Category: Art

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Purity in Photography 2

Pseudo Landscape. Not an actual aerial image. Art, not reality.

Because of its nature of recording the scene in front of the camera, people assume that photography is some kind of “pure” imaging form. That is, that what you see is reality. I take opportunities when I can to dispel this myth. Never assume purity in photography unless it is explicitly presented as such. This is a theme that just won’t go away.

Recording

Our excellent digital sensors do a pretty good job of reproducing what the lens images onto their surface. For good and bad. Because of this, some people assume that photographs represent exactly what was captured.

This is just an assumption that in no way restricts me in my art. And it does not restrict anyone else unless they make the explicit determination to not do any manipulation. What the sensor records is often just a starting point in my photographic vision. Not an end point.

It is so easy now to alter images that you should always assume it has been done.

Manipulating

From nearly its beginning, artists have manipulated photographs. Black and white film photographers quickly invented ways to alter their images. Sometimes these were done to overcome limitations with the technology of the time. Sometimes to correct or improve the images, for instance by “spotting” defects and removing distracting objects. More and more commonly alterations were done for artistic improvements.

For fun sometime look up a “straight” print of Ansel Adam’s famous Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico compared to one of his later interpretations. The later is almost unrecognizable as the original. Does that mean there is something false about the later prints? No, it is considered one of the great examples in the history of photography. The artist chose to alter it heavily to make it appear as he wanted it to look.

It is never safe to assume that a photograph exactly represents reality.

What is truth?

Is a photograph “truth”? Is it some form of purity? Why? What makes you assume it is?

The technology of its capture process leads some people to assume a purity or truth that may lead you astray. Yes, the sensor recorded all the light falling onto its surface, but there is still a long journey from there to a finished image.

Some might say that Photoshop eliminated truth. That is overstated, but not entirely false. The positive statement is that Photoshop enabled greater artistic expression. Photoshop and other image manipulation tools, along with powerful home computers and large disks, opened a new world of creativity to artists.

Now most photographic artists do extensive manipulation of images. Photoshop, Lightroom Classic, Capture One, and other tools open new worlds of creativity to photographers. Photographers have always done this, but the modern tools add new power and possibilities.

But this power is just a modern convenience. It has always been true that images are created in the artist’s imagination. A great example is Albert Bierstadt, a German painter who helped popularize the American west in the 19th Century. His paintings created a lot of interest, but they were often, let’s say, fanciful. For example his work Rocky Mountain Landscape does not depict any real scene I have ever found in the Rocky Mountains where I live.

The artistic view is that an image is the expression of the artist’s vision and feeling for the image. It seems the truth comes from within rather than being a property of what is represented.

What is the intent of an image?

Does this manipulation make an image less “true”? That depends on the intent of the image.

Maybe it seems obvious, but any image presented as truth must be true. If I see a picture in a news article that claims to show a certain event, it better be exactly that. If it is altered to manipulate the scene or misrepresent the event, that is false and the reporter and their organization should be severely censured.

In my opinion no AI generated “news” or images can be presented as truth. They were generated by a machine rather than being a direct capture or observation of an event.

Let’s go a little away from news and talk about a portrait. Must a portrait be a literal, completely truthful depiction of the subject? Well, they never have been. Portraits are always “retouched”, maybe altered extensively to hide blemishes. Perhaps to make the subject look slimmer or taller or a little more handsom. So a portrait should be a recognizable representation of the person, but do not assume it is literally true.

But I live in the world of art. Art is fantasy and imagination and vision and creativity. We should never get confused that art is reality. I am free to do anything within my image that I think expresses my artistic vision. This makes Bierstadt’s Rocky Mountain Landscape acceptable art, even if not reality.

Don’t waste your effort thinking photographs are always reality. Most do not even pretend to be anymore. Photographs are another artistic expression, unless explicitly presented as reality.

Today’s image

A high altitude aerial? Maybe. Maybe not. Since I have been talking about photographic art not being real, it might be best to assume this isn’t exactly what it seems.

I won’t say more about it now. This is part of a series I am working on.

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Passion

Twists and turns on or path.

