is a lack of experience, technical shortcomings can play a role. But with dyed-in-the-wool artists like Van Empel it is less easy to discover the reason. But the following circumstance certainly plays a role: a mental picture does not always facilitate a straightforward translation into an artwork.

In the film ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’, Steven Spielberg presents an interesting view of this process. Extraterrestrial beings project a mental picture into the heads of the Earthlings they wish to meet. It is a picture of a mountain on which the flyer saucer is going to land and where the rendezvous will take place. The chosen ones turn out to have no idea of what they should do with this enigmatic revelation. They begin to paint and draw industriously, make sculptures, with the intention of somehow getting a grip of developments. One by one, all these attempts to capture the vision in paint, on paper or in clay fail miserably. Nevertheless, in the long run, the results gradually seem to improve. A rapport between the ‘artist’ and the ‘work’ slowly takes shape. Eventually, only one conclusion can be drawn: the work is finished. The mental image and the material picture finally correspond. Only now is it suitable for interpretation, and the mountain in question is ultimately found.

Without having to resort to extraterrestrials and mysterious messages, the creative process can also occur among normal mortals in exactly the same way. In everyday reality, it is all too clear that there is often a gap between the image in the brain and what emerges from the artist’s hands. Mental images that seem to be extremely concrete, detailed and complete develop in the mind of the artist. But eventually they turn out to be much more vague than anticipated. That is when the work to clarify them begins. This labouring process comprises: perceiving, creating, evaluating, waiting for an inspired moment, and then repeating the creative cycle all over again until everything ultimately falls into place. If there is no moment of inspiration, the project is doomed. But if it does occur, the project can spiral upward toward success.

If this is the creative process, one must stand firm in one’s shoes. The cycle will be a long one if every round demands seven full days’ work. One less-time-consuming failed attempt is sufficient to hurl many an artist into a deep artistic depression. It is extremely frustrating when something that has taken control of your mind cannot be expressed. One must learn to be knocked down and rise again just as enthusiastically. In that sense, Van Empel resembles a stuntman who simply dusts himself down and gets on with his business where he left off.

Of course, Van Empel does not make it easy for himself. Photo assembly is not an activity for the indolent. Every artistic discipline demands its own specific type of artist. It is obvious that not everyone is suited to coping with the required accuracy of digital cutting and pasting. But the real threshold lies on a different plane. People expect a photo assembly to be just as complex as a photograph – but it requires the patience of a painter. The more realistic an assembly is, the more it resembles a photo that has been shot with one press of the button. In other words, the more time and refinement invested in an assembly, the less you recognize that it is an assembly.

Due to this ongoing refinement, Van Empel’s work has become increasingly realistic, but it remains disputable whether or not one ought to aim at achieving an invisible assembly technique. This perfection may deprive the assemblies of the vigour they currently borrow from the discipline of painting. If the work looks like pure photography, it will be regarded as such by those who do not know any better. Pure photography, created with one click of a button, has one disadvantage. A pure photograph has a certain casual quality that tells the viewer that he or she need not be absolutely serious about accepting everything shown. Coincidence almost always plays a role. If a portrait photographer concentrates on a facial expression, he or she may ignore the background, the light, the posture of the body, or the line of the clothes. If a landscape photographer concentrates on the incidence of light, coincidence may lie in the details, composition, or the significance he or she assigns to the landscape. 

There are major differences between photographers – one may seek to exert more control than the other, perhaps to a greater extent than the viewer realizes. In that case, the viewer will take much less from the photo than the photographer has put in. In the course of time, photographers have found a remedy for this, whether intentional or not. Photographers emphasize the attention they devote to a photo in the style they apply. They use plate cameras to capture extra details, they extract an image from its setting, or stage their photo in a studio. By keeping the creative process visible, the image is indemnified against this casual quality. Extensive photoshopping and assembly are also to be found among the remedies used.

But assembly has another key difference with photography, and a major correspondence with painting. It is not a matter of recording, but rather a matter of (re)constructing. Beginning with an empty screen instead of a full frame, the artist has the freedom to place fantasy images on photo paper, and the viewer will understand that every detail has been deliberately depicted. At the same time, however, another problem arises. The world that we represent is so complex that we are scarcely capable of recreating it in a realistic way. To achieve a degree of photo-realism, the artist must not only be capable of making perfect compilations with his fingers, he must also be able to represent these in his or her own mind. An image must be explored right down to the smallest facet. This makes photo assembly just as complicated as painting.

This book is called ‘Photo Sketch’, which doesn’t mean that pencils or charcoal have been employed, but rather that a collage of photos has been made using the computer. But this step has been preceded by notes and pencil sketches on paper. To Van Empel, this stage has a lower rank in the creative process. These sketches resemble the mental image too much, it may not be safe to trust them. In the digitally generated photo-sketch, all kinds of technical and compositional voids have been filled in, right down to the finest details. They can best be regarded as solid preliminary studies, and it takes at least 7 working days to produce one. First, all the picture elements have to be photographed, a process in which the angle of shooting and the incidence of light have to be taken into account. Abundant shots are made, so that the artist has plenty of choice later. This stage requires much searching and organizing, but occasionally Van Empel makes use of his growing photo archive. Once the photos have been loaded into the computer, they have to be digitally cut. This is a labour of love, just as time-consuming as it is precise. After the cutting comes the pasting. The detached picture elements are shifted around and manipulated until they form an entity whose proportions, perspective, composition, and light are exactly right. During this stage, some picture elements are discarded and others adopted. Unsettling seams are digitally erased and colour and contrast are attuned to the artist’s taste at that moment. Only then is the photo sketch finished.

