On Mar 19, 2009, at 5:34 PM, Bob W wrote:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3458/3369203594_e16d39223d_b.jpg
It's an nice photograph of a street scene, but it doesn't make the
leap into anything beyond that.
... If you like it as an abstract, it might work better if it were
more
abstract. Can you throw the digital equivalent of a soft focus on it?
Maybe one of those faux oil painting photoshop plug ins? ...
... This word 'abstract' that people use about photographs is pure
bollocks. A
photograph cannot be abstract. ...
I don't entirely agree.
... A photograph has formal geometrical
properties which may dominate the subject, as they do in this
photograph,
but it's not abstract. People also use the term about close-ups and
pictures
where it's sometimes at first difficult to recognise what the
subject is.
But they are not abstract, they're just close-ups. ...
I agree about that class of photographs. Close-ups are simply
representational and document something we don't ordinarily see. Few
of them move much beyond the literal "lookitthat!"
... It's a misuse of the
word, drawn from painting where genuine abstraction is possible.
People see
they geometric or other non-figurative properties of a painting and
think
that that's what abstraction means, and consequently misapply it to
photographs.
Abstraction can still exist in photographic works, although I agree
that the word abstract is often misapplied to photographs where the
content is simply difficult to parse visually. Abstraction in
photographs means that the intent and emotional impact of the
photograph transcends the literal context or content. Since
photographs are recordings of light reflecting or being absorbed by
subject matter in one way or another, every photograph has some
"thing" as its content, as its representational core. But abstract
concepts and emotions like irony, sadness, joy, beauty, pain, loss,
strife, power, wealth, etc. can be seen beyond the representational
aspect of that content, drawn out by the juxtapositions of the
geometry, the colors or the situational context represented in
content, similar to how painters use color, geometry, juxtaposition of
figurative elements, etc, to do the same thing.
Godfrey
--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow
the directions.
