ku # 559 ~ get real
Monday, March 16, 2009 at 09:02AM 
Natural things that emerge from under the snow • click to embiggenMost often when photogs make pictures of patterns in the natural world - usually in the form of a "close up" - those pictures are described as abstracts or some other phrase that includes a variation on the word "abstract".
This labeling practice has always struck me as rather odd because, other than as reference to the medium of painting - specifically, Abstract Painting - there is nothing "abstract" about the pictures at all. After all, unless some extreme technique has been employed in a picture's making, it is, first and foremost, on its 2-dimensional surface a picture of a real, not an abstract, thing.
This labeling notion was on my mind relative to yesterday's picture while I was both making it and processing it. The same notion rose again to the fore this AM when I came across an online article titled, Seeing Like a Painter. The piece was not published for painters but rather it was written by a photographer for the photography audience. The photog in question is often called "one of the world's foremost nature and wildlife photographers" (or words to that effect) and is currently offering workshops ($4,000 a person) that attempt to "effect a transformation in the way photographers see, to revolutionize their approach to shooting".
In order to achieve that "transformation", advice such as this is offered:
When the positive and negatives spaces become co-equal in your imagination as you compose the shot, you have seized control as an artist and are not merely grabbing images but creating them. You are thinking in terms of form and line, not of things ... once you begin to study the compositions of the masters, you will see opportunities in the real world, where blurred antelopes become brushstrokes, a foggy ridge becomes a Sumi painting, or leaves blowing in a snowstorm are a Seurat come to life.
Oh, boy. Scratch my back with a hacksaw. Just what the medium of photography needs - another "master" leading people astray - if you want to be a good photographer, study painting.
Doesn't this "master" know that, since its inception, the medium of photography has struggled to be considered as Art primarily because it was considered to be inferior to that other 2-dimensional medium called "painting" - in a nutshell, because it was considered as an anybody-can-do-it, you-push-the-button-we-do-the-rest entertainment for the masses? Or as this "guru" states, "merely grabbing images".
Doesn't this "master" know that, in its early years, the medium tried to gain admittance to the World of Art by applying a wide range of "artistic" effects (AKA, painterly effects) to photographs? And that that movement basically prevented the medium from gaining its own medium-specific identity which only came about when photogs started emphasizing the medium's unique relationship to and with the world of the real (real "things")?
Apparently not. As is evidenced by the notion that real things should become "brushstrokes" and that real things should also become "a Sumi painting" or a "Seurat". Not to mention the idea that you should think about "line and form" and not the about the "thing" you are picturing.
Now, if I were to conduct a workshop titled How To Kill Your Native Creativity By Building Nearly Impenetrable Walls Between You and Your Subject, I would also add to that what-to-think-about advice the idea of thinking about anything and everything technique and gear oriented. You know, heap on as any things as possible that might divert your attention from the object/subject of your eye's and camera's gaze - put as much stuff as possible between you and the "thing".
Yep. Sure thing. That's the ticket to "seizing control as an artist" in the medium of photography.
When I think about the medium of photography and its many possibilities, I tend to think along these lines:
The cumulative effect of one hundred and thirty years of man’s participation in the process of running amuck with cameras was the discovery that there was amazing amount of significance, historical and otherwise, in a great many things that no one had ever seen until snapshots began forcing people to see them. - John Kouwenhoven
For me, there are 2 operative notions in that statement; 1) the idea of "snapshots", that is to say, pictures that are or appear to be casually created and composed. A characteristic that gives "easy access" to viewing a picture as opposed to having to get past the initial impression of technical virtuosity, and, 2) the idea of "forcing people to see them" - I am all for the idea of "forcing" (via the notion of "easy access") people to see the "significance ... in a great many things that no one had ever seen", but if you want someone to see the significance of something that is real, I don't see how turning a photograph into something resembling a painting helps in any fashion.
No, when it comes to dancing with the partner you brought to the dance, I enjoy dancing with the unique-amongst-the-visual-arts characteristic that the medium of photography brings to the Arts Dance - its inherent and inimitable relationship to/with the real.
Reader Comments (6)
And let's not forget this is the same "artist" who, in a book entitled "Migrations" decided that his herds of migrating animals would look better if there were, well, more of them. Animals, that is. So he used Photoshop to add more! And, if a photo included an animal disinclined to follow the herd, he simply cloned it out.
Yep. Nature photography at its finest. Not to mention, by golly, control well seized!
