W/NW, A Genuine Abstract Photograph

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>It leaves us however still with the question on what "abstract" means when it comes to "abstract photography".</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Yes. Abstract photography can learn from and pay homage to other art forms, even be somewhat consistent with them, but doesn't necessarily have to <em>mimic</em> them. Abstract photography can translate abstract-ness appropriately to the medium, which doesn't have to come with a complete denial of the medium in order to reject all semblance of the real world or representational elements.<br>

<br>

Throughout photography's history, it has struggled with the tendency to want to mimic other art forms in order to establish artistic legitimacy. Photographers have also had a desire to want to find and celebrate photography's unique or different characteristics and not simply mimic the other arts. While being an art form it also has sought to establish its own voice. Thus the break from Pictorialism to Modernism.<br>

<br>

IMO, for a photo to be abstract it does not have to find the same voice or utilize the same concepts or elements as abstract paintings and abstract collages. Man Ray and Moholy Nagy made photographic abstracts whose individual elements could be recognized as real-world objects but which, as a whole, functioned as photographic abstracts. They stand alongside abstract paintings without having to do the same thing as abstract painting in the same way abstract painting does it.</p>

[sjmurray]

<p>Wise words, Fred.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>So would this be considered a genuine abstract photo? And if so, in what way? Or if not, why?</p><div></div>

[AJHingel]

<p>"IMO, for a photo to be abstract it does not have to find the same voice or utilize the same concepts or elements as abstract paintings and abstract collages" (Fred)<br>

I totally agree, it doesn't have to, but it surely also can. Abstract photography can non-figurative, but can also use figurative images, that foremost are viewed as abstract by the viewer and the artist.<br>

<br>

Further more, "abstract photography" does not artificially have to limit itself to "something that looks like a photography". Abstract photography can find its creative sources in photography by using the camera and the digital file in post-processing, without limits, in addition to all other available media for artistic expression. Art has never benefitted from artificial restrains and dogma. Artistic expression has always broken down such barriers. <br>

<br>

Consequently something that looks like a photography cannot be the guiding principle for what "abstract photography" is permitted to show. Photography is a tool for expression and nothing else just like the keyboard is a tool among others for written comments. </p>

[Julie H]

<p>Tim, I really like that, and it works as an abstract for me. I hope it was made from the inside out, not the outside in, though i.e. you felt it rather than tried to imitate what you think abstract "looks like."</p>

<p>If a five-year old with no musical experience stands in front of an orchestra waving his arms and contorting his face and body, he's not conducting the audience. The true conductor conducts from the inside out, not for his audience behind him.</p>

<p>Or, once again, the cockatoo isn't a poet even if his words rhyme.</p>

 

[AJHingel]

<p>"So would this be considered a genuine abstract photo?" (Tim)<br>

<br>

I don't know about the "genuine" but in my eyes, your image is "abstract". Abstraction is the main quality of the image as it does not pretend to present a photo of a pillar, if that is the photographed object, but offers an image of an amorphous object in three dimensions, which I see as an (abstract) sculpture. Whether I like it or not, is irrelevant.<br /></p>

[Julie H]

<p>Where did the process come from?</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Why is "it" used?</p>

<p>Where does "it" come from? "It" falls out of the sky?</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Curious to find a Phil, a photographer, claiming that choosing which out of what "falls out of the sky" is not part of the process.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>If they don't come from the inside, where <em>do</em> they come from?</p>

<p>The kind of paint, the color of the paint, the amount of time, the size of the canvas, which ones to use, how to present them, are all choices that come from the inside for Frize.</p>

<p>John Cage tried to remove all choice from his work by using the I Ching to generate random sequences. But Cage had to choose to use the I Ching, he had to choose what instruments to use those sequences on or with, he had to decide venue, format, etc. etc. If you hear one of his random creations today, it just reeks of John Cage. Because not choosing was a choice; and using the not-chosen entails many choices.</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>"Inside out" doesn't really mean anything or rather it does not help us much.<br>

All creative expressions comes from "inside" the person, that is doing it.</p>

<p>I have the impression, that Julie mainly aim her sharp pen at "imitation": doing something, that looks like an abstract. My personal experience with doing and living with abstract works is that to a large degree people with no eye for abstracts, no experience about abstract art and just a meager knowledge about what abstract art is, are often only able to say: "it looks like abstract art".<br>

