Tag: fine art

Along with photography, I am a fan of philosophy although I barely passed philosophy as a college student. As I have grown older I have realized that many things we think we know we actually know very little about. We often accept a common belief system without question. One thing many photographers may not know is there is a whole genre of philosophy about art, aesthetics. Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the principles of beauty and artistic taste. Some of the first writings on the topic date back to the days of Socrates, although the thoughts of Socrates were written by his students, Plato and Aristotle.

The whole topic of what constitutes art and beauty has existed for nearly 2,500 years and continues today. I suspect that the debate will never cease. As time goes on, views of what is and isn’t art and beauty change. This isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it is a good thing. I believe it is important to remember all the past art movements (a list of past art movements can be found here). Because of the fact that perceptions of what is and isn’t art change, I choose to not worry about following the trends or what is currently popular even though I may participate in such things from time to time.

To me, the most important thing about creating art through my photography is self-expression. I didn’t always think this way. I can participate in any of the past and current art movements from photorealism to surrealism.

In one of the social media forums, I participate in there is a current trend of creating “twirl” art. This has created quite a stir. A few members of the forum have complained this is no longer photography since the original photograph. The complaints, of course, just created more of an interest in creating these works. While this may be a passing fad, the tools available to create these sorts of works in Adobe Photoshop have existed for every version I have used and I began using Adobe Photoshop in 2010.

The philosophy of art is not writing in stone. We can debate what is art ad nauseam but I still find myself participating in such debates. This is why I like photography, art, and philosophy, everything is ambiguous. If we haven’t clearly defined what is art or beauty in 2,500 years it is likely that we may never agree on what is or isn’t art past an often short-lived movement.

Create your art your way.

I’ve talked about not letting reality stand in the way of creating art many times, but you don’t have to change reality to create photographic art. Sometimes we just have to see artistically or a scene just meets our vision. For me, art is about intentionally creating something aesthetic to view.

While the scene in the image above accurately shows the city, it also alters reality, without manipulation through post-processing. How so you may ask. As the caption shows, the photograph above, while only mildly processed in Adobe Lightroom, was a long exposure with a small aperture. The long exposure renders the cars traveling the streets as streaks of light. The traffic signals may show red, green, and yellow lights. The small aperture renders the points of light as starbursts. This isn’t how we see the scene with our eyes.

Again in the image above, the scene is only mildly edited through post-processing, yet I altered reality since we don’t see the flowing water as a smooth surface.

Even when we don’t use long exposures, we alter reality since we freeze time. The cars and people are permanently frozen in time. We have merely captured a fraction of a second of reality. The real world is a moving flowing place.

One could argue that video may show reality, but is it? Can the reality be altered by the choice of a lens focal length or aperture? We, as photographers, can only show a scene close to what it was in reality. This is why I often don’t hesitate to alter reality further.

As a photographic artist, I portray reality as it exists to me. I portray the reality of my world. If I ever have to record something forensically I will not alter the record any further than I have by taking a video or photographic record, but when I create a work with the intent to create art, all is fair game.

I’ve touched on this topic in the past when discussing reality and post-processing with your photographs. When I take photographs I attempt to visualize what I want the final artwork to look like, at least as best as I can at the time.

Let’s take the photograph above as an example. The scene when I took the photograph was daylight and brightly lit.

The scene above is far less dramatic. I knew what I wanted to convey which was a nicely dressed good looking woman in a gritty rough environment.

The photograph above was as I envisioned it when at the time of the session in 2016.

Today, when I revisit these images I still envision them the same way but with a bit of a change in style.

As you can see, the general vision is the same with the exception I often think in terms of color grading to give the scene a sense of drama.

I know, some may not like the style but as you may see in the image above of the original scene as it appeared it isn’t nearly as dramatic. I don’t let reality stand in my way. I am working to create an artistic look, even in portraits. I can create the generic school photo look, it just doesn’t fit my artistic desire. I envision the world in the form of art, not in a flat two-dimensional format. I often see bold colors and textures. I love seeing drama and emotion, even in landscapes. We, humans, are emotional and often dramatic. I work to create things that will give me a moment to pause and view my work. I always hope others will do the same.

I believe that once an artist starts to view the world as a form of beauty, with emotion and drama it changes how you envision your art. This is why I often find straight photography boring and unexciting. Even the masters before us that created wonderful pieces in the days before Photoshop and similar programs felt it was nearly as important, if not more, how work was done in the darkroom as it was at the time the film was exposed in the camera.

Each of my examples above, not counting the original looks, took very little time in post-processing using a current version of Adobe Lightroom. You don’t have to spend hours post-processing. You just have to become familiar with the software and your style. Learn to see with drama and emotion and then make the art come to life and meet your vision.

When I’m asked about my advice for new or beginning photographers I always recommend they learn to use their camera in manual mode. Manual exposure, manual focus. Using manual control you learn much more about exposure and focus, additionally, you slow down a bit, especially at first. Slowing down gives you time to consider your photograph. Learning to manually control your camera will be my first bit of advice. I probably shoot 90% of my images in manual mode.

The second bit of advice I believe is important is to learn post-processing. In today’s digital age post-processing is the darkroom of our photographs. When we think about past masters of photography many, if not most, developed their own photographs or had a very talented darkroom person. In fact, I can’t think of a single photography master of film days that just sent their film to the neighborhood drug store or any other mass production film processing business. Why, because how the image is developed post shutter click is nearly as important as the setup pre-shutter click. For me, the straight out of the camera jpg is not unlike using the neighborhood drug store or the “one hour photo” development store. Yeah, it’s a usable image, but they are more often than not, lacking. Can you image Ansel Adams or Edward Weston putting their camera in auto mode, clicking the button, and using the in-camera processed jpg as the final product? Me just writing that probably has those guys rolling over in their graves.

If you truly want to be the master of your photography do yourself the favor of learning to control your camera and the development of your images in post.

I spend a lot of time reading photography forums, maybe too much sometimes, and it never fails that I find a debate on editing. While there are several different types, they fall into three basic categories, purists who don’t like much or any post-processing, the “I don’t really care crowd”, and those, like me, “the anything-goes-crowd”. The group that seems to be the most passionate is the purists.

I am working towards becoming a fine art photographer, thus I use the term photographic artist. I’m not sure I have made it yet, but I’m working on getting my style(s) down. I am quite passionate about my stance on the use of post-processing. I don’t let the fear of reality or changing reality stand in my way. Let’s take a look at the photograph above in its original form.

I love photographing alleyways, but I’m often not in them when the scene looks the way I envision it because sometimes they are in bad neighborhoods where I don’t want to be at night.

Don’t let the neigh sayers keep you from your vision. I rarely let others know just how much I may have altered a scene because it really isn’t important. What is important is that I created the art that I envisioned. Work your magic, create your art, and don’t listen to those who want to discourage you. Make magic, make art.

How seriously do you take your photography? Let’s face it, photography is an expensive hobby but does expensive gear show you take your photography seriously? I see a lot of photographers who profess their obsession with photography but yet they aren’t willing to invest in the one thing that will take their photography to new heights. I’m not talking about upgrading cameras or lenses. I’m not talking about buying the latest greatest craze. I’m not talking about using this computer or that one nor film versus digital. What I’m talking about is investing in yourself. I don’t give two hoots and a holler what kind of equipment you use or the media.

What do I mean when I say invest in yourself? I mean invest in your know-how, not necessarily paying for an education. I mean by reading, doing, studying, experimenting. I mean getting yourself into the mindset of an artist. I mean knowing when to just savor the moment and let the photograph go, when to take a camera and when to leave the camera at home. Investing in yourself also means self-care. Take a break if you need it. I’ve seen so many photographers burn themselves out, sell their stuff and never come back. Investing in yourself means don’t buy the presets or add-ons to your programs of choice but learning to build the style yourself.

Invest in your photographs by writing a short story about the scene or subject. Give your photographs titles. I always wondered why a photograph hanging in a gallery was titled “untitled”. Was the photographer/artist too lazy? Did the scene/subject not really mean much to the photographer? Was it something that the photographer rejected and someone, later on, discover it?

I’m guilty of these things as well so I’m telling myself to invest in myself. I’ve been negligent in not titling photographs. I’ve been guilty of not writing a story about a scene or subject. I’ve been guilty of letting the photograph go, or obsessing about the latest and greatest new gadget. Let us obsess over what really matters with our art, ourselves, and each other as artists.

When is good enough actually good enough? Do your photographs and artwork have to be perfect, or as close to perfect as is possible? Why or why not?

We often see this sort of discussion in terms of detail and sharpness. There is a group that believes photographs need to be “tack sharp” with all the minor details recorded. It also appears this mindset is growing amongst photographers but is it really necessary to be “tack sharp” and highly detailed? In some photographs that amount of detail and sharpness may be necessary but not in everything.

Sharp focus and detail are wonderful but they can also be a curse.

Super sharp lenses that can render all the minor details will show everything ruthlessly. Every skin pore, every bit of hair and blemish. Trust me on this one, the resulting image above is softened a LOT compared to the actual image on my computer screen.

My goal as an artist is to give enough sharpness and detail to convey the message I wish to without giving the viewer distractions or useless or unnecessary details. Back in the “olden” days, we used to use a variety of tools to give a soft look to images and this was before lenses and digital sensors were capable of rendering the level of sharp focus and detail as they can today. What changed? Was it that we were now able to achieve this level of detail and show off the quality of our equipment. Has photography become so narcissistic that we as photographers and artists have to show off the quality of our equipment rather than our artistic skills and creativity? Maybe we should obsess over the art rather than the gear and how “tack sharp” it can reproduce every minor detail. We don’t have to be scientists so we can study skin pores, tree bark, or insect shells and antenna. We don’t expect the same level of sharpness and detail from painters.

I’m not going to give up my quality equipment, not just yet, but I don’t obsess over the rendering of sharpness or detail. I, in fact, often soften a photograph in post-processing while developing the final version of my artwork. Let us lead the way to obsess over the art rather than the forensic science level sharpness and detail. Learn to convey your message using less rather than more. Remember the old adage, “less is sometimes more.”

I believe landscape photography is the most challenging genre of photography. People are easy to photograph. Almost anyone can make a decent photograph of a person. The subject in a photograph is easily established. The main point of interest in a photograph of a person can be more easily established. A landscape is much more challenging.

I know, there are rules of landscape photography, diagonal lines, geometric shapes, the rule of thirds, and framing.

Then you get areas like the photograph below with wide-open spaces and few elements except sky and grass.

If you want a real challenge, wander about and look for landscape compositions in places with wide-open spaces with few trees, rocks, mountains, or waterfalls. There is beauty in these places and you will notice that beauty there but to bring that beauty to life in a photograph is a challenge.

Why do I do it? I know, it is a cryptic question and title. No, I’m not attempting to do a clickbait title. It is a real question and it pertains to a couple of different actions.

First, why do I do it, as “it” pertains to photography? For me, there are probably many reasons but I will say the most important is that photography gives me a venue to express myself artistically. I enjoy getting a final product. Something that both myself and others think is interesting, compelling, an object of beauty, emotional, or thought-provoking. I spend countless hours reading, studying, experimenting with, and practicing my photography skills. It is one of my life obsessions. Photography is something I can become very compassionate about.

The other “it” to which I refer is this blog. There are days I get disillusioned with the few views I get, but then I remember I started this because the blog and writing are an extension of my photography. I also have a few readers that are very regular and occasionally I hit a chord with them. As an example, last night I received a message from a reader that consisted of a link to an article. The link was to an article, Postmodernism in photography. You can find the article here. The reader and friend said the article reminded them of some of my posts on straight photography. This is wonderful to me because it shows me that the size of the audience doesn’t always matter as long as I can make some connection. I am fortunate that I have a few readers of this blog who have made a connection and that is what keeps me going.

This is why I do “it”. I’m sure you all have your reasons and may, from time to time, ask yourself why do you keep going because it doesn’t seem like anyone is paying attention or is interested. It doesn’t matter how big your audience is, keep plugging away. Sometimes, you may not know who or how you’re making connections. You may be surprised. Keep creating your art, your writing, and sharing your creative ideas and concepts with the world. You may be the motivation others need or want.

Who decides your work is art? Is it you, the artist? Is it your audience? Is it an art curator? Is your work not art unless it is or has been displayed in a gallery? Who decides?

There are those who argue that art is what the artist decides. If an artist creates something with intent, it is the intentions of the artist that make something art. There are those who argue that it is the audience, the viewers of the work whose decision makes something is art. If they don’t determine the work to be art, then it doesn’t matter the intentions of the artist. There are those who say it is the powers that be, critics, journalists, curators, gallery owners because they are the trained and educated eyes.

For me, it is a combination of at least two of those groups. Certainly, the artist has a play in it, but what about people like Vivian Maier? She probably never intended her work to be considered art and yet today her work is displayed big name galleries. In Vivian Maier’s case, it is the “powers that be” and the audience who decided.

Since not all of us will ever have our work displayed in the big name art galleries, it comes down to our intentions as an artist and our audience. The size of our audience is often irrelevant as long as it extends beyond ourselves.

Certainly we should listen to the powers that be, the critics, the curators, and the gallery owners as they may help us to grow and mature our art, just as our audience. Without the outside influence and views of others we do not grow and mature as artists. Listen to your audience and the critics to grow your art into the masterpieces you dream about.