Tones vs. Aesthetics + Abstracts

[Don_ih]

Also, don't forget that you can do anything you want between developing a negative and drying a print. The latter doesn't need to strictly look like the former. The camera stops playing a role once the light hits the film.

 

[jeffreyg]

I think most people refer to art including photography that can’t be recognised as an object etc as being abstract I have a Henry Holmes’s Smith print that was made on photographic paper with just photo chemicals. The subject appears to be some sort of figure. I guess you could also refer to it as a mixed media I also have a Brett Weston print of probably reflections of something on a window. None of the forms are recognised as any particular object. Referring to them as “abstract “is an easy way to communicate

 

[Heds43]

To say, theres no aesthetics without tone

 

[Heds43]

Because all images has tones

 

[DREW WILEY]

I've seen quite a few Brett Weston images, both actual prints and book reproductions, of reflections in windows or on shiny car surfaces. And although Brett could have been an abstract artist, all his photographs are actual subjects - something he actually saw through a viewfinder or ground glass. Just because some people can't identify what a particular subject is doesn't make it an abstraction. The camera was aimed and focused upon something quite specific. With his wood carvings, however, Brett allowed himself more liberty in that direction.

Another person often cited as an abstract photographer was Charles Sheeler. But he too worked with literal subject matter.

A photographer "discovers"; an abstract artist "creates". Yeah, I know there is a certain blurring of the boundaries, especially these days as Fauxgtographers go hog wild "painting" via digital manipulation. But at the logical poles of definition, I find quite a distinction.

 

[Pieter12]

I've seen quite a few Brett Weston images, both actual prints and book reproductions, of reflections in windows or on shiny car surfaces. And although Brett could have been an abstract artist, all his photographs are actual subjects - something he actually saw through a viewfinder or ground glass. Just because some people can't identify what a particular subject is doesn't make it an abstraction. The camera was aimed and focused upon something quite specific. With his wood carvings, however, Brett allowed himself more liberty in that direction.

Another person often cited as an abstract photographer was Charles Sheeler. But he too worked with literal subject matter.

A photographer "discovers"; an abstract artist "creates". Yeah, I know there is a certain blurring of the boundaries, especially these days as Fauxgtographers go hog wild "painting" via digital manipulation. But at the logical poles of definition, I find quite a distinction.

A photographer like Carl Chiarenza creates with bits of paper, leather, foil and light. Another would be Sebastiaan Knott who uses colored light in simple panels.

 

[CMoore]

I've seen quite a few Brett Weston images, both actual prints and book reproductions, of reflections in windows or on shiny car surfaces. And although Brett could have been an abstract artist, all his photographs are actual subjects - something he actually saw through a viewfinder or ground glass. Just because some people can't identify what a particular subject is doesn't make it an abstraction. The camera was aimed and focused upon something quite specific. With his wood carvings, however, Brett allowed himself more liberty in that direction.

Another person often cited as an abstract photographer was Charles Sheeler. But he too worked with literal subject matter.

A photographer "discovers"; an abstract artist "creates". Yeah, I know there is a certain blurring of the boundaries, especially these days as Fauxgtographers go hog wild "painting" via digital manipulation. But at the logical poles of definition, I find quite a distinction.

Really...Charles Sheeler eh.?
I do not know a whole about him.
I have one book that includes quite a few things he shot at Ford, which are some of my favorites of all time, and some other stuff.
Not really seeing anything "Abstract", but maybe because his work was from so long ago he was a bit abstract for the times..... or i simply have not seen the right photos of his.

 

[DREW WILEY]

For awhile I interacted with quite a variety of artists, not only personally, but as a supplier of specialized equipment. One of them made huge oragami-like sculptures out of intricately cut and folder shiny honeycomb aluminum panel - a very difficult material to work with, bug one way to keep the weight down on huge suspended sculptures. On some of them the section bore shiny iridescent holographic images - almost like true 3D Cibachromes. They became very expensive installations.

 

[jeffreyg]

Whether "abstract" or otherwise I feel tones and subject compliment each other for an effective photograph. I'll toss in three images I printed . The first I made over fifty years ago as something of a challenge and resulting from a visit to a local attraction and a joke with my then young children. I don't recall the exact steps I took but they involved Agfa Brovira single weight grade 6 paper, paper negatives and Kodalith 8x10 film. The print is on the Agfa Brovia 6. The question was : are zebras white with black stripes or black with white stripes? (actually they are black with white stripes) The original negative was 35mm Tri-X. Somewhere I have it printed wiih a black background which would be more correct but I couldn't find it.
The second and third were also silver prints from Ilford Delta 499 negatives on Ilford Multigrade fiber paper.

