The Nature of Abstract Photography

[Norma Desmond]

<p><strong>Addendum to John:</strong> As for kumbayah, don't sell yourself short. Your description above of your reaction to Steve's photo being undercut a notch by your understanding kicking in due to his title could be seen as a John Kelly kumbayah moment. I was kvelling!</p>

[mizore]

<p>For me, the most interesting abstractions in photography are more like the Rail Car one, where the abstraction is haunted by the representational and vice versa. I can do pure abstractions in ray tracing software. Why not use the medium's strengths fully than do something that's more incoherent? And I like ray tracking abstractions as well as painted ones, but photographic ones tend to bore me more often than not, unless they're playing with the special attributes of photography.</p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<p><a href="http://www.amadelio.de/fine_art_gallery/edward_weston/edward_weston_pics/edward_weston_16.jpg">Abstraction is poetry without the need for words.</a> Not all photographs are poetic, those that are gravitate more towards the abstract I think, or differently put, the abstract is the gravitational force that can render a photograph poetic more so than prosaic. Perhaps the best of photographs are a combination of both, like Weston's nude ?</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Great point, <strong>Phylo</strong>. Even the most narrative and representational photographs can have and use abstraction. It's a significant tool.</p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<p>I like the last portrait that you uploaded Fred, it seems so effortlessly layered, and yet it is exactly through such layers that tension is mostly revealed and the photograph rewarded with. The layers seem abstract more than the subject in many of your portraits.<br>

Your bio begins that you <em>like to photograph people and their stories</em>, as naturally evidenced in your many layered portraits. But, <em>people and their stories</em>, so where are the women ?, just throw a few of them in the mix : )<br>

Because, I'm really curious in <em>what</em> way <em>you would portray women, the way you photograph men</em>. </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><strong>Phylo</strong>, I'm workin' on it . . .</p>

<p>And thanks!</p>

[michaellinder]

<p>"Why or how do you come to the conclusion that abstracts will place the viewer in the position of prioritizing the interpretation?" Fred, I suspect my use of 'interpretation' may be a bit broader than yours. When used in a hermeutic sense, it encompasses finding meaning on different levels. </p>

<p>Whenever a viewer looks at a photograph, regardless of the genre, doesn't he/she try making sense out of, or finding meaning in it? In many instances, this is quite easy, since the subject or context of the photograph is readily identifiable. In other cases, such as abstracts, this task is much more difficult. </p>

<p> </p>

[michaellinder]

<p>"Creativity," if it's a real characteristic, is nothing by comparison. John, I wholeheartedly agree that there are a number of factors that may influence a photographer's work. You provided an excellent account of what they may be. However, from the fact that my childhood may influence me to root for the underdog because I have a so-called victim's mentality, it does not follow that I am limited in doing so.</p>

[michaellinder]

<p>Phylo: I agree with Fred; your point was very well put. Narrative/representational photographs and abstracts need not be mutually exclusive. </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><strong>Michael</strong>, I hope I understand your usage, yes. My use of "interpretation" is also broad and exists on various levels. Interpretation, even in a hermeneutic sense, is still related to understanding . . . as you, yourself, say, finding <em>meaning</em> on different levels.</p>

<p>I often don't approach abstracts for their <em>meaning</em> or my <em>understanding</em>. It is more <em>sensual</em>, more strictly visual.</p>

<p>I often allow the sensuality and visual/emotional reaction primacy even when viewing a more narrative or subject-oriented photo. I often wait a while to look for and find meaning and to understand. This may speak to Phylo's point. The abstract aspects of many narrative photos will often hit me first, prior to meaning and understanding. Then I will most likely move toward understanding as well.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>I feel abstract art and abstraction speak quite differently. Abstract art (or photography) ideally means something separate from matter. Phylo states that "abstraction is poetry without the need for words." Sometimes, yes, but not always, I think. That phrase can encompass many things. Abstraction is withdrawal or stripping an idea of its concrete accompaniments. Not prosaic, but certainly not always poetic.</p>

<p>The Weston nudes are often abstractions, the image taken outside of its normal concreteness. Much so-called abstract photography is like that as well, but I feel that abstract art goes well beyond such abstractions and into a realm of "separate from matter". You don't recognize any concrete elements (body, structures, etc.) but the image is composed of form, light, colour, composition, texture and accordingly invoked emotions orsentiments that speak from pure idea and extremely little (and usually) no concrete matter. Separate from matter. Another world of visual communication.</p>

<p> </p>

[jtk]

<p><em>"Whenever a viewer looks at a photograph, regardless of the genre, doesn't he/she try making sense out of, or finding meaning in it? " </em></p>

<p>Some do. </p>

<p>Some don't until they've paused simply to taste what's been offered to them.</p>

<p>The difference may have to do with personal discipline, as in Zen practice.</p>