<br>

Where inspiration for doing what ever is done in abstract art comes from has been discussed for ages and no simple answer exists to answer it: physical or psychological ailments, philosophical or religious questionings, intellectual and scientific theory about colours, forms and composition or political calculations (read Greenberg !) and of course, art market preferences and prices. All of it or some elements of it, are absorbed by the artist guts, brain, intellects and feelings and abstract art can sometimes be the results of it, inside out. </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>Abstract photography can find its creative sources in photography by using the camera and the digital file in post-processing, without limits, in addition to all other available media for artistic expression. . . . Consequently something that looks like a photography cannot be the guiding principle for what "abstract photography" is permitted to show.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I said photography doesn't have to be limited to the same considerations as painting and collage and that a photograph can "look like a photograph" and still be abstract. I did not say that to "look like a photograph" must be a guiding principle of abstract photography. Because photography is tied to the real world in that we point the camera at something in that world, it makes sense that some abstract photography would look like a photo to the extent it <em>may</em> reference the material world. <br>

<br>

There are great possibilities in exploring the unique characteristics of various mediums (for example, photography) even while recognizing similarities and hard-to-specify borderlines between them. If we don't recognize the difference between photography and digital art, then we aren't coherently talking about "abstract photography" but simply talking about "abstract." Yet, the idea being mulled over was to consider "abstract photography" as opposed to just "abstract."</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Art has never benefitted from artificial restrains and dogma. Artistic expression has always broken down such barriers.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Art often breaks down barriers but it also often works within confines and finds limitless possibilities within those confines. Some classical musicians worked their entire lives within the confines of the traditional sonata form. They found limitless possibilities within that form. They broke barriers other than formal ones. Beethoven broke more with the formal traditions, more for his time but by today's standards there was a long way to go. I don't fault Beethoven for not reaching beyond all boundaries and for accepting many of the boundaries he inherited. <br>

<br>

Pictorialist photographers were fairly dogmatic, though perhaps not quite as dogmatic as when they ultimately rejected Pictorialism and insisted on a different role for photography. We may look back and now realize that Modernism was not a final solution for photography, but for both Pictorialists and Modernists, confines were being established that still allowed for unlimited possibilities of expression within historical and cultural parameters being drawn. <br>

<br>

Art will eventually reach beyond these parameters but it is not always doing so and sometimes confines and strong convictions are at the heart of artistic expression. At many points in time, art settles into a particular type of language for a while and converses more familiarly in that language . . . until it's time to move on. All kinds of definitions and restrictions are imposed at various stages. There's nothing wrong with recognizing that not everything that starts as a photo is a photo and that an abstract photo can be thought of with limitless approaches within the confines of actually being an abstract photo.<br>

<br>

Art is everything and every medium is anything anyone wants it to be may have some appeal as a kind of anarchistic approach to art, but even anarchy can be a fairly limited approach to life.</p>

 

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>Tim, I really like that, and it works as an abstract for me. I hope it was made from the inside out, not the outside in, though i.e. you felt it rather than tried to imitate what you think abstract "looks like."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Thank you, Julie and thanks again for defining abstract photography from an inside out impetus which I feel mainly determines whether something is copied or inspired originality. Kind of like method acting. You don't copy the act of being scared (as an example emotion) from what was seen before, you ARE scared. No way to fake that and it does show up on camera. Same applies to creating abstract photography.</p>

<p>I was actually thinking just that when I shot the above image two days ago just casually looking back to my HDtv and noticed the gods had shined their light by the happenstance of having my chair in the right place at the right time of day. Winters here place the sun in the late afternoon at abrupt angles to my kitchen window blinds and that scene of the green seat cushion was the result.</p>

<p>The inside part that motivated me enough to grab my camera and take the shot I have to be uncomfortably honest about came from me seeing that seat cushion resembling a woman's bottom and the shadows formed by the pleats as her groin. So if sexy lines, forms and shapes are considered an inside job, I'll have to go with that.</p>

<p>Another odd thing I discovered shooting this seat cushion is that I could quickly turn the sexuality of it right off by shooting it vertically see below...</p><div></div>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Inside-Out is only one method. It doesn't ensure originality or authenticity, in photography, in abstract photography, or in acting.</p>

<p>Method Acting was important, influential, and has given the world some great theatrical performances for many decades. There are, however, more Outside-In methods of acting, some in response to what were perceived as some flaws of method acting.</p>

<p>You don't have to be scared to make a scary picture, just like Chopin wasn't necessarily melancholy when he wrote some of his more melancholy pieces. Mozart was hardly the dramatic character his music might suggest if we limit our understanding of Mozart to Inside-Out methodology. That he wasn't necessarily an Inside-Out composer does not mean he was copying anyone. He wasn't. </p>