I believe the best art is based on passion. We hear advice about “follow your passion” all the time from self help gurus, but what is it? What does that mean? Do you know how to find your passion?

What you think you want

In these times I think it is harder than ever to find our real passion. There are too many demands. Too many competing voices calling for our attention.

My personal opinion is that we are seldom equipped to know our passion until we get more experience of life. True, some people have a clear “calling” for something. They may know from childhood what they want to do. I don’t meet many of those. Expecting to identify your passion when you are young seems as unfair as expecting a 17 year old high school junior to pick their major when applying for college. They don’t know. They haven’t experienced enough life to really know what they will be good at and want to do for the rest of their career. That’s why so many change majors. Sometimes several times. Nearly half of older millennials — 47% — wish they had chosen a different career, according to a CNBC Make It survey.

So some people might say their passion is landscape photography. Next month it may be French literature. Another month later it may be organic cooking. But they are not being dishonest. They really don’t know. They are trying to figure it out.

Maybe our friend likes a certain thing so we think that is our passion too. Often a celebrity feels strongly about something so we get caught up in it for a while. But those are someone else’s passion, not necessarily ours. We quickly get tired of following other people’s passions.

What you’re willing to work for

Passion demands work. I think a lot of times we discover our passion accidentally. We find our self putting a lot of time and work on something, and to our surprise, it doesn’t seem like work. It actually energizes us and makes us happy.

That is a passion. They are usually not easy. If they are too easy they will not hold our interest. It takes a lot of time and effort to master something worthwhile and even more to practice it and keep learning and exercising our creativity. Our passions are those things where this work seems almost like play. We would rather be doing this than almost anything else we can think of.

What are you working for and what can you effect? You may be “passionate” about homelessness, or the environment, or inequality, but what are you doing about it? If you are just saying “someone needs to work on that”, then it may be a value of yours, but probably not one of your passions.

In A Beautiful Anarchy, David de Chemin makes the point that a lot of people tell him they envy his lifestyle. They would love to travel to exotic places and do interesting projects that benefit people. But, he says, the reality is they won’t make the sacrifices required to do it. They “wish” they could do it but won’t pay the price or go out on the limb to risk it.

What price will you pay? And what is worth paying it? Those questions help you understand if something is really you passion.

Learning is part of it

Ramit Sethi promotes the idea that we should always be willing to invest in our self, to constantly learn. I completely agree with this. He goes on to offer actionable advice. He discounts the time honored “10,000 hour” rule as being what is required to be an elite expert in a field.

Instead he says that for a great many things, if you put in 20 hours learning it, you would be better at it than most people and far enough along to know if you are interested in going deper. So he advises if something appeals to you even a little, get a book on it, take a class, spend a week focusing on it and trying it. If after a week it has run it’s course and you feel done, then you know. But if you are still interested, keep digging.

This is great to build a base of experience to build on and it can be a great help to identify your passions.

But whatever our passion turns out to be, we need to be a student of it. Be familiar with what has been done in the past. Stay somewhat aware of trends and directions in the present and who the thought leaders are. Learn the technology involved. Master the tools. These things are just a base to build on.

Long term

When we find our passion, our commitment to it is usually long term. While it is true that our passions can change over time as we mature and our experiences change our values, we usually hold on to a passion for quite a while. Years.

It may take years to build sufficient expertise in our area of passion to achieve mastery. Then we can enjoy pursuing it at a high level of skill and satisfaction.

But mastery is an illusion. We may become quite proficient in the technology and the practice of the subject. If we feel like we have learned it all and there is no more challenge, then our drive and our passion will evaporate. The reality is that for most art we learn that no matter how far and deep we go, we are a beginner. We can always look at it fresh and discover new paths to explore.

This is the challenge that keeps it engaging and captivating for us.

More than a feeling

Your passions are not just a matter of feelings. Feelings are ephemeral. They come and go with our mood. Our passions are like love. Love is not a feeling, it is a commitment.

Passions touch something deep inside of us. Something that is a need that seems to be fulfilled by pursuing the passion. I like the quote “What is it that you can’t not do? This is your art”. And your passion.

