civilized ku # 3085 / diptych # 213 ~ black and white and red all over

red coat ~ Manhattan, NYC, NY • click to embiggen
reds and neutrals ~ Manhattan, NYC, NY / Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen

Over my years of viewing and making pictures, I have come to the conclusion that the pictures which best prick my eye and sensibilities are those about which it could be asked, why'd you make a picture of that? Pictures which could have been made by Captain Obvious tend to leave me bored to the point of picture viewing death /tears.

And conversely, when my pictures are viewed, the highest compliment / comment that I like to hear is, I don't know why I like this picture, but I do. Most often that statement is made by a viewer who is puzzled by his/her appreciation of a why'd-you-make-a-picture-of-that? picture. And that statement is often followed by another - I would never have taken a picture of that. Hence, the confusion.

I believe I know the appropriate reply to both statements although I always hesitate to provide such information to a bewildered viewer of my pictures for fear of the explanation being perceived as an insult ....

... iMo (and experience), I feel confident in writing that the appreciation / "like" of a I-would-never-have-taken-a-picture-of-that picture is rooted more in the subconscious mind, rather than in the conscious mind, of the viewer. What they are responding to on a subconscious level is the rhyme and rhythm (concordant or discordant / pleasing or unsettling) of the relationships of shapes, tones, color (most prominent amongst other picture qualities) and their framing as presented on the 2-dimension surface of the print. Because this is a non conscious thought on the viewer's radar, the puzzlement is the result of liking a picture of what they would consider to be a non picture-worthy referent.

Therein lies the dilemma for most picture makers who attempt, in many cases unsuccessfully, to make pictures of I-would-never-have-taken-a-picture-of-that referents. What they lack in the attempt is a sense - the more refined the better - of the relationships of shapes, tones, color (most prominent amongst other picture qualities) and their framing as seen by the camera's eye and subsequently presented on the 2-dimension surface of the print.

Can that sense be learned? I have my doubts simply due to the fact that I have encountered a number of picture makers who 'have it' and an even greater number of those who don't. Nevertheless, those who don't can have some success in developing that sense if they start out picturing by the 'rules' - the rules of composition and the like. Once understood and successfully applied, they can then set out about trying to figure out how to break the rules and move on to making pictures of what they see as opposed to making picture of what they have been told - the what and the how - is a good picture.

Comments

[Jim Roelofs]

Timely, Mark and greetings. I sometimes get, "I never would have thought to photograph it that way", or similar.

[Jimmi Nuffin]

"like"