This oil painting, by Nina Ellsworth, grabbed my attention because of an idea I’ve been thinking about regarding interpretive work. Much of the photography I’ve been doing over the years has been literal. Recently, I’ve started exploring more impressionistic pieces, sometimes bordering on abstract. Abstracts do evoke feelings because of color, form, and intrigue as where the image came from. My sense, however, is that I’d prefer to give a hint of what the image is, or in what context the photo was shot.

For me, Nina achieved that with this painting. The majority of this rendering is impressionistic, blurry, “out-of-focus,” except the bicycle. It is the sharpest element in the painting and anchors me to a reality. Photographers do the same thing. When one or two elements, ever-so-small, are in sharp focus, while the rest is soft, out-of-focus, an image is rendered as somewhat impressionistic, or interpretive. This can be achieved with large apertures that lend shallow depth-of-fields coupled with selective focusing. Or it could be the use of shooting through rainy windows, photographing reflections, or using long shutter speeds so moving elements become blurry. Of course, some of this can be achieved via post-processing in photo-editing tools.

In Nina’ s painting, she’s got what photographers call bokeh, blurry background, scenes beyond the lens’s depth-of-field. I really like that—look at the string of lights across the top! And look at the shadowy silhouette of a plein-air painter.  In photographer’s terms, this painting has very shallow depth-of-field. The bicycle is the sharpest. Everything beyond it is impressionistic in varying degrees.

And as a complement, the warmth of the painting generated by the incandescent lights is enhanced by the golden frame—a beautiful piece.

No wonder it sold!