<p>From <em>Wikipedia</em> on alternatives to Method Acting:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Robert Lewis also broke with Strasberg. In his books <em>Method—or Madness?</em> and the more autobiographical <em>Slings and Arrows</em>, Lewis argued that method acting was too focused on pure emotional training and neglected vocal and physical training, which forms a fundamental part both of classical actor-training and of Stanislavski's system. The method's reliance on emotion, he felt, could too easily encourage overacting.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Just as it can lead to overwrought photos.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Stella Adler, an actress and acting teacher whose students included Marlon Brando, Warren Beatty, and Robert De Niro, also broke with Strasberg after she studied with Stanislavski, by which time he had modified many of his earliest ideas. Her version of the method is based on the idea that actors should stimulate emotional experience by imagining the scene's "given circumstances," rather than recalling experiences from their own lives. Adler's approach also seeks to stimulate the actor's imagination through the use of "as ifs," which substitute more personally affecting imagined situations for the circumstances experienced by the character. Adler argued that "drawing on personal experience alone was too limited. Brando himself claimed he never studied with Strasberg and never liked him for being so selfish and ambitious. Brando was Stella Adler's student and in his book, he claimed to have abhorred Lee Strasberg's teachings and praise Stella for her work.</p>

<p>Alfred Hitchcock described his work with Montgomery Clift in <em>I Confess</em> as difficult "because you know, he was a method actor." He recalled similar problems with Paul Newman in <em>Torn Curtain</em>. Lillian Gish quipped: "It's ridiculous. How would you portray death if you had to experience it first?" Charles Laughton, who worked closely for a time with Bertolt Brecht, argued that "Method actors give you a photograph", while "real actors give you an oil painting."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That last one is a mouthful, isn't it? I don't necessarily agree with Laughton's putting down photos like that, but the overall point is that there's much more to art than personal emotional origins or commitments. Sometimes, it's much more about circumstance than personal reaction to it.</p>

<p>In short, not everything is about me and I am not always the center of the universe.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>The position of the artist if humble. He is essentially a channel. —Piet Mondrian</p>

</blockquote>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>True Boogie-Woogie I conceive as homogeneous in intention with mine in painting: destruction of melody, which is the equivalent of destruction of natural appearance, and construction through the continuous opposition of pure means - dynamic rhythm. —Piet Mondrian</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I don't see this as an Inside-Out take on things. I think he was translating what he saw on the streets of NYC into his chosen medium. He was constructing a language. I think his was more an act of articulation than something about inner emotions. <br>

<br>

I actually think some part of acting and part of other art is faking it and finding the conviction with which to do that in a meaningful way. The combination of knowing how to be authentic and knowing how to fake it real good is incredibly powerful.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Tim wrote: "I could quickly turn the sexuality of it right off ... "</p>

<p>Not for me. Those pleats are just too good. She's still hot ...</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>Inside-Out is only one method. It doesn't ensure originality or authenticity, in photography, in abstract photography, or in acting.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I disagree and so far you haven't shown anything to prove you're an authority on the subject. Put your money where your mouth is, Fred. Post some abstracts and tell us HOW you are so sure about your above statement.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>Tim wrote: "I could quickly turn the sexuality of it right off ... "<br /> Not for me. Those pleats are just too good. She's still hot ...</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Julie, I think you're underestimating the importance and affect of the visual horizontal orientation on men from a sexual POV.</p>

<p>The vertical version did something to me when I was rotating it in Bridge preview which started out as a horizontal capture but didn't show enough of the roundness suggestive of a buttocks. It was an interesting discovery psychologically for me. I've been studying the effects of changing orientation and horizontal flipping abstract photos in Photoshop and how it changes how I feel about them. Some of the triptychs and diptychs I've posted in other threads got me started on that path of discovery.</p>

<p>There's something about the absence of desire in abstract photos by changing orientation that makes the original desire even stronger.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>The cushion could be made red in post-process. Green isn't exactly the right color if you seek to express a sense of flesh and sexuality. That's the difference between feeling something while taking the picture and putting that feeling in the picture as effectively as possible. So why settle with that green color if sexuality is the aim? ( I also like the green because it's more alien like, and it's not as obvious, but seeing it in a lipstick red would be interesting too and would make it more sensual ).</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I see your point, Phil. I didn't consider changing the color because the shapes and forms provided by the lights and darks were already doing the job of suggestive sexuality. And suggestive was my main intent. I didn't want to be too obvious which I think changing the color or any other extraneous approach would've come across a bit cliched.</p>

<p>I also think and I have my doubts it's an original approach or POV from all the images I've seen in my 57 years and their possible subconscious contamination, so I wanted to keep it as part of the original moment and scene and not do too much post processing that would indicate I was being too cute or showy. It's very accurate to what I saw.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

Tim, I'm not an authority and I have nothing to prove.

