W/NW, A Genuine Abstract Photograph

<p>Well, I don't have anything. I thought I knew what an abstract photograph looked like but now I'm lost after all the comments. Does anyone have a good example or two?</p>

<p>Why don't you post an example of what you thought you knew an abstract photo was and start the thread? All the comments I've read seem very open to accepting whatever YOU think is abstract. If someone wants to give you a hard time about what you post, so what? Either ignore them, argue with them, or learn from them. You won't lose!</p>

<p>http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/abstract-art<br>

Don't worry -- just let 'er rip.</p>

<p>Here's one I've had questions on whether I should or shouldn't clean up all the dust, little hairs and specks on the surface of the Pyrex glass that shows it's a real object instead of a perfectly clean CGI creation.</p><div></div>

<p>Here's another abstract photo shot of the same Pyrex glass</p><div></div>

<p>And this is an abstract photo of a soap bottle bubble disintegrating...</p><div></div>

<p>An abstract picture is:</p>

<p>1. Expressive of some idea or feeling (non-verbal is fine). If the only thing you can think of to describe a picture is "It's a bunch of lines, forms and colors," then it's not an abstract. It's a bunch of lines, forms and colors. "Abstract" is abstract <em>of</em> ... [some feeling or idea].</p>

<p>2. Unmediated, direct conveyance of that idea or feeling. If you see a happy dog or a happy child or a happy bowl of fruit, it's not an abstract picture of "happy." But if you see "happy" without having any idea of what it is that is happy, then you're in abstract territory. <em>Any</em> feeling or idea gotten directly, rather than via a "carrier" will do — trivial, non-verbal, etc. It's not a thing that is conveying your idea or feeling; it <em>is</em> the idea or feeling. Unmediated. Note that as long as the idea or feeling is gotten, it doesn't matter that, on looking closer you can tell what objects are in the picture. As long as what the stuff is isn't integral to or what is conveying the idea or feeling; rather it's the colors and shapes apart from or even in spite of what they are. It is what it does.</p>

<p>[in the recent thread where I said "there are no rules" I was referring to <em>triptych</em>, not to <em>abstract</em>]</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

<p>For me, abstract is not what Julie says. When I look at Mondrian, I see lines, shapes, geometry. I'm sure it makes me feel something, as everything I look at makes me feel something (abstract or not abstract), but I don't think to name what Mondrian makes me feel. I just see the geometry and color. Appreciating geometry like that, to me, is more about getting me into a state than a feeling or an idea. Whatever that state I'm put in is, it's mediated by the geometry as opposed to a narrative.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>The idea, derived from the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, that the highest form of beauty lies not in the forms of the real world but in geometry, is also used in discussion of abstract art as is the idea that abstract art, to the extent that it does not represent the material world, can be seen to represent the spiritual.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>This, from the link to the Tate museum, conveys something about abstract art I can relate to. I don't consider it a complete or final definition. As with so many genres of art, I think there are good and better descriptions and ways to discuss it rather than defining lines or limits.</p>

<p>"I'm sure it makes me feel something ... "</p>

<p>That's kind of insulting to Mondrian.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Expressive of some idea or feeling (non-verbal is fine).</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Rereading Julie's post, I see "non-verbal" feeling is included, which I think may get closer to where I want to be, but it's still not far enough because I think there is something beyond feeling. <br /> <br /> I look at a Pollock or a Mondrian or a Kandinsky or a Moholy-Nagy and it's not really about feeling for me as much as contemplation. "Happiness," "excitement," "sadness." "fear," or some unnamed feeling seem unimportant to me in relationship to these kinds of art. As a matter of fact, if I come away feeling such a way, it might just be because, without necessarily consciously doing so, I'm making some representational association. "Pollock - fireworks - elation" would be an example, even if I don't realize this is what I may be doing. <br /> <br /> I'm not sure Tim's photos make me <em>feel</em> differently from Pollock's paintings. And none of them make me think about feelings, but rather, when most effective, put me in a state of contemplation or non-associated reverie. What I love about abstracts is that sense I have that they all make me feel kind of the same and that I'm actually taken to a higher place than feeling. <br /> <br /> Kind of like Plato's take on opinions. Feelings, in this world I'm talking about, are more like "mere" opinions. Abstract art helps me achieve something beyond that.<br /> <br /> I wonder sometimes if feelings get over-emphasized with respect to all kinds of art. Are they just random subjective reactions to personal associations we wind up making? Is there something more, something that will get me out of myself and beyond these "personal" feelings that I sometimes sense act more as a bind than a liberation?</p>

