Shoes and Eyeglasses (symbols)

One further comment: most of what passes for "abstract" photography is cases where the photographer transcribes (photographs) what he thinks the viewer won't be able to identify and that's his only purpose; if you can't tell what it is, it must be abstract. He hopes you won't be able to identify what it is.

i reckon most photographers hope viewers will view their abstract photos as abstract paintings or, at least, in the same league as other 2-D visual artistic stuff.

if you can't tell what it is, it must be abstract.

but even when you are told what it is, it is still an abstract photo. being told that an abstract photo is in fact a photo of soap bubbles in dappled light doesn't make it any less abstract for most people

hope viewers will view their abstract photos as abstract paintings

Abstract painters have an idea in mind — passionately in mind — that they hope to convey via their art. It can't be transcribed; it can be expressed.

Most abstract photographers have no idea in mind at all other than transcribing what they think (hope) can't be identified.

If it "is" soap bubbles, it's not abstract. That's the point for painters; it's something that can't be transcribed. Soap bubbles can and are transcribed.

A case could be made — and I would love chewing it over with anybody who wants to make it — that if you start from Szarkowski's statement in The Photographer's Eye that:

... you can see abstract photography not as expressive of the photographer's ideas but rather as of the world-as-artist's ideas, and we as recipients of its art, its attempts to express what it can't transcribe. Of course, that means ascribing 'ideas' to the 'world' ...

If it "is" soap bubbles, it's not abstract

but it "never is" soap bubbles. that's the point.

if you start from Szarkowski's statement

how about starting with "a reduction from n-dimensions to n-1 represents an abstraction"

It "never is" anything. It's a transcription.

to me a transcription is a mapping and i can't see any difference between a photographic mapping and a painted mapping. even allowing for intent, tools, viewer bias etc.

edit: n defines photography

i can't see any difference between a photographic mapping and a painted mapping

Really?

n defines photography

n is a placeholder

photography is placefilled

n is a placeholder

 

photography is placefilled

no, photography is an nxm array of dots

One further comment: most of what passes for "abstract" photography is cases where the photographer transcribes (photographs) what he thinks the viewer won't be able to identify and that's his only purpose; if you can't tell what it is, it must be abstract. He hopes you won't be able to identify what it is.

Julie, thanks for the 2 stories, which I found both helpful and interesting. Nonetheless, I have some reservations about the statements above. When a photographer creates an abstract image, do you really think that a viewer's not being able to identify the subject is "his only purpose?" In my somewhat uneducated opinion, I think this is overly generalized and/or overly strong. Indeed, in some cases, a viewer cannot discern or identify the subject of an abstract image. There are others, though, involving degrees of abstraction, in which there may be some identifiable elements.

Michael, I think the answer may be pretty simple. It's not really that an abstract photographer's only purpose is a viewer's not being able to identify the subject. It's that the purpose of many writers is to sound both certain of themselves and like they know what they're talking about, with a little provocation thrown in for good measure.

Speaking of subjects, I often like non-abstract photos whose subjects I can't identify or are too numerous to mention. Also interesting are photos, absract and non-abstract, whose subject is the photo itself as opposed to the "thing" in the photo masquerading as the putative subject.

Speaking of subjects, I often like non-abstract photos whose subjects I can't identify or are too numerous to mention. Also interesting are photos, absract and non-abstract, whose subject is the photo itself as opposed to the "thing" in the photo masquerading as the putative subject.

Fred, you've described why I've been so attracted to abstract photography - in its many varieties. Also, your first sentence, above, is interesting, and it prompts me to consider it down the road when I make photographs and when I view them.

it prompts me to consider it down the road when I make photographs

You do it all the time. I do it all the time. Everybody does it all the time. There will be stuff in your pictures that you didn't know was in your pictures. It's unavoidable in photography. Transcription.

Supriyo, in wandering through the U.S. Holocaust Museum's library of photographs, I found an image that, in my opinion, has extraordinary impact and power. It speaks obviously to the Nazis' planned extermination of the Jewish people, but it also prompted me to wonder about the persons who wore these shoes - where they lived, what they did, etc. I am attaching a copy of the image, FYI.[ATTACH=full]1189440[/ATTACH]

Michael, when I first visited the Holocaust museum, I was in my early twenties. I still remember the impact this image had on me (there were also other artifacts on display from victims). First you see a pile of shoes, then you see a pile a dead bodies. Each shoe is a like a skeleton, bearing the testimony of the denial of their right to existence by another fellow human being.

Michael, when I first visited the Holocaust museum, I was in my early twenties. I still remember the impact this image had on me (there were also other artifacts on display from victims). First you see a pile of shoes, then you see a pile a dead bodies. Each shoe is a like a skeleton, bearing the testimony of the denial of their right to existence by another fellow human being.

Supriyo, I am very grateful for your response. It clearly demonstrates your humanity.

How about the shoelace as a symbol?

It can be about a holding feeling of security or perhaps representing organizing and self improvement. Or, a symbol of belonging to a gang (skinheads wear white and red laces) or a challenge to conformity.