Another perspective (#57 in “a shining moment” series)

 

Make sure you first see/read (and listen to) #56 in this series – this post is a sequel to that.

Same New Zealand place, same North American song…very different results.

I took this post’s photo at 6.01 pm on 29 May 2019, a quarter of an hour after the image atop yesterday’s “Perspective”, but only about five minutes walking distance away – effectively nothing, given the distance to the mountains behind the “top”, northern end of Lake Tekapo.

If you look closely at yesterday’s picture you can see that it does include both of the key elements in today’s image – a glaciated peak, and waterbirds.

The images are, however, dramatically different, mostly because one photo involved (in 35mm camera equivalence) a 28mm lens/ field of view, and the other 560mm – a 20X “closer” view.

However, even if I had not changed lenses, there would have been umpteen things – ones that had nothing “technological” about them – that I could have done differently.

Each of them would have produced a markedly different result.

For instance, for the wide angle view, I could have stood at full height, tilted the camera upwards, and stood on the water’s very edge.

That would have eliminated the rocky shoreline and wavelets; it would also, effectively, have “shrunken” the mountains further.

The result, I think, would have been a boring image – one that utterly failed to capture the actual magnificence of the particular place and moment.

In terms of human movement, the difference between the two was a shift in the angle of my wrist, stepping forward or back by about two paces, and choosing exactly how high or low I’d stand – or crouch, or sit, or stretch along the ground.

Each one of those “tiny” movements can yield an enormous difference in perspective and image quality.

I am constantly saddened to see so many people who take no notice of the above factors and who compound their failure by looking only at the display on the back of their cameras, which are always held head-high.

If your camera has a viewfinder, use it! …and pay attention to exactly what it is framing, to everything that it “sees”, to how “every thing” relates to “every other thing”…and to what it is not “seeing”.

If your camera lacks a viewfinder, buy one that has one.

If you are currently a “display screen, only” camera user, I can almost guarantee that you will see a rapid, dramatic and ongoing improvement in your photos’ average quality, if you henceforth always look through your camera’s “window” – i.e. through its eyepiece.

The above holds true, whether or not your camera is an SLR.

Train yourself to “see” accurately through the eyepiece; if you pay attention, you will start to see almost what the camera really sees..how it sees – or fails to see, or sees very well – whatever it is you hope to capture…how things really are, “in the frame”…and where “horizontal” really is.

The golden rule when shooting wide angle: the foreground is what needs your closest attention.

—

A few words from Stephen Sondheim:

DuBose Heyward has gone largely unrecognized as the author of the finest set of lyrics in the history of the American musical theater – namely, those of Porgy and Bess. There are two reasons for this, and they are connected. First, he was primarily a poet and novelist, and his only song lyrics were those that he wrote for Porgy. Second, some of them were written in collaboration with Ira Gershwin, a full-time lyricist, whose reputation in the musical theater was firmly established before the opera was written. But most of the lyrics in Porgy – and all of the distinguished ones – are by Heyward. I admire his theater songs for their deeply felt poetic style and their insight into character. It’s a pity he didn’t write any others. His work is sung, but he is unsung.

Sondheim’s words are contained in his book, Invisible Giants: Fifty Americans Who Shaped the Nation But Missed the History Books, but I read them in a fascinating article by Stephen Raskauskas.

Published in 2018, that article is primarily about Summertime – the song at the musical heart of #56 and #57 in Pelican Yoga’s “a shining moment” series.

You can read all of The true origins of Gershwin’s “Summertime”, here

In terms of “number of great songs  – songs that stand alone, which can stand any number of different approaches to them” – no other American opera or musical is remotely a rival to Porgy and Bess.

The nearest contender would be West Side Story; its songs’ music composed by Leonard Bernstein, their lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

Porgy and Bess was based upon Dorothy Heyward and DuBose Heyward’s play Porgy, itself adapted from DuBose Heyward’s 1925 novel of the same name.

DuBose Heyward in fact wrote the opera’s libretto, and he – not Ira Gershwin – wrote  most of the songs’ lyrics too. (although we do have Ira to thank for It Ain’t Necessarily So)

George Gershwin wrote all the music…more or less.

Summertime’s melody more than somewhat resembles the one which commonly carries a song that many African Americans had known since the days when they were still enslaved.

Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child was, when Gershwin wrote Summertime, a well-loved “Negro Spiritual”.

The song is well-loved, still, although the generic term is not.

Does this make Gershwin a contemptible thief, yet another white bloke stealing from black people?

In my opinion, not.

Porgy and Bess may have/pose “problems” – especially when the “20/20 hindsight” blowtorch is applied to it – but we ought not forget that at a time when most white Americans’ attitude to black Americans ranged from indifference/wilful blindness through to literally lethal racism, Gershwin and Heyward presented their largely-white audiences with a production whose fully human, tragic hero and heroine were black Americans…and, via several of the best songs ever written, they moved many people, profoundly…that is not a small achievement.

That said, the connection between Sometimes… and Summertime is, I think, inescapable.

…and it did not escape the attention of Mahalia Jackson (1911-1972), whose  Wikipedia entry is uncommonly excellent.

Certainly the most influential gospel singer, Mahalia Jackson was also one of the most influential singers in the history of popular music, in the secular, “pop” sense.

If asked to name the five 20th century singers who had the most profound influence on popular music, my answer would be “Louis Armstrong, Édith Piaf, Bing Crosby, Mahalia Jackson, Little Richard” (it is influence I am talking about, not artistic merit, nor “golden tonsils”…three of those five would not make my personal “top 1,000 favourite singers” list, much less my “top five”)

The delicious irony is that Mahalia Jackson almost always resolutely refused to record or perform any secular songs.

The very few “secular” exceptions were really not so very secular, or were songs Mahalia could bend to her “sacred” purpose.

You are about to hear what was billed as a “medley”, but is really an entwinement:

 

 

This extraordinary performance was recorded on March 27, 1956. Mildred Falls played piano.

I urge you to click here for Gwen Thompkins’ perceptive and lively 2019-vintage essay about Mahalia Jackson; it is equally good when it addresses Mahalia’s actual self as when it assesses her continuing influence, even upon those who don’t know her name.

The truly weary tend not to holler about it, but Jackson lets out the word “tired” like a dragon blowing fire

Numerous videos are embedded within Gospel Queen on the King’s Highway: the power and the glory of Mahalia Jackson.