<p>Don't worry, Julie, Mondrian and I are cool. He never gets insulted by me.</p>

<p>"I wonder sometimes if feelings get over-emphasized with respect to all kinds of art."</p>

<p>See the history of Modern art. What came after Abstract Expressionism? First Pop, and then ... [i won't bore you; that was ages ago.]</p>

<p><em>"Here's one I've had questions on whether I should or shouldn't clean up all the dust, little hairs and specks on the surface of the Pyrex glass......."</em><br>

<em> </em><br>

<em><br /></em>Tim, I photograph quite a bit of art glass, and in the dead of winter I pull out some small antique glasses and play with them. I've found it preferable to clean it up. Glass is full of internal imperfections and, as you know, it does wonderful things with light and color. Those qualities are easier to appreciate without dust, cat hairs, and other day to day schmutz, especially in a close up. A wipe with a clean micro fiber cloth is helpful.</p><div></div>

<p>Cannery Row Hotel</p><div></div>

<p>In camera abstract using D600 w/24-85mm VR, cropped and levels adjusted in Lightroom. I tried to convey a feeling of movement like a waterfall. This is an abstract and can have different interpretations or maybe none. <br>

Tim, I enjoyed your presentations but you don't have to prove that they are photos, nor do you have to provide the details of how the work was made. What the object is made of is irrelevant, your work is what's important. <br>

Sanford, I like the W/NW format, we need a place where we can present our work without rhetorical arguments over the definition of abstract.</p><div></div>

<p>Sanford is a fast learner. :)</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Tim, I enjoyed your presentations but you don't have to prove that they are photos, nor do you have to provide the details of how the work was made. What the object is made of is irrelevant, your work is what's important.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Ronald, that's another aspect about the difficulties in deciding how I present abstract photos in that I think the more fantastical, ethereal and yet realistic they look, the more I think the story behind its creation makes the viewer take wonder about our Earthly existence which is my intent behind my abstracts.</p>

<p>Julie's definition of how an abstract should be made and presented to the viewer to evoke some kind of emotional response is broad enough for me to include wonderment, if that's even an emotion. I and I'm assuming other photographers really can't think or really know about what the viewer is going to feel when shooting scenes intended as abstract.</p>

<p>My test is out of all the 1000 or so thumbnail previews I don't have the time to browse in Bridge, the ones above grab my attention and leave me speechless after being away for months. I can't even remember when and if I shot them. It doesn't look like something I would make.</p>

<p>For me that's a kind of magical out of body, alternate personality kind of experience. All in all I just like them. The second one still takes me aback that I'ld see this in a Pyrex because I can't recreate it. I've tried it. How did I see that particular composition of forms, lines and color. I definitely was on a hunting expedition and I bagged a rare keeper. That soap bubble shot will never exist again.</p>

<p>What I've just described above is my motivation and what drove me to create them, not what someone is going to feel about them. But I'm pretty much the same as the next fella' so I know I'm somewhere in the ballpark that my abstracts say something to someone as they do for me. Not interested if they're suppose to make the viewer feel or think the same as when looking at a Pollock abstract.</p>

<p>And I think I answered my own question that Laura addressed about cleaning up the subjects I shoot as abstract photos. I've decided I'm going to keep it a bit dirty to give it some grounding and juxtaposition between their slightly ethereal nature and the knowing by sight it's a photo of an object. I have blurred compositions of similarly styled abstracts but I can't tell if it's a painting or a photo.</p><div></div>

<p>Anders, at first glance at your B&W abstract photo I couldn't tell if it was glass or strangely shaped weeds which makes it even more intriguing. I like it when I think it's one thing and it turns out to be something else after closer inspection. Was the trick of the eye caused by the creator or by the viewer?</p>

<p>Laura, that's some really rare and interesting looking antique glass I've not seen before. The Pyrex glass experience has motivate me to rummage around looking for colored glass at affordable prices in thrift stores. I found a few but I discovered from the flaking off the color was painted on in a factory in China instead of the chemical reaction created color in the Pyrex glass.</p>

<p>Sanford, Wow! Simple and effective. And its a diptych! Or is that one shot composed to naturally convey a diptych arrangement. Don't know why it makes me want to think about flight and USAF Strategic Air Command.</p>

<p>Ronald, what ever that is it's got a lot of energy and looks dangerous to get next to.</p>