<p>Or it may have to do with humility: who would start by assuming they are in a position to "make sense" or "find meaning" in someone else's work?</p>

[jtk]

<p><em>"The Weston nudes are often abstractions, the image taken outside of its normal concreteness. "</em><br /><em></em><br />The nudes to which you may be referring are commonly spoken of as Weston's most erotic... like his peppers. I find them compellingly and specifically female (the peppers are as literally female as the women). Beautiful lighting of his forms intensifies and defines the "matters" at hand. Far from abstract. YMMV</p>

<p>Other than his symbol-cramped anti-war, gas masked nudes, I can't think of a Weston image that isn't devoted to some sort of essential photographic truth about the physical nature of a very real subject. I don't think that's "abstraction" or "abstract."</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><strong>John</strong>, I don't see what humility has to do with whether one begins with a taste or with understanding. Trying to understand someone else is not presumptuous. It's actually pretty human and social. I can relate better to your other suggestion: personal discipline. </p>

<p>We seem both to begin by tasting. It's the way I have developed (honed) my seeing and my own accepting of what others show me. But I imagine it is also with personal discipline that others move first to their understanding, whereupon the fruit may taste even sweeter once they bite.</p>

<p>"Practice," I think you're suggesting and I agree, is a form of discipline. My main experience with practice is playing the piano. I know from that experience that "practice" without understanding only gets me so far. I can just go over the same passages and pieces and learn them by rote, or I can practice with intention and understanding and add depth.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><strong>John</strong>, just saw your second post. Another great perspective.</p>

<p>Weston's images seem to me also to be devoted to photographic views of the physical nature of real subjects and they also seem to be about light, shadow, and texture. From a certain and significant perspective I adopt, the subject <em>is</em> the light, shadow, and texture . . . and the pepper may recede. Peppers tend to be more peppery when I see them in cookbooks. When I see them in photography books, they can, from this perspective I adopt, be not as much essentially peppers.</p>

<p>What is the essence of a pepper? It changes depending on the situation (so it's not really an essence, IMO). At the dinner table, an essential element is taste and, of course, that they are edible. In the photography book or hanging on the gallery wall, not so much.</p>

<p>Peppers are green, red, and yellow. Weston's photographs are black, white, and gray. The photograph is a picture and not the thing it is a picture of.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>I partially agree with John. For me, none of the Weston nudes -- not one, ever -- is abstract. Quite the polar opposite. In an abstract picture, the identity of the content is either of no or of secondary/minor importance. In Weston's nudes the fact that we are looking at woman is primary, essential, THE essence, the origin of what that picture is or is capable of being/doing.</p>

<p>On the other hand, I disagree where John (indirectly seems to) says that Weston never did abstracts. His well-known <em>Burned Car</em> (I am not linking but is easily found); many of his pictures of patterns in the Point Lobos rock; some of his kelp/seaweed photos; cracked earth in the desert; his graffiti and cracked plaster pictures from Hornitos, and so on. You can find Weston abstracts, but they a minority (the gas mask pictrue of Charis is not only not abstract; it's satire which is polar opposite. It depends on your seeing that this IS a nude woman in a gas mask.)</p>

<p>The most abstract Weston that I can find in the fifteen minutes I've spent looking through my references is his well-known side view of a bed pan. It's the most nearly de-identified thing (the Point Lobos rocks and the others noted above all retain considerable content-identity when seen large; texture and fullness, etc. that localizes the stuff).</p>

<p><a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1987.1100.134">http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1987.1100.134</a></p>

<p>Last, I have to just note because I feel so strongly about it, I absolutely, completely <strong>disagree</strong> with Phylo's statement above:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"Not all photographs are poetic, those that are gravitate more towards the abstract I think, or differently put, the abstract is the gravitational force that can render a photograph poetic more so than prosaic."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Either I have a completely different conception of what poetry is than does Phylo, or my experience of non-abstract photography is entirely different. There is no <em>necessary</em> connection or correlation whatsoever between poetic-ness and abstractness.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Again, if you are not tired of hearing my re-assertion of it, I believe that "abstract" and "abstraction" are quite different. As Fred implies, B&W is an abstraction from reality, just as a Weston pepper, which I believe is is true. Where I choose to disagree with him is his comment that it is a picture and not the thing it is a picture of. That does not make it "abstract" but simply an "abstraction" or a withdrawal of some of its idea from its concrete accompaniements. We still fully recognize the pepper, but its idea or message is transformed to a female form. But it is not an abstract work.</p>

<p>In referring to my comment "The Weston nudes are often abstractions, the image taken outside of its normal concreteness" John finishes by saying "I can't think of a Weston image that isn't devoted to some sort of essential photographic truth about the physical nature of a very real subject. I don't think that's "abstraction" or "abstract." Julie agrees with that comment in her post, in stating that the Weston nudes are images of beautiful women, period.</p>