In general, I agree with what you're saying here. However, I don't know that I'd be quite as harsh. Like you, I don't like photographic manipulations - the more obvious the manipulation, the less I like it. That's especially true of "additions" and "subtractions". In my opinion, if you do that to an image, it ain't a photograph anymore (which got me into a whole lot of trouble over on the old Radiant Vista site).
But I don't have a problem with reasonable tonal or color adjustments and I do believe that the term "abstraction" can justifiably be applied to certain photographs.
Now, I don't know if the photographer in question here is a "master" or not. I'll leave that to someone else. But I do think a fair amount of his work is pretty good (although I've tempered that view a bit since I started reading about manipulations he may have done - it's like discovering that your favorite pro athlete has been taking steroids).
My point here has to do with comparative styles. If we disregard the whole question of what Art is and what it isn't, and if we then set up some kind of dual gallery display where this guy's work was shown along with your work, which images do you think would get the most attention?
Before you get upset, I'm not in any way denigrating you work. Much of it, in my opinion, is very, very good. But your style tends to keep contrast and color saturation very flat. If that's reality for you, then that's the way it should be.
Given the choice, however, I would say that most people will be pulled in by the other guy's stuff. Most of all, they want to see contrast in an image. And his certainly has that.
The "lesson" is simply this: If you think you have something to say photographically, it might not be a bad idea to include a little punch in your images just to get that initial attention. It doesn't have to look like this guy's or Galen Rowell's or like it was made with Velvia film, but just a little "zap" can't hurt, can it?
From today's post / rant about Art Wolfe's thoughts on teaching photography by encouraging his students to mimic the work of painters...
"Oh, boy. Scratch my back with a hacksaw. Just what the medium of photography needs - another "master" leading people astray - if you want to be a good photographer, study painting."
From your November 24th post describing your satisfaction in discovering a camera store printing service representative got what you were trying to say with your "Decay and Disgust" series.....
"You could have knocked me over with a feather because he "got it" exactly right. On the illustrative side of things, he knew that I was/am mimicking the Flemish still life masters with my use of "ideal" north light, the color palette, and a general sense of composition, And, on the illuminative side, he also understood that, like them, I am also picturing items that are suggestive of and metaphors for the "transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death". He knew that these concepts were/are hallmarks of paintings created in the vanitas manner - a type of symbolic still life painting commonly executed by Northern European painters in Flanders and the Netherlands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. And, not only did he "get it", he actually really liked the pictures. I'll say it again, you could have knocked me over with a feather."
Knock me over with a feather indeed.... A long time ago Mark I found out about your blog when you offered up a rant about my Podcast "Fear of the Rules or Fear Itself".
I got linked to that post and have been a big fan ever since :) - visiting often and entertained and inspired on a regular basis but rarely posting.
So I thought today might be a good time for me to show up here and inject a little of my own "get real" push back into this corner of the internet.
When is it OK to encourage people to think about painting as a reference for making pictures?
When is it OK to hope people see beyond the surface of things?
As recent as a few days ago you were hoping people would see underneath or beyond the centered trash in your "Things That Emerge From Under the Snow"series.
A couple of other notes while I am at it. I don't know Art Wolfe. I met him once at a NANPA conference where both of us were speaking.... he was a paid headliner and I was a volunteer doing a small speech in a breakout room. He seemed like a nice enough guy. What I do know about him is that he has his own gallery. Its in Seattle and its quite impressive to say the least. After all of the discussions here about print sales it might not be a bad idea to hear his thoughts on selling photographic prints and having a viable brick and mortar gallery... Craig
Like painting photography is taking three dimensions and flattening them into two. Checking out how the other guys used to do it couldn't be too harmful. That's not to say we need to copy them, but they did do a good job and we'd be remiss if we ignored that. The more you see the more you know and that certainly can aid your efforts in making sense of what/where we find we're in while we're here in this life.
I haven't seen the exhibit or the book, but I've seen plenty of Edward Hopper's paintings and Stephen Shore, Robert Adams, Joel Sternfeld, Arbus, Callahan, Eggleston, Walker Evans, Frank, and Friedlander's photographs. The Fraenkel Gallery traces the influence of Hopper on photography, stating no less than he "could be the most influential photographer of the 20th century - even though he didn't take any photographs." It's a book I will be buying.
So if one buys Fraenkel's premise, then "seeing like a (specific) painter" has had profound influence in photography.
In terms of abstract it seems to me that painting tends to go the way of using something unreal/imaginary/non-literal to represent something real. Photography goes the other way - taking a portion of te real to represent something else, or not be a picture of the thing itself.
Habe to agree with you on the whole notion of thinking like a painter when photographing.