We have many demands on us. Sometimes we just have to block things out and go spend time on something else for a while. Like, you know, a job. That is life. But our passion is what we daydream about when we have a few moments. It is what energizes us when we think about it. Subconsciously we are usually planning new projects or envisioning new creative things to do. We can’t not do it.

Your value in the work

We pursue our passions because they have value to us. It may not be monetary. It can just be a sense of fulfillment. Or just the joy it brings us.

For those of us who are artists, our passion is often our art and much of the joy comes from creatively engaging in the practice. Speaking personally, my value derives from being able to do creative things, to grow and stretch my limits, and my love of the things I create. I get little pleasure in doing the same things over and over. Creatively discovering new ways to present my vision is what I need.

It’s ours to make

We are all unique and different. All were born into a situation we did not control. Each of us is given a certain set of talents and capabilities. It is up to each of us individually to decide what we do with what we have. Saying we are disadvantaged or not capable of doing what we want is just whining. We each will chose what to do with what we have and can do and the time we get.

I could never have played NBA basketball and I can’t even draw well. OK. Those are some paths that are closed to me. I will do other things. It may turn out that the particular things we do may not be important in themselves. The important thing is our fulfillment of our needs and the benefits we may bring to other people.

Today’s image

I would not call it great art, but I appreciate this image. It shows an aspect of railroads we usually don’t notice. I wonder sometimes how trains are able to stay on their track.

Beyond that, it reminds me that our path is usually twisted and with many branches and turns. It is seldom clear at the start where we will end up. But the choices we make lead us somewhere. Following our passion involves making choices and tradeoffs. Do it consciously. Let’s choose the best outcome for our self that will help us become the best person we can be.

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Bring Mystery

Deep, rich, crushed blacks

Some art lays everything out for you. What you see is what you get. Some art, though, seems to bring mystery to the image. You, the viewer, must become involved with it and imagine what you cannot see. I find I am being drawn more to the mystery side.

Note: this article was inspired by an article "The Imaginary Shadows" in Better Photography Magazine #112.

Reveal all

I used to think full tonal range realism was the ideal for most art and photography in particular. I loved hyper realism. Honestly, I still do. Super detail throughout, Textures so crisp you think you can feel them. That is one reason I use a camera with good lenses and lot of pixels.

You know the drill, especially if you are were in a camera club. Expose to the right, but no blown out highlights. Full histogram down to a few spots of rich blacks. The subject must be in the sharpest possible focus. Well sharpened overall, but with no halos. Printed using the best available paper and techniques so another photographer can come right up to the print as close as he can see and it all looks smooth and sharp to his critical eye.

All these things are good ideas, but not a formula for making great art. I spent years honing my craft to be able to capture all those pixels in the best way. And more learning how to process the files to bring out all that detail. The technician in me loves the technical challenge. And the purist in me loves to see all that gorgeous detail and texture.

Contrasts

There is a problem I am starting to see, though. When you clearly show the viewer everything there is to see, it gets boring quickly. There is little holding power in the image. It is like a movie preview that gives away the whole plot. There is no mystery left. Viewers pass on fairly quickly.

It is starting to sink in to me that in art and life, a lot is about contrasts. Contrasts put things in opposition. We are drawn to regions of sharp contrast. It is in our hard wiring.

Contrasts are a way of comparing things by showing opposing qualities. The contrasts can be light vs dark, in focus vs out of focus, warm colors vs cool colors, moving vs still, hard vs soft, textured vs smooth – there are too many to enumerate.

But we instinctively know that contrasts define a comparison that is important to the image. So we are drawn to the contrasted areas. We spend time looking and trying to figure out the meaning or importance of the contrast.

It helps guide our understanding of the image and we become more involved in figuring out the artist’s intent.

Use contrasts

So, perhaps, viewers actually appreciate some need to think about and spend some time with an image. I call this introducing mystery. The viewer wants to get engaged and invest some energy in it. Contrasts are one primary way to do this.

Unlike just a flat field of pixels, contrasts help the viewer understand the artist’s intent. It shows what relationships the artist wants to point out. What comparisons he wants to make. Contrasts help point out what the artist wanted us to notice.