<p>Tim,<br>

Goodness, no, that's not glass, but you've surely seen it before. It was an old piece of fabric taped to the outside of a window. I loved its loose and frayed weave as it gently moved with the breeze. The way light moved in and out of it got me from across the street and it had an almost organic quality to it. I like Anders window so much, and thought to follow up with a window dressing. <br>

But, here is some antique glass. We found 3 sets of glasses, all very small, and each set in a variety of colors. I think they may have been made by the same company, or they were popular colors at the time. I like the colors and lines. I also make art glass but have yet to photograph it an any kind of artistic/abstract manner.....maybe this winter. Maybe tomorrow.</p><div></div>

<p>For you to think about, especially with regard to all of the above (which I am enjoying). I disagree with many of the entries in these tables (below), but it's not agreement that's valuable: it's the 'thinking-about':</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

<p>Thanks Tim, one photo and I admit I had to look up "diptych". </p>

<p><em>"I wonder sometimes if feelings get over-emphasized with respect to all kinds of art. Are they just random subjective reactions to personal associations we wind up making? Is there something more, something that will get me out of myself and beyond these "personal" feelings that I sometimes sense act more as a bind than a liberation?" (Fred)</em><br>

<em> </em><br>

Fred, I think you are, with these questions, touching at something central to what has been going on in "abstract art" since its very start. Emotions and feelings, might be the first step for entering ento the world of abstract art, but the ambitions are go far further.<br>

A few notes on the initial first steps toward abstract art :<br>

Reference to Mondrian are central for trying to answer the questions, but also Kandinski. They were both searching for a new visual art which excludes an immediate reference to the "external" world - the one we see around us, going beyond what the impressionists <a href="https://www.jacksonsart.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/claude-monet-impression-sunrise.jpg">(Monet, 1873</a>), and fauvists (<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2d/Matisse_-_Green_Line.jpeg">Matisse 1905 </a>had achieved.<br>

<a href="http://img.over-blog-kiwi.com/0/03/12/29/201211/php4v1wUr">Kandinski, first abstract aquarelle</a> from 1910, was making the initial steps towards abstract art developing an art based on emotions, spirituality and passions with references from listening to and playing music. He searched for a visual language, based on the expression and symbolism of colors and rhythms provoked by relations between pure formes. But it was mainly his <a href="http://www.artsymps.com/files/1449931392-144.jpg">Blaue Reiter 1903</a> , which became the iconic expressionist painting for a large number of artists of the similar inspirations.</p>

<p >Piet Mondrian, <a href="https://d32dm0rphc51dk.cloudfront.net/CgsDHhK_bgFmGWJ6jfye8A/larger.jpg">Composition C, rouge, jaune et bleu, 1935</a>), went further and tried to find a spiritual essence of reality and life - what he called "universal harmony" where <a href="http://images.google.fr/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2F1.bp.blogspot.com%2F--nNlaqgWobw%2FUqhGJz-5mOI%2FAAAAAAAAA6E%2FQpSnzAIrEAU%2Fs1600%2F001malevitch.png&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fartsplastiquessaintepulcherie.blogspot.com%2F2015_12_01_archive.html&h=990&w=1000&tbnid=xCZf58jFx82VyM%3A&vet=1&docid=yvJvVi3jNau87M&hl=en&ei=n-1HWLyELsWTavyHufAB&tbm=isch&iact=rc&uact=3&dur=522&page=0&start=0&ndsp=25&ved=0ahUKEwj8z-vM-OHQAhXFiRoKHfxDDh4QMwggKAEwAQ&noj=1&bih=776&biw=1440">Malevich's black square, 1915 </a>became the ultimate extreme example.</p>

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<p>Anders, I think approaching the OP question "from the rear" i.e. from history, seems to be making people unhappy. So why not try looking at it "from the front":</p>

<p>Sanford and Tim have these pictures that they like very much, that they were excited to take/make and they don't know what they "are." What do you call pictures of nothing that get you excited, looking at them?</p>

<p>I'll leave that unanswered but give what makes me not immediately say "Great! If you're excited, I'm excited to see them!" and that is that I always have a suspicion that people who consciously "do" abstract are simply imitating what they've seen other people claim to be abstract. In other words, they're excited because they think they're doing a good imitation, not because of what it is that they're seeing. "It looks just like [some famous abstract] so it must be really good!" without any idea of what made that [famous abstract] either abstract or good.</p>