Do you ever take your photography beyond photography?

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paradoxbox

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I was browsing around on flickr tonight and I discovered this girl:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/52427852@N04/

After I picked my jaw up off the floor from the shock of such a gorgeous girl making such gorgeous photos and having a collection of cameras even bigger than mine... I got to thinking - many of her photos seem to be way beyond just photography and firmly into the realm of artwork. I am guessing she uses a LOT of photoshop to make her photos look like they do, which I don't have a problem with.

I have tried to do things like she does before - very abstract concepts but for some reason I just can't do it. I'm pretty handy in photoshop but still I can't make crazy art - even when I post process heavily my photos still just look like contrasty photos. Maybe that's my style and I'm stuck with it for eternity..?


How about the rest of you? Are you like me, where your photos are simply photos? Or do you create crazy abstract concepts like the girl in the above link?
 
I'm just a regular shooter like you, but I did work in the Museum Of Holography one summer photographing their permanent collection, made Fourie Transform hologram match filters that were part of an optical processor for a "smart weapon," and even got a patent on a binocular optical corelator and was awarded Inventor of the Year.

I like her work, and it is evident that she has a good eye and is innately creative.

Cal
 
No, I don't find anything to like in that page.

You know, some of us were doing this stuff long before digital and Photoshop, using multiple exposures, sandwiched negatives and airbrushing.
 
My photography is primarily conceptual performance art. It can't really be scanned and put online. That's gotta be worth something right?
 
Did you look past the first page? She has a ton of work that's nothing remotely close to lomography. I'm not a big fan of lomo stuff.

This kind of shot doesn't resemble lomo at all. It's simply very very creative and fairly abstract.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/52427852@N04/4863952120/in/photostream

But all that is beside the point, I'm not asking if everyone likes her work, it's irrelevant, I'm asking if any of you make matter-of-fact photos or if you turn them into creative pieces.
 
paradoxbox said:
I was browsing around on flickr tonight and I discovered this girl:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/52427852@N04/

After I picked my jaw up off the floor from the shock of such a gorgeous girl making such gorgeous photos and having a collection of cameras even bigger than mine... I got to thinking - many of her photos seem to be way beyond just photography and firmly into the realm of artwork. I am guessing she uses a LOT of photoshop to make her photos look like they do, which I don't have a problem with.

I have tried to do things like she does before - very abstract concepts but for some reason I just can't do it. I'm pretty handy in photoshop but still I can't make crazy art - even when I post process heavily my photos still just look like contrasty photos. Maybe that's my style and I'm stuck with it for eternity..?


How about the rest of you? Are you like me, where your photos are simply photos? Or do you create crazy abstract concepts like the girl in the above link?
Click to expand...

paradoxbox: thanks for the find. she's talented, she has a good eye. IMO she's an artist & regardless if its a camera or pencil or camera she will create something sincere and visually interesting...... -sterno
 
I enjoy seeing imaginative work, and very much so when a person uses a camera as part of the process.

Do I like everything? . . . please ! . . . but often I like the moxie and the imagination behind the picture more than I like the actual picture. In this particular case, as usual, I like some of her stuff and I don't like some of her stuff. Hopefully she will not let my opinion steer her course.

Has it been done before? . . . of course . . . to some extent, everything has been done before!

Is it art? . . . let's not do that over again, okay?
 
paradoxbox said:
I have tried to do things like she does before - very abstract concepts but for some reason I just can't do it. I'm pretty handy in photoshop but still I can't make crazy art - even when I post process heavily my photos still just look like contrasty photos. Maybe that's my style and I'm stuck with it for eternity..?
Click to expand...

I don't know that there is that much photoshop going on. Most of the photos are just staged in novel ways - that first photo is just an upside down shot of a reflection in a puddle for instance. There are a few double exposures and layered images in the gallery, but hardly anything that would be very difficult for somebody with moderate technical ability to achieve.

Perhaps your difficulty is thinking inside photoshop, and not inside of the camera.

Not to pick on you in particular (I haven't seen your photos, I'm just going by your comment), I'll say that there are a lot of people who forget that you need to do a lot before you take a photo - not just after you take it.
 
Great stuff. Thanks for posting this.

I have taken some shots and then "photoshopped" to find a specific effect that I liked. For me it is part of learning and I am still learning what I do and don't like.
 
I am not getting the question really. Are you in fact implying that photography in itself isn't enough to qualify as art and that if we do not go into the land of the very abstract we are mere photographers and not artists?

I really don't see myself as an artist, probably not even photographer in that sense, I just enjoy shooting pictures. But I really don't understand what we are trying to get at here?

Can you actually even take a photograph beyond photography? If you do, was it ever photography to start with, or is the photo just part of the end result?
 
double exposures on a rolleiflex, never knew it could be done, i'll have to check it out as i use one often. that's why i think she's using photoshop to layer the frames.

i think there's a big difference between plain jane photography and some of the stuff you can see out there (for example the girl above). it no longer resembles a photograph but it could be a painting or drawing for example.

that's not to say a photograph can't be art, but i doubt that many people would describe a crime scene or photojournalist photographer's pictures abstract or creative art. that's what i'm trying to find out - if anyone here takes very creative/abstract photos - not just getting a lucky shot that looks good, but going out there from the start with the mindset of creating something very artistic and abstract as opposed to simply snapping the photo and printing it as is.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tamjpn/44473512/sizes/m
 
paradoxbox said:
How about the rest of you? Are you like me, where your photos are simply photos? Or do you create crazy abstract concepts like the girl in the above link?
Click to expand...

Well in the history of photography the people who stand out have never been the ones who think of photographs as just photographs. But on the other hand there have always been a majority of people who think the photograph should be accompanied by standing to attention and saluting, as if making something without any personal imprint is tantamount to following orders, and preferable to having an opinion. Crazy abstract concepts are the same things that Edward Weston used to enrich his photography, equally so Robert Frank, or Diane Arbus, or Andreas Gursky. Abstract concepts are the whole point of art, recording information without a concept is the whole point of a machine.
 
Sometimes I think outside the box that was stretching the envelope of the box that had the envelope with the photograph literally in it! ... so going beyond photography is pretty normal in this house ...

... we normally only do that on Wednesdays though
 
paradoxbox said:
double exposures on a rolleiflex, never knew it could be done, i'll have to check it out as i use one often. that's why i think she's using photoshop to layer the frames.

i think there's a big difference between plain jane photography and some of the stuff you can see out there (for example the girl above). it no longer resembles a photograph but it could be a painting or drawing for example.
Click to expand...

I don't know that I'd say that any are especially abstract, just well composed. As for not resembling a photograph, I don't know that I'd say that either. Are you familiar with the pictorialists?


...that's what i'm trying to find out - if anyone here takes very creative/abstract photos - not just getting a lucky shot that looks good, but going out there from the start with the mindset of creating something very artistic and abstract as opposed to simply snapping the photo and printing it as is.
Click to expand...

Well this being a forum of people who are inclined towards candid street photography, you might be lead to believe that that is all people are interested in, but it's just not the case! 😀
There are TONS of photographers who go out and stage scenes or carefully select locations for the location's sake. That's not even close to being unusual by any means. You just have to be into that kind of thing.
 
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