The mystery of black

There is a special type of contrast often used in black & white images: areas of black. An article by Len Metcalf in a recent issue of Better Photography magazine brought this to my attention. It was kind of an “Aha” moment. You know how when you know something subconsciously, but then you see it written down and it is like a flash of insight?

Len is an excellent photographer and teacher in Australia. He was describing a realization that came to him while teaching one of his master classes. They were surrounded by prints from great photographers, from Ansel Adams to contemporary artists. He says

As I looked around the room, I became acutely aware of the intense blackness in each of the prints. As I stared, I realized that these were not little black speckles as we are cautioned about by judges in camera club competitions. … These were humongous areas of beautiful, deep rich velvety, black black, blacker than black blacks.

He goes on to observe that some artists, like Ansel Adams and Bill Brandt for example, tended to make their prints darker and darker as they got older.

Why? What were they seeing?

Hold back

One of his conclusions was that they realized that, in some cases, the less said, the better. That is, areas of blacks added a new quality to the images.

He speculates that areas of highlight show all their information clearly. You see everything there is to see. The whole story is laid out clearly for us, so we do not have to work or use our imagination. But the dark areas, the spaces where we can’t see what is going on, hold interest for us. We wonder what is there. We make up our own story. it engages our imagination.

Maybe this is why artists like Ansel Adams printed larger and larger areas of deep black as they evolved in their art. By holding back some information from the viewer the image actually becomes more interesting.

Crush the blacks

So I seem to be on a campaign to crush the blacks. What this means is intentionally pushing some of the darkest grays down to pure black. Yes, it eliminates information from the image. That is something we were always taught not to do.

But it is an artistic choice. It brings the benefits I mentioned about introducing mystery and drama into an image.

It is not for all images in all situations. But when you decide to use it, go for it. Be heavy handed. Overdo it to see how far you want to take it. When I overdo it and back off some, I find that I do not back off as far as I would have if I didn’t overdo it. In other words, after seeing the result, I often want to retain more of the effect that I would have thought

It is surprising. Sometimes less is more. Experiment with making your blacks darker to see how it feels to you. I like what I am seeing so far. I used to consider dark images as somber and melancholy. Now I would more likely refer to them as mysterious. Try it and see if it feels better to you.

Today’s image

For fun and an experiment, I went back to an old image and re-processed it to crush the blacks even more. The result is more dark and mysterious than the original. I like it much better. Maybe it is approaching the “humongous areas of beautiful, deep rich velvety, black black, blacker than black blacks” that Len was talking about.

One other reason for doing this is to investigate a point Len made that an advantage previous generations of photographers had was that, to re-print an image, they had to go through the whole darkroom process. This gave them a chance to think about the image anew and re-interpret it according to their current sensibility. We tend to just hit print to make a new print. No thought involved.

I found, indeed, that I changed the image when I took a new fresh at it.

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Come Alive

Blurred sunset. Movement, dynamics, abstraction.

Does your art excite you? Does the joy or inspiration of your work make you come alive? If not, why do you think it will effect anybody else?

Are you bringing anything?

Your audience can pick up on how you feel about your work. Are you excited? Can you not wait to show this to people? Do you have so much fun doing what you do that you don’t want to do anything else? Why not?

In my opinion, a lot of photographic art I see these days is pretty empty or depressing. Perhaps you are compelled to try to make a statement about environmentalism or social justice. That probably means you should consider yourself a photojournalist. Document your cause if that is what drives you, but can you also bring beauty and interest and hope? Can’t it be visually or emotionally appealing? Just because it is a serious subject doesn’t mean it has to feel like a news story on CNN.

And the post-modernism that prevails leads to banal and emotionally void expressions. Just pointing your camera at 2 guys sitting in their back yard drinking a beer doesn’t necessarily make a picture I feel drawn to look at. And just because you used some forgotten wet plate process to print this image in a gritty, blurry way does not make it more valuable to me. Don’t you have anything to say?

Does your work energize you?