[Julie H]

<p>Red is a cheap bordello: kind of limited, IMO. Green/yellow is life/germination. It carries it to a wider feel of sun and fruit and ripeness/fertility etc. etc. Red is blood/war. Harsh.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

 

<blockquote>

<p>Tim, I'm not an authority and I have nothing to prove.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>And nothing to offer. So that diatribe on method acting was sourced from you and only you. So that I take as self centered. A bit overcompensating for my single statement on how I perceive naturalness from the phony and cliched.</p>

<p>In all that you quoted by directors and acting coaches you really trust they know how to explain what they do and why it works or is it really being defined from outside looking in by people who don't have a clue either. They're publicists looking for the next paycheck and will wax poetically by any means necessary. </p>

<p>Bing Crosby said it best if you can fake sincerity, you've got it made in the entertainment business or something to that effect. Do you think Crosby as an actor was like an oil painting? PUHLEEEZE! Spare me that horsesh*t!</p>

 

<p><a name="00eHB0"></a></p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>I mean, didn't you also tell Steve that you have to bang it over the head of the viewer and SHOW IT to them by shouting if you have to?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I think I banged it hard enough than how Steve made me feel about trees. I know I'ld rather look at that seat cushion than Steve's picture of trees. Whose fault is that?</p>

<p>I trust myself better than that, Phil.</p>

<p>If you want to see the ultimate in the pretentious and cliched use of color for suggestive effect watch the movie, "Nocturnal Animals" and note the use of the red couch. Freakin' amateurs in telling a story that way. It's good Tom Ford has a backup job as a fashion designer. That movie was so predictable I had to pick a spot during the movie to take a 10 minute bathroom break and came back to nail the scene I predicted would appear when I came back. And these folks make a fortune at what they do. I'm living on a $934 a month settlement check. What ya' want from me?</p>

<p>Phil, you comparing Steve's trees to what I did with the seat cushion is telling of your level of authority on the subject which is waning with each mention of changing the color which I've already said is too pretentious and cliched.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>Jeez Tim, relax. Why so angry? Someone debates you and you go all bitter...That's not a convincing way to make a point.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Because I'm disappointed in your lack of imagination in giving me tips on how to improve my abstract photo. It's sounding like you now have thang about my suggestion to Steve's image as a tit for tat. Enough with the color suggestion.</p>

<p>Think of something else that has a semblance of originality, will ya?</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>I like this reaction from Edward Weston. Talk about dogmatic . . . and seeing sexuality in photography.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"The peppers are libeled more than anything I have done, ‒ in them has been found vulvas, penises or combinations, sexual intercourse, Madonna with child, wrestlers, modern sculpture, African carving, ad nauseam, according to the state of mind of the spectator: and I have a lot of fun sizing up people from their findings!</p>

<p>Now call the above explanation my defense mechanism become active, I say that it is disgust and weariness over having my work labeled and pigeonholed by those who bring to it their own obviously abnormal, frustrated condition: the sexually unemployed belching gaseous irrelevancies from an undigested Freudian ferment."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>LOL. Love it!</p>

<p>[Caveat: I don't love it because I completely agree with what it expresses . . .]</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>If you want to show me sensuality in the picture, SHOW it to me, don't talk about it,...</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I never said in this thread I wanted to show you or anyone sensuality in the seat cushion image. I was answering Julie's point about the source of what motivated me to turn it into an abstract photo. The scene already presented itself as an abstract due to the film nior lighting in reducing the amount of information in detail and extraneous clutter enough for me to sense sexuality.</p>

<p>That was coming from a point from inside of me and how I felt about it. It was not meant to make you feel anything, Phil. But that image is more abstract in nature than Steve's tree image. Abstract as I understand is a visual language short hand in getting an idea based on desire across quickly and clearly.</p>

<p>Steve is very gifted in naturalistic portraiture even better than a lot of pro's I've come across and I've told him this several times over the years. I assumed he knew the visual nature of an abstract photo to some degree, but the tree images are too representative of just a recording of a scene using a device that copies reality (too snapshot looking) with no apparent emphasis on what he intended to say using the visual language of an abstract photo. He was basically speaking in the visual language of plain, flat English without any emphasis at all.</p>

<p>The advice I gave Steve was for him to understand the mechanics of the visual language of abstract photos in how to communicate effectively. My graphics and typography background uses beautifully designed characters/fonts that are basically abstract figures if only viewed on their own out of context of the cold textual landscape of a paragraph whose sole purpose is to communicate with words. Big & Bold is one method of speaking in a visual language to get an idea across. I suggested to Steve that he has to apply similar visual tactics in post processing and/or composing to drive the visual force of abstracts forward.</p>