Cat and Shadow, Bagno Vignoni, Italy, Copyright 2009 Marcie Feldman
I bet the cat in Marcie Feldman’s Cat and Shadow has no idea how good he’s got it. He’s at the Bagno Vignoni hot springs, a gloriously restorative and scenic spot for a soak. I’m not the only one who thinks these baths are magical—the Medicis used to zip down here from Florence for a dip. And this feline probably has no idea who the Medicis are. I’d wager he doesn’t even like water. But judging from the way he’s staring at the wall, he just might appreciate the outrageously gorgeous light of his Tuscan setting. Maybe.
Marcie Feldman captured he light bouncing off the pocked stone wall so that it seems to be coming from the surface itself, and it ties the entire image together. It gives depth and nuance to the tree’s shadow, creating warm edges and variations where a shadow might normally be flat and unchanging. And it’s these same variances that allow a two-dimensional projection of a shape to hold more visual ground than the three-dimensional cat and bench in the foreground.
And that’s saying nothing of the tree itself. More horizontal than it is vertical, at least in this cropping, it’s unusual in its own right. The framing of the shot emphasizes its uniqueness, too, with a slightly right-of-center approach. This allows the left branches to expand, forming an effective counterbalance to the heavy, geometric bench. And the little kitty has positioned himself to round out the image visually and conceptually—he’s a live presence in a scene of stillness, offering just a hint of movement and activity.
But maybe he already knew that.
About Erin Carlman Weber as “The Untrained Eye”
Erin Carlman Weber likes food so much that she tracked down and enrolled in a graduate program at Boston University that’s comprised entirely of talking, thinking and reading about food, with a liberal sprinkling of eating and cooking, too. What does that have to do with photography? Well, she also enjoys a good photograph every now and then, since one cannot live on food alone. (Or can you? Erin will have to check on that…) She is a freelance writer and a contributor to The Urban Grocer, the Boston Globe and Leite’s Culinaria and has been writing for Le Fotografie since October 2010. But I’m not sure how long we’re going to be able to keep calling her “The Untrained Eye” since she’s starting to get pretty good at writing about things that aren’t food.
-Ed Riddell
Curator, Le Fotografie
