Doug Roy, Quilting Bee, Cut Paper
How To Previsualize Your Pictures
Minor White, Zone System Manual 4th ed., 1972.
Expose for darkness. Know the standard ones.
Zone VIII’s vacuous stare: featureless snow,
blank sky. Zone VI: bums camped out below
trestles, walking rails. Zone I: doors open
onto unlit rooms. “Through development
the intentions of the photographer
are crystallized in negatives.” Tether
what can’t be known, though shadows we invent
are no-shows, disguised by measured radiance.
Confidence that photos are “realistic”
hints at impatience with the dull tea dance
of plain evidence. Shadow play predicts
our taste for secrets, our wish to romance
absence, the urge to spite what sight indicts.
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Manny Blacksher