<p>In a contrary view, I think that The Weston nudes are as much abstractions as his peppers, where the photographer is withdrawing some (but not much, I admit) of the "generally perceivable reality" of the subject and providing (substituting?) his own consciousness of beauty or form or emotion? The term "GPR" may be a bit sticky one to accept, but isn't art photography simply about the photographer playing with a reality normally perceived by his fellows and making it into something that one can perceive as art? De-constructing to re-construct, sometimes poetically, sometimes not.</p>

<p>The photo of the Weston bed pan is also simply an "abstraction" from the normally perceived reality of its concrete form and function, but not an "abstract" in my mind. Does it qualify as "separate from matter"? I don't think so. I partially disagree with Phylo and partially agree with Julie that the quality of abstract does not (necessarily!) make something poetic. It all depends on the context. I have shot abstractions of concrete elements that are not poetic but simply graphic or something else, and I think much of what passes as "abstract" is simply "abstraction" and not poetic. But some "abstractions" and many "abstracts" are. This is equally true, if not more so, for poetic figurative photography, in which the photographer is showing us reality in his or her manner of seeing.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><strong>Arthur</strong>, I did say that "it is a picture and not the thing it is a picture of." I DID NOT say that makes it abstract. Nothing of the kind. I'm saying it's a picture and not a pepper. But, of course, it's a picture of a pepper. It is not an abstract picture.</p>

<p>Look at my post of Apr. 17 at 7:01 PM and you'll see you and I are saying very similar things:</p>

<p><em>"Even the most narrative and representational photographs can have and use abstraction. It's a significant tool."</em></p>

[mizore]

<p>Abstraction and representation are the equivalents in photography of the features of some math chart where things approach but never arrive. Representation haunts the most abstract photography (why the choice, what is the initial object will always be part of an abstract photograph in a way that it's never part of an abstract ray tracing or painting). Abstraction in photography is obvious -- we're not doing matter replication here.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Fred, thanks for the clarification. I assumed you were suggesting it wasn't an image of a pepper but something else. Your April 17 statement is also very relevant.</p>

<p>The on-going discussion about the meaning of and use of the terms abstracts, abstractions, representational images, separate from matter, visual poetry, and other terms, is a beneficial one I think.</p>

<p>Rebecca, I just saw your insightful comment including "why the choice, what is the initial object will always be part of an abstract photograph in a way that it's never part of an abstract ray tracing or painting". Do you not think it is possible for an abstract photo to be made in a manner than no recognizable "shadow" of the original object is possible? I will try to find one, or perhaps you could check one or the other of my stained glass light on wall reflections (e.g., Hommage to Monet?).</p>

[michaellinder]

<p>"I often allow the sensuality and visual/emotional reaction primacy even when viewing a more narrative or subject-oriented photo. I often wait a while to look for and find meaning and to understand."</p>

<p>Fred, are you referring to a temporal or a logical sequence? Does the reaction simply occur before finding meaning, or is there some sort of logical priority?</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><strong>Arthur</strong>, glad we cleared that up. My point has been that an image of a pepper does not have to make pepperness the primary motivator of my response. As I said to John, I may react more strongly to light, texture, and shape than to "pepper."</p>

<p>IMO, the essence of a <em>picture</em> of a pepper (and it's questionable whether there is an essence in the fixed and universal way the term is generally used) is different from the essence of a pepper. </p>

<p>I also like Rebecca's "we're not doing matter replication." I'm not sure about the abstract photograph being haunted by representation. It can be, in many instances. If I think about it, yes, I know the photograph is <em>of</em> something, but in some instances of abstract photographs, I'm not at all moved to think like that. I simply take it in and I see what's there, without thinking about what it "really" is. Similarly with narrative photos: I may be moved sometimes to wonder what the scene was "really" like at the time of shooting or may simply view the photograph and not wonder about the matter that supplied the raw material for the photo. Sometimes, I accept the photograph as the whole thing I'm looking at.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><strong>Michael</strong>, both. It's temporal. And I'd probably prefer to say it's visual, not logical. But the way you're using "logical," I'd probably say it's logical as well. Often (not always) <em>the more significant aspect</em> of what I experience in an abstract is the sensual over the conceptual. In those cases, I don't go to "what is it?" or "what does it mean?" Sometimes, something in the photo seems to be asking or suggesting I go there or I just naturally will.</p>

[jtk]

<p>Everyone's mileage will vary, but it seems telling that any human would think of Weston's nudes, any of them, as "abstracts." </p>

<p>We may have discovered a diagnostic tool in Weston's nudes. :-)</p>

<p> </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><em>"it seems telling"</em></p>

<p>What do you think it would tell if it were the case that someone had actually said it? </p>