ABOUT | JEFFREY GLASSER

HOME | SCULPTURE and PHOTOGRAPHY

 

[TomR55]

Is there such a thing as an "abstract" photo? If you took a picture of "something" - anything - then it's not an abstraction. But it's not visual reality either except in some derived sense of being re-appreciated in a different form, namely, as a print. And I can't personally imagine black and white photography, even in print fashion, without color vision. There are not only infinite "shades of gray", but many subtle hues at work too. Don't most of us tone them, and hopefully with purpose?

In the common parlance: to take a picture of “something” is to create a counterfactual image, meaning that if the “scene” had been different at that time and place, then it would have appeared different in the photograph. So, in that sense, the photograph is “tied” to what was in front of the lens at the moment the shutter was released.

[Note, we are talking about photographs as opposed to “photograms” or photographic images created entirely by an algorithm—having no correspondence to the “real” world.]

Now, depending upon one’s definition of “abstraction,” all photographs are abstractions. To put a finer point on it, photographs are abstractions because the word is derived from the Latin, abstractio, (roughly) to tear away or remove from. Maybe that’s why in English, one “takes” a photograph of some thing(s) in the world.

I suspect that in the arts, one talks about “abstraction” as a presentational as opposed to a representational rendering of a subject or concept: for example, an abstraction representing an emotion, in photography, think of Stieglitz’s “Equivalents.”

 

[jeffreyg]

Slight correction Delta 400 120 film typo above

 

[Pieter12]

In the common parlance: to take a picture of “something” is to create a counterfactual image, meaning that if the “scene” had been different at that time and place, then it would have appeared different in the photograph. So, in that sense, the photograph is “tied” to what was in front of the lens at the moment the shutter was released.

[Note, we are talking about photographs as opposed to “photograms” or photographic images created entirely by an algorithm—having no correspondence to the “real” world.]

Now, depending upon one’s definition of “abstraction,” all photographs are abstractions. To put a finer point on it, photographs are abstractions because the word is derived from the Latin, abstractio, (roughly) to tear away or remove from. Maybe that’s why in English, one “takes” a photograph of some thing(s) in the world.

I suspect that in the arts, one talks about “abstraction” as a presentational as opposed to a representational rendering of a subject or concept: for example, an abstraction representing an emotion, in photography, think of Stieglitz’s “Equivalents.”

Abstract painting does not necessarily represent anything. The viewer may interpret it as a subject, emotion or experience, but the artist may not have intended anything more than a composition.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Tom - Stieglitz's "equivalents" were completely representational. It once saw his master set of them on display - yeah, very emotionally impressive. Surrealism also had its season, and a few of those folks did drift into nonrepresentational photograms, or deliberately quirky
hybrid images. There was a degree of overlap with Dada, and with the photographic idea of "equivalents" too, in contrast to contemporaneous "pictorial" photography. Of course, putting everything into some kind of neat little taxonomic pigeonhole doesn't do justice to the diversity of creative output, either then or now.

In an art history sense, "abstraction" generally means something different than just "abstracting" a known subject through an intervening presentation medium, whether photography or painting or sculpture. Visual symbolism goes back tens of thousand of years. But "abstract art" in the recognized sense didn't begin until early in the 20th C. It doesn't matter what the Latin word root was.
That got "torn away" too, just like many terms adopted into entirely new contexts.

 

[Don_ih]

Pointing the camera at actual objects and taking a photo does not prevent the result from being abstract. Being able to recognize those things in a photo does not prevent the photo from being abstract. The following photo is a photo of blocks - you can leave it at that if you want.

Irving Penn

But one would not hesitate to call a similar arrangement, made as a sculpture out in the real world, abstract. You can generally examine abstract sculpture and see what it's made of, what the shapes are - say lots of things about the material. The trouble comes when talking about the complete thing, what it means or doesn't mean.

Abstract art is not merely the lack of form. It can also be form without apparent content, yet you'll probably try to understand it, anyway. There's a reason so many hotels put mostly innocuous abstract art on the walls of their rooms.

 

[TomR55]

Tom - Stieglitz's "equivalents" were completely representational. It once saw his master set of them on display - yeah, very emotionally impressive. Surrealism also had its season, and a few of those folks did drift into nonrepresentational photograms, or deliberately quirky
hybrid images. There was a degree of overlap with Dada, and with the photographic idea of "equivalents" too, in contrast to contemporaneous "pictorial" photography. Of course, putting everything into some kind of neat little taxonomic pigeonhole doesn't do justice to the diversity of creative output, either then or now.