What is the difference between a photo sketch and the real work? A photo sketch is a preparatory study. It looks like a real work but does not yet evoke the proper emotions and associations. The gap that still has to be bridged to achieve this always turns out to be unexpectedly wide, as Spielberg’s film shows. 

 

1995-2002

Having been an art director responsible for the design and layout of TV programmes and films for many years, Ruud van Empel began making photo assemblies to meet his own creative urge. In this period he generated images of men at their desks, in laboratories and other areas. A window series evolved, as well as a series of location portraits. In addition, he produced short series of shop windows, television pictures, mirror effects, apartment blocks, and cupboards. Scissors and a gluepot were initially used to create the assemblies, but with the passage of time and the development of his artistic qualities, the computer was increasingly applied. He also began to take more photographs himself, gradually compiling an extensive library with all kinds of people, objects and components, with all their characteristic features. The assemblies from this period are not yet as refined as those from subsequent years. This is the time that Van Empel was engaged in comprehensive experimentation, learning the technique, and charting the possibilities.
Of course, much went awry. For example, he worked for six months on a laboratory series that was eventually consigned to the wastepaper basket. This extremely labour-intensive series of assemblies, realized with a perfectionist commitment, scarcely aroused any interest among the general public.

 

1999-2004

Van Empel went one step further in his project entitled ‘Study for Women’. Whereas he previously compiled human figures from several ‘contributors’, he now began to employ hundreds. Ancient Greek sculptors used to form perfect physiques from the individual parts of various models. In a similar manner, Van Empel combined various parts of top fashion models, among others. In this way, he could create unknown new models from the bodies of household names.
The snake in the grass is the great expertise with which we appraise people. Based on thousands of years of experience, we have become very adept in drawing conclusions from the appearance of a person. It has always been important to be able to judge whether some is well-meaning or ill-disposed, strong or weak, or, for example, fertile or infertile. This kind of interpretation has become extremely refined and detailed down through the years, but occurs largely in the subconscious. This makes it difficult to create a proper photo assembly of a person. Many of the women depicted seem to emit enigmatic signals; 80% of all research on women can be disregarded. The way in which we specialize in such appraisals became evident in Van Empel’s baby series which was produced much later, in 2004. To the childless Van Empel, the babies looked marvellous, whereas many parents experienced a rather oppressive feeling on seeing them. No fewer than 80% of the baby photos flopped, only four were eventually printed.

 

2002-2004

‘Study in Green’ built further on previous work in which nature was a central feature. We see paradisaical wooded landscapes, an ironic acknowledgement of the sweet scenes that serve as examples for embroidery, for instance. The ambience and the details are the key aspects. We see the most beautiful experiences of a lengthy ramble in the forest compressed into one image. Despite this euphoric line of approach, viewers articulate different opinions. Instead of enchanting woods, they see unsettling primal forests in which danger lurks behind every tree. One of the possible reasons for this is the many angles and sharp forms of our northern forests. When these are later replaced by tropical jungle with its many rounded and curved shapes, the oppression makes way for a feeling of elation. In the assembly process, experiments with perspective and the creation of depth play a major role. In almost all the wooded images, light can be seen in the distance. It is very difficult to give eloquence to pictures like these, without a main object. A little more than half of all attempts, around 60%, are unsuccessful.

As auxiliary projects, Van Empel created a small series of autobiographical portraits. To do so, he made use of various backgrounds of the surroundings in which he grew up. The models and the clothes turned out to be unusable. For personal reasons, this series was never completed. In addition, he started on a series of child nudes, a series which was eventually abandoned due to the controversy around this theme.

 

2005-2007

Everything seemed to turn out just right in the series entitled ‘World Moon Venus’. Honed by experience, Van Empel worked increasingly purposefully. The idyllic forests became expressive backgrounds for portraits of young children. The central theme was a paradisaical world full of innocence. Nevertheless, not every attempt was successful. For example, the idea of presenting a child whose reflection is shown in a river could not be realized – it turned out to be impossible to get the perspective and the composition right. Originally only white girls were depicted, but later black models were also employed to indicate that Van Empel had no social or political preference. With the change in skin colour, however, social positions nevertheless made their presence felt. Without wishing to make explicitly socially engaged work – innocence is the central theme in this series – emotionally charged associations are easily roused. Accordingly, some of the photos can be discarded due to the colonial-like clothes, and a girl in Muslim dress was also omitted from the series. On the other hand, voices in New York have already expressed the idea that black bodies have seldom been presented in such a neutral manner.

 

Flaptekst

Life is not a stroll in a rose garden, and this also applies to the artistic profession. In this book, Ruud van Empel presents work that almost every other artist would prefer to sweep under the carpet as discreetly as possible: work that didn’t make the grade. Van Empel uses a method of trial and error. The hundreds of attempts to create the ultimate work of art, as presented in this book, are only the tip of the iceberg. We see assemblies ranging from works which are scarcely distinguishable from the products that Van Empel proudly presents to the outside world, to work from series that have always been kept in cold storage. The scope of this book extends from work that is finished but not approved, to work that stranded somewhere in the creative process. In addition, we see examples from Van Empel’s comprehensive digital warehouse, with an assortment of picture components that he photographed and extracted by means of computer techniques.
The photo assemblies, which are arranged more or less in chronological order, provide a fascinating insight not only into Van Empel’s evolution as a digital artist but also into his own particular method of working.

The text in this publication was written by Pieter van Leeuwen, editor of Dutch photo magazines such as Foto, Digifoto, and PF.

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