This is your art. What you see and feel. Surely you think it is worthwhile. If not, why are you wasting your time and energy?

I have heard the definition that your art is “what you can’t not do”. This is pretty good. Most of us have to create art. We would go crazy if we couldn’t. There is a drive in us that needs this vehicle of expression.

For me, when I fall into a nest of images I am excited and energized. I lose track of time. Even when I am seeing the images before me, I am planning what i am going to do with them and how I will bring them more to life. It enlivens me.

This is one of the things I love about photography: of all the art forms, this is the one with the least barrier between inspiration and capture of an image. See it, shoot it. No real preparation or long time to produce a work. I am very visual and immediate. It suites my makeup very well.

The great Jay Maisel is a wealth of quotes and wisdom about image making. A couple of favorites I continually remind myself of is “If the thing you’re shooting doesn’t excite you, why makes you think it will excite anyone else?” and “Photography is an act of love.”

Why should people be motivated by your work?

There are billions of photographs out there with billions more being added every day. How can I have anything new to say? What a bleak prospect!

But I occasionally do have something new to bring to people. Those times where I am feeling alive and energized and excited can produce images that will stop people and compel them to look.

I am motivated by this quote:

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Howard Thurman


When we’re feeling most alive people can see it in our work. We have something to offer that people need. And it is more satisfying.

So why should people be motivated by my work? I’m an artist. I have a unique and creative point of view and this image was motivated by me bring alive and in touch with what I was feeling. That is hard to find.

Come alive and create exciting art.

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The Art or the Artist?

Giant bear peeking into an urban building

Sometimes we forget that anything created has a creator. Which is greater, the creator or the thing created? Ask yourself this. Which is more important, the art or the artist who created it?

Creation

I’m mainly talking about art or artistic things here. The idea could apply to much larger contexts.

Anything that exists was created, or at least designed, by someone. By saying “someone” I am stating my belief that an AI is not a creator, because it cannot feel inspiration or passion.

Whether it is a picture or a sculpture or music or poetry or a book, it could not exist unless and until an artist created it. In the context I am talking about here, things do not spring into being out of nothing. There was nothing, then an idea formed in the mind of the creator and something was made real.

The creator can do it again

I guess one reason I felt compelled to write this is because I see people behave in ways I consider unthinking. We tend to be enraptured with some work of art as if it was the most wonderful thing in the world. Ignoring the fact that it was created by someone, and that should make them as the creator even more special than the creation.

Yes, if the creator is dead then the work that is left is a singular entity that cannot be duplicated. This would be true of works by Monet or Mozart or Michelangelo. No more will be created. Respect and admire them as unique works of art. and while you’re doing that, consider the genius of the creators who did them.

But the problem I have, even with dead artists, is our tendency to focus on the creation instead of the creator. If you took any work by a living artist and completely smashed it or wiped it out, the artist could create a new one, probably better. Not a replica, but an entirely new work of creation. That is the amazing thing we seem to lose sight of.

The artist created the amazing work we revere. But he can create a new one, maybe better. That puts the creator in the more important role. The created work may be excellent, but the ability of the artist to create it and others is more important.

Way marker

A great work by an artist represents an idea at one point in time. That is, this was what the artist felt and conceived and had the skill to do at the time. Artists grow. Later he might approach a similar work from a whole new point of view or with new materials or techniques he just developed.

So a work by an artist as a young person may be great, but later works show growth and development and change of attitude. The creation of a great piece of art is not a singular event for an artist. That work does not represent the pinnacle of his career or ability. It is just the pinnacle as of then.

The works are way markers along the journey of the artist. Looking back as a retrospective they may change and evolve over the years, along with the artist.

More coming

I think the proper attitude when discovering a piece of art you love is to say “Wow, that is great. I can’t wait to see what you do next!” The artist is the creative engine. The work is the byproduct.

Our attitude should be to encourage and support the artist. To let them continue to tap into their well of creativity and produce new things to amaze the world. If an artist created a great work, it could have been an accident, a one-off. Probably not, though. Greatness seldom comes out of a vacuum.

A great work is evidence that the artist can create great works and we should expect more to come.