In an art history sense, "abstraction" generally means something different than just "abstracting" a known subject through an intervening presentation medium, whether photography or painting or sculpture. Visual symbolism goes back tens of thousand of years. But "abstract art" in the recognized sense didn't begin until early in the 20th C. It doesn't matter what the Latin word root was.
That got "torn away" too, just like many terms adopted into entirely new contexts.

Thank you for the amplifications/corrections; I should add some background in Art History to my reading list. Re-reading that last sentence in my original post, I understand your response.

Thinking about the last sentence in your first paragraph … “pigeonholes” are probably useful for ‘critics’ but not helpful to ‘producers.'

 

[DREW WILEY]

Well, all the lingo can be interesting in a historical context, but if pressed too hard into pigeonholes, can end up pretty oppressive and misleading. Museums and critics are always looking for something new and creative, at least in Western culture; but nothing is really entirely new, and often what seems new is actually cyclical. "Abstract" painting had its precedents, things leading up to it. A line or new boundary was finally crossed; but even after that happened, there has been an ebb and flow to this day. I was merely referring to a predominant way of looking at things, and with respect to how I regard that distinction.

The study of art history can be quite helpful, or it can be a ball and chain if one takes its too authoritatively. As both an acclaimed artist and phD teaching Art History, my aunt told me never to attend art school - "it would ruin me". And it was some of the best advice I ever got. But that didn't preclude me from taking certain art history classes or studying it on my own, or going to museums and seeing great work. It didn't take me long, however, to realize that any academic art approach might be toxic to what can come out way better naturally and freely on its own.

Unless on a commercial shoot, my life as a photographer is all about discovery - I find something which moves me, then try to capture and print it in a manner which communicates it to others. But here again, I don't like being bogged down in pat terminology like "previsualization", or generic labels like "landscape" photography and so forth. It's a lot more complex than that, and never fully materializes until a final print is precisely trimmed and mounted. And even then, I don't expect a viewer to instantly "get it". Yeah, I want them drawn in, but in a manner which rewards viewing the print over and over again.

In some ways, the degree of limitation afforded by photography is a kind of liberation. In other ways, I envy skilled painters because they have more control over their compositions, especially in their use of color. The best of films and most complex and expensive inkjet printing device ever invented will never begin to equal the kind of hue control a skilled watercolor painter can mix in mere minutes, nor will any RA4 medium. But there again, having boundaries is actually a form of liberation : you go where the river takes you.

 

[Pieter12]

Pointing the camera at actual objects and taking a photo does not prevent the result from being abstract. Being able to recognize those things in a photo does not prevent the photo from being abstract. The following photo is a photo of blocks - you can leave it at that if you want.
View attachment 377807 Irving Penn

But one would not hesitate to call a similar arrangement, made as a sculpture out in the real world, abstract. You can generally examine abstract sculpture and see what it's made of, what the shapes are - say lots of things about the material. The trouble comes when talking about the complete thing, what it means or doesn't mean.

Abstract art is not merely the lack of form. It can also be form without apparent content, yet you'll probably try to understand it, anyway. There's a reason so many hotels put mostly innocuous abstract art on the walls of their rooms.

And how will you understand an Ellsworth Kelly
painting, for example?

 

[TomR55]

Well, all the lingo can be interesting in a historical context, but if pressed too hard into pigeonholes, can end up pretty oppressive and misleading. Museums and critics are always looking for something new and creative, at least in Western culture; but nothing is really entirely new, and often what seems new is actually cyclical. "Abstract" painting had its precedents, things leading up to it. A line or new boundary was finally crossed; but even after that happened, there has been an ebb and flow to this day. I was merely referring to a predominant way of looking at things, and with respect to how I regard that distinction.

The study of art history can be quite helpful, or it can be a ball and chain if one takes its too authoritatively. As both an acclaimed artist and phD teaching Art History, my aunt told me never to attend art school - "it would ruin me". And it was some of the best advice I ever got. But that didn't preclude me from taking certain art history classes or studying it on my own, or going to museums and seeing great work. It didn't take me long, however, to realize that any academic art approach might be toxic to what can come out way better naturally and freely on its own.

Unless on a commercial shoot, my life as a photographer is all about discovery - I find something which moves me, then try to capture and print it in a manner which communicates it to others. But here again, I don't like being bogged down in pat terminology like "previsualization", or generic labels like "landscape" photography and so forth. It's a lot more complex than that, and never fully materializes until a final print is precisely trimmed and mounted. And even then, I don't expect a viewer to instantly "get it". Yeah, I want them drawn in, but in a manner which rewards viewing the print over and over again.

