Mary Cassatt: An American in Paris, a specialized photo safari in composition with art historian Dr. Hollis Clayson

You cook a wonderful meal and your friends say: “WOW!  That was GREAT!  Delicious!  What kind of OVEN did you use?  You must have a great OVEN!”

You would be miffed, right?  Because you know it’s not the oven, it’s the COOK who prepares a great meal. Great soufflés were prepared by Julia Child, not by her pots and pans. And the same is true in photography: it’s not the camera, it’s the photographer who makes the image. Here at Washington Photo Safari, we firmly believe you can take a good or bad picture with ANY camera!

Photography, like painting, is all about composition:  the symmetry, the balance, the leading lines, the framing, the perspective, the use of light,  and  the points of interest in the image that draw the viewer’s eye. So this safari is all about training you to see and capture good composition in your own photographs.

Here in Washington DC, we are blessed to have magnificent works of art displayed before us at no cost by our National Gallery of Art, and the latest blockbuster exhibit there is entitled: Mary Cassatt, An American in Paris.

WPS is pleased to announce a special new photo safari for this exhibit at the West Building of the National Gallery of Art through which we will be once again by guided by the preeminent art historian Dr. Hollis Clayson.

In recognition of the centenary of her death in 1926, this special installation at the National Gallery of Art brings together some 40 works: paintings, drawings and prints primarily from the collection of the National Gallery the most significant repository of Cassatt’s work.

Throughout her life Mary Cassatt defied expectations, forging her own path as a woman and as an artist. Born in Pittsburgh to an affluent family, she began to study art as a teen, an unusual choice for a young woman of her social class. In 1865 she traveled to Paris to continue her education. For most of her life Cassatt straddled two worlds: her country of origin and her adoptive home in France where she lived for over 50 years.

The safari is led by architectural photographer and Washington Photo Safari director E. David Luria who studied photography in Paris with a protégé of the French photographer, Henri Cartier Bresson, famous for capturing “the decisive moment” in his classic photographs.

And we are honored to announce that we will also be guided once again by one of the foremost art historians in the country, Dr. Hollis S Clayson, retired professor of art history and Bergen Evans Professor of the Humanities at Northwestern University, who will be joining us to give her perspective on each painting’s compositional elements and its meaning, as she did two years ago with another exhibition of French painting.

Looking at these images, we will study them carefully from the point of view of composition: where does your eye go when first look at the photograph? Where are the leading lines? What is the subject? How is it lit? Check out the placement of people as bookends to make the composition more interesting. Check out how the artist gets in low and close and tight on her subjects.

The safari will then conclude with a question and answer discussion with Dr. Clayson about composition, how to make your pictures so INTERESTING that other people will want to look at them!

Any camera or late-model smartphone is acceptable for this safari.