I have been reading a little book titled "Art and Fear" by David Bayles and Ted Orland. I'm only about halfway through at this point but it has provided some interesting insight into the process of making (or not making) art.
Much of it is nothing new. If you have been involved with creating art on any level, for any amount of time, their dissemination of the process will come as no surprise. Seems the modern road map to art is the same for everyone, and it makes for a most introspective read. Thanks for the suggestion, Ted.
Today's piece is brand new. I shot it less than an hour ago. It's one of about 30-40 frames that played around with using the mini-view setup. I wasn't very concerned about the settings I put the lens, I just knew I wanted to bend it around a bit. So I did, and pointed it at an old copper pitcher that I keep laying around. Like my previous image, its nothing special, but I like it. (I decided to keep the tilted framing when it just "came out that way" as I was trying to find the angle I liked in PS. Now, I know both Ted and Andreas have used this kind of framing, and I don't mean to copy, so I'm stealing :)
When my mini shoot was over I was surprised to find that there were a half-dozen or more images that I rather liked. (highly unusual for such a small number of frames) This is no doubt due to my ongoing fascination with this new toy and it may well dwindle in time. Until then, I'm enjoying it as I can.
3 comments:
“Expectations provide a means to merge imagination with calculation.” – Bayles & Orland: Art & Fear, P. 35
You’re right that the book you’re reading contains few new thoughts, but what it seems to do is combine them inspirationally. Now I am not a fan of most “inspirational” thingees which seem to combine someone’s Holy Book together with incense and crystals to conjure mystical truth out from within my inner being where presumably all that is good ultimately resides… or some such crap.
These guys (B&O) seem instead to focus light upon those chimera that creep about in the shadows of our artistic misgivings, and once revealing them, they then shoo them off the way old-country peasant farm mothers would disperse annoying bugs with the tussle of their billowy skirts.
I’ve always said that a brilliant idea is intuitively obvious to the meanest of intelligence (mine) just as soon as someone else explains it to me. These guys have that ability. On almost every page they have sprayed some pith like that lead quote above. Leaving me stroking my chin and murmuring, “Hmmmmm.”
But to important things, your image… “Subtlety of tone became, quite often literally, the primary content.” – Bayles & Orland, P.96… discussing the way aesthetic photographic criticism in this country, and around the world, began to seek out tonal perfection. This to the point they go on that, “art, made primarily to display technical virtuosity is often beautiful, striking, elegant…and vacant.”
The point being that technique is, I’ve often written, a first order condition to artistic communication. And in this little visual snippet you seem to demonstrate that point. Recently on PhotoSig, I critiqued a mill scene which a craftsman had posted that was technically perfect. Every light-point was in a carefully rendered place. Balance among the dancing sparkles was done with a perfection of choreography to make George Balanchine weep. The watery effects, their gentle reflections, the sky and its drama were all in such balance with the rendering of the mill and its wheel that to take away even a pixel would conflate the entire composition.
And it glazed my eyes. It had more in common with plumbing than art. It was truly masterful craft, yet nowhere near emotionally evocative.
But here, in this tiny scrap of a solder point, you’ve captured someone’s contribution to beauty. You’ve revealed a workman’s care and feeling for form as it reinforces utility. It’s a study in human care. And I’m left appreciating both his desire to pass along something of worth to others… as much as I am yours.
Why do we take pictures? I sense in part it is to leave a legacy. To put a message in a bottle that will float, we hope, to some distant shore over the tides of time where it will be understood by a stranger and s/he will add an idea to inventory. Since a person is no more than a sum of his/her ideas, then some part of us will become incorporated further along the chain of civilization and reinforce the reason we are here. No, not just reinforce… amplify it.
Which takes me back to this scrap of an image of yours that opens both the original copper-worker’s sea-floating bottle and your image of it… to me. And it is a pleasing message of the value of repair and maintenance as they meet and join form with function.
Sweet….Thanks for sharing
Ted
My Images Explained
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"...then shoo them off the way old-country peasant farm mothers would disperse annoying bugs with the tussle of their billowy skirts."
Ted, your summary of the B&O work is not only hilarious but right on. They do shoo away the nasties in a most elegant and sensible way. The whole book is an absolute gem. One that will be easy to reread several times in order to keep the contents fresh.
Now, about the technique employed here. On one level it's nothing new, even to me. I've been a fan of making use of DOF for some time. On another, the practice of this camera/lens setup is totally alien. It's like learning how to focus all over again. Focal planes strike off into the image in all directions depending on how you bend the lens, and I suspect it will take a me while to get used to it.
A have been pursuing this technique since seeing the first "lens baby" images and regonizing their relationship to large format movements. I've never used LF, but I knew enough about it to appreciate that it provides a degree of control not availble in 35mm unless special lenses are employed, and even then their range of usefullness is limited. So this technique is somewhat liberating in its own right. An open door, if you will. One leading to who knows what?
As for your summation of my simple image... well, I'm flattered. (And who wouldn't be in the face of such a lyrical synopsis!) To be honest, I didn't feel as much for this piece as all that. I like the form, the composition, and the color tones well enough, but the solder joint was chosen as the focal point simply because it was an area of interest within the frame.
So how is it that you, as the viewer, can find connections where I see none? Is it because you are involved in the process of appreciation rather than creation? Do you see more clearly? Do you simply look more closely? Does this somehow make me remiss for failing to gauge the potential of my work to have some meaning beyond the mold in which I cast it?
Beats the heck outa' me. But, whatever the case, I want you to feel free to go right on commenting in any way you see fit. They are a joy to read.
Thanks much,
-Michael
I like everything about this image. Very beautiful and simple.
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