In some ways, the degree of limitation afforded by photography is a kind of liberation. In other ways, I envy skilled painters because they have more control over their compositions, especially in their use of color. The best of films and most complex and expensive inkjet printing device ever invented will never begin to equal the kind of hue control a skilled watercolor painter can mix in mere minutes, nor will any RA4 medium. But there again, having boundaries is actually a form of liberation : you go where the river takes you.

Thank you for taking the time and care to craft an excellent and honest description of your background, interests and current approach to photography.

I am retired since 2017. In “real life” I was a Computer Scientist and Educator. As you are aware, the academy imposes its own world view that’s not particularly helpful outside of some narrow and parochial areas … .

I was fortunate to have attended a good public HS in the 1970s. I had a job in the school darkroom where I became fascinated with film. I had great teachers, and so I learned many skills (and habits of mind) that are very helpful to me today. Then (and now) every image I make surprises me … not unlike an experiment with unexpected results. For me, each photograph is incomplete, imperfect evidence that keeps me looking … or, better, helps me look at “the obvious” differently. I don’t recall who said this (and I paraphrase): Nothing is as it appears, nor is it different. I am old, but fortunate (so far) to have the time and the capacity to take this walk.

 

[Pieter12]

As both an acclaimed artist and phD teaching Art History, my aunt told me never to attend art school - "it would ruin me".

It is a shame your aunt makes (or made) a living by ruining artists, by her own admission.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Pieter - for many years my aunt was supported mainly by Govt grants doing murals (WPA etc). Yes, she taught art history, but also was probably the most significant teacher of fresco painting in the 20th C, and to this day is well known on multiple continents by aspiring fresco muralists. She has more paintings on the Natl Historic Register than any other individual in US history. I don't particularly like the predictability of the Social Realism style; but it was what was done in that era, from Diego Rivera onward. Her personal paintings and other artworks were much more fluid; but nearly all of those are either in museums or private vaults.

Somebody with that kind of reputation has no problem putting art critics and groupies in their place. She could be quite outspoken about their antics; and she didn't teach conventionally either. She traveled the world acquiring rare pigments, and took early color slides of murals everywhere too. Unknown to her, nearly all those slides had already faded by them time she willed them to me; but it's the thought that counts. I still have her hand-ground pigments.

She never rose through the academic art system. Rather, back then, recognized artists were often invited to teach. Over the years she did pick up at least 2 phD's on the side, including in art history, but all for sake of keeping her curiosity satisfied during off hours. Much of that was probably awarded too, due to her own underlying studies and accomplishments. She died at 92 with a watercolor pad still by her side. She made many during her last months, and as soon as each one was completed, it instantly sold. I greatly prefer those more spontaneous works over the big murals she is better known for.

 

[CMoore]

It is a shame your aunt makes (or made) a living by ruining artists, by her own admission.

It was just a tongue in cheek comment.
Many instructors have used that line.
No need to snap a fuse, just some art teacher humor

 

[Don_ih]

Many instructors have used that line.

Not just art teachers. Pretty much every discipline.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Oh, I'd didn't take Pieter's remark as anything other than humor. But I did use it to point out the difference in customs between one era and today. Once art teachers were recruited due to their proven ability; but today, it's all about going through the academic system, getting your MFA, etc. For instance, the Art Institute of Chicago was staffed by both painters and photographers who didn't necessarily have either degrees or fancy paperwork resumes. And those names didn't have the amount of fame they do today, long afterwards.
But they did had proven ability in the creative realm.

Now I drive past a huge 250 million dollar new University art and film facility, where they serve wine instead of soda and popcorn, and charge twenty dollars to view alternative films. The gallery section is mostly devoted to MFA grad students, and looks predictably just that - projects designed to land them a degree based on some submitted written prospectus. And there's going to be some "mission statement" posted on the wall, as if you were entering the board room of a broom sales corporation. Pffft !

 

[CMoore]

Not just art teachers. Pretty much every discipline.

Absolutely.
I am not an "Artist" and never had an art class, much less gone to an art school.
Just something i have heard over the years.......... seems to be popular with Law and Economics professors........at least in the circles i spin in

And JOURNALISM school. Every journalist i follow has disdain for...... The Columbia School Of Journalism

 

[DREW WILEY]

"Expert witnesses" in court lawsuