ken johnson

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When I referred to "educated" I meant it in a very broad sense, not in a formal or elitist sense. We learn from our discussions. There doesn't need to be a conclusion or consensus--after all, this is a forum under the philosophy of photography. I found the discussion quite stimulating--it made me think.

If a person has been "educated" in reading abstracts, they accept the aesthetics of an abstraction with or without knowledge of what was the subject of abstraction. If they are used to realism, especially in painting, an abstract work would not be comprehensible, since they have not "learned" to read abstracts. They would therefore seek something "realistic" or comprehensive in the abstract. I think that is what Randall, Pico and others were referring to someone needing to find coherence in an abstract. Sort of like the ink-blot test in psychiatry.

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I'm not sure that Rothko could have created abstractions without being influenced by the history of abstraction. Maybe Rothko was influenced by the Impressionists or the Cubists who were certainly abstracting from reality. I agree that an abstraction may have its own aesthetics, but I am trying to speculate on Mark's initial question. Why people might want to know the source of an abstraction. I enjoy his abstract, but it is also a photograph, unless he's deceiving us with something made out of Photoshop, or a pencil drawing or painting that he scanned in. Most photographs begin with a subject in reality. His photograph is an abstraction of something. It's not simply an abstraction.

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Getting back to the original question, since abstractions are abstractions of something, people want to understand the original association between the reality and the abstraction. Abstraction is an artistic and intellectual process that is worth sharing, not simply the abstraction in and of itself.

I would like to know what human communicative interaction (including "art") does not have intention. If there is communication then there is an intended or unintended purpose (aesthetic, emotional, intellectual, political, etc.) to the communication. When the intention is shared by the artist/communicator and the audience, as synergistically as is possible, then a reality is shared--communication is successful and the experience is satisfactory to both parties.

I love this discussion. I'm a newbie to photo.net. I have been doing photography on and off for about 40 years, strictly as a hobby. I developed an eye for composition and image, but I never really thought much about whether other people liked my work or not. In the past few years I have gone digital and discovered color printing. I was never interested in color, since I liked both shooting and printing and the process for developing and printing color seemed too onerous. I can't tell you how much I've saturated my photos for the sheer discovery of color. I loved the warm, orange cast of a portrait I shot at the dinner table. I didn't know about white balance. I didn't know that this was the result of an incorrect white balnce setting. When I found out, I "corrected" my white balance usage. Now I produce correct white balanced portraits, which I like, but I will never forget my naive pleasure at the warmth of the original shot. I think that developing a "photographic eye" has something to do with balancing your instinctual pleasure, with an image that you create, with an audience whom you wish to communicate and share the pleasure.

 

Recently I find that I like to share my work, and in doing so, I am influenced by my audience. I have audiences of varying degrees of sophistication and some of my mundane shots--"another sunset" "another sleeping baby" etc.--I personally find special: I froze a moment in time that will never be duplcated in real time and space; I was there and I love this image to distraction. I have made it "readable" to someone other than myself. And you know what? There are people that these conventional photos speak to. The reality of professional aesthetics is that, like all modernist movements, they come from a smaller community with specialized codes and expectations, which moves further away from the popular culture. (Go ahead, call me a postmodernist)

 

Don't get me wrong; I value growing and developing in my aesthetics, my technical abilities, and my place in a cultured community. I can only do that by engaging in the cultured community (yes, I will share my work for critique). I just want to make sure that, as Luis and I develop our "photographic eye," we don't forget why we take/make pictures. I believe that is part of how we keep our "photographic eye."

 

Ken Johnson