mgilvey
RF Newby, Photog Oldy
This note was written before you posted your updated photo.
NEAL WROTE: "Having said all of that - and having seen your improvement on my efforts - I still have a bit of a dilemma about which I actually prefer. I can see merits in both, and an appeal in both (albeit for different reasons). There is an awful lot of detail in the neg, and I have always shied away from not reproducing what is there, as it is. Maybe this is holding me back as an art photographer? From your excellent work above, I'm warming toward the first one as art."
Well, here then lies the problem yes? Which one do you feel you "have to" like best? Don't answer that...instead, can't you like both? Why not? Imagine for a minute that you were going to hang this image in two different rooms. One room is very open space and a lot of ambient light comes in. Which image would look best? Now lets say you have another room that has those little manicured trees you see in Greek garden designs, now which image works best in this room. Both do not work in both rooms but each does work in one room, very strongly...does that make one better than the other? No.
How would this effect your previsualization knowing that it is possible to change the mood of one image to work in a number of places. Is there a short answer to this, yes, bracket and maybe change the point of view several times so you have a picture that will fit many different ideas, but I think it becomes more spiritual once you start trying to figure out what emotion you want people to come away with after looking at your image and this is what I'm trying to previsualize when the shutter is clicked. This is what will help you decide how to expose the film or chip when you are at the location.
I think this is where Ansel Adams had an advantage shooting a view camera. We take our 35mm's and just shoot away from one second to the next, we don't take the time to figure out just what we want the final image to look like in the end...or maybe it's just me. Jeff Curto (camerapostion.com podcast) and Brooks Jenson (lenswork.com podcast) have both explained that when using a large format camera, there is a certain amount of seriousness about it that causes onlookers to associate more importance with what the photographers doing. Likewise, there is a certain amount of serious thinking that must go into the photo before the shutter is released on the photographers part. I think that just by mentioning this, I will try to slow down more like I used to do when I had an assignment.
To answer your question, just because you didn't print ALL of the information on the negative does not mean that if you did print it all that it would not also be art. Looking at my second version, doesn't the way the shading envoke a feeling or does it just look like an execution of placing all the information that was on the negative onto the print (screen in this case). For me, I get a feeling...even a story that tells my eye to follow a stone pathway that leads to an airy soft illuminated room that leads me to a garden and there ends the story—it envokes curiosity.
The first version also does this but in this case, the etherial presence of the bright area envoke curiosity and that feeling of being bathed in warm soft ambient light (don't you dare ask me what that feels like, ha, ha ;-) but the curiosity continues because I will never know what is inside that mystical illumination.
Can't they both be art?
I think the second version is certainly closer to the "nonart" idea though. Maybe, in our efforts to make art of our work we should ask, what could we do to NOT make it look like art? Poor printing or exposure, certainly but beyond that, what kind of intent in the printing would cause it to not look like art. Perhaps knowing that will also tell us what to do to make it art.
I wonder, if this were a perfectly balanced photo, i.e. indoor and outdoor exposures were right in the right zones, would it loose it's art feeling? Interest idea. I ask that because as HDR in digital photography becomes more popular and people are able to do what the zone system has long been doing for years, at what point is it just a well exposed document of a scene and when is it art.
This stuff can make your head spin as mine is right now or maybe its the fact that I'm sitting in my unheated Jeep in the middle of a freezing parking lot while eating my lunch. Kind of surreal to hear what I just wrote given where I was when I wrote it.
NEAL WROTE: "Having said all of that - and having seen your improvement on my efforts - I still have a bit of a dilemma about which I actually prefer. I can see merits in both, and an appeal in both (albeit for different reasons). There is an awful lot of detail in the neg, and I have always shied away from not reproducing what is there, as it is. Maybe this is holding me back as an art photographer? From your excellent work above, I'm warming toward the first one as art."
Well, here then lies the problem yes? Which one do you feel you "have to" like best? Don't answer that...instead, can't you like both? Why not? Imagine for a minute that you were going to hang this image in two different rooms. One room is very open space and a lot of ambient light comes in. Which image would look best? Now lets say you have another room that has those little manicured trees you see in Greek garden designs, now which image works best in this room. Both do not work in both rooms but each does work in one room, very strongly...does that make one better than the other? No.
How would this effect your previsualization knowing that it is possible to change the mood of one image to work in a number of places. Is there a short answer to this, yes, bracket and maybe change the point of view several times so you have a picture that will fit many different ideas, but I think it becomes more spiritual once you start trying to figure out what emotion you want people to come away with after looking at your image and this is what I'm trying to previsualize when the shutter is clicked. This is what will help you decide how to expose the film or chip when you are at the location.
I think this is where Ansel Adams had an advantage shooting a view camera. We take our 35mm's and just shoot away from one second to the next, we don't take the time to figure out just what we want the final image to look like in the end...or maybe it's just me. Jeff Curto (camerapostion.com podcast) and Brooks Jenson (lenswork.com podcast) have both explained that when using a large format camera, there is a certain amount of seriousness about it that causes onlookers to associate more importance with what the photographers doing. Likewise, there is a certain amount of serious thinking that must go into the photo before the shutter is released on the photographers part. I think that just by mentioning this, I will try to slow down more like I used to do when I had an assignment.
To answer your question, just because you didn't print ALL of the information on the negative does not mean that if you did print it all that it would not also be art. Looking at my second version, doesn't the way the shading envoke a feeling or does it just look like an execution of placing all the information that was on the negative onto the print (screen in this case). For me, I get a feeling...even a story that tells my eye to follow a stone pathway that leads to an airy soft illuminated room that leads me to a garden and there ends the story—it envokes curiosity.
The first version also does this but in this case, the etherial presence of the bright area envoke curiosity and that feeling of being bathed in warm soft ambient light (don't you dare ask me what that feels like, ha, ha ;-) but the curiosity continues because I will never know what is inside that mystical illumination.
Can't they both be art?
I think the second version is certainly closer to the "nonart" idea though. Maybe, in our efforts to make art of our work we should ask, what could we do to NOT make it look like art? Poor printing or exposure, certainly but beyond that, what kind of intent in the printing would cause it to not look like art. Perhaps knowing that will also tell us what to do to make it art.
I wonder, if this were a perfectly balanced photo, i.e. indoor and outdoor exposures were right in the right zones, would it loose it's art feeling? Interest idea. I ask that because as HDR in digital photography becomes more popular and people are able to do what the zone system has long been doing for years, at what point is it just a well exposed document of a scene and when is it art.
This stuff can make your head spin as mine is right now or maybe its the fact that I'm sitting in my unheated Jeep in the middle of a freezing parking lot while eating my lunch. Kind of surreal to hear what I just wrote given where I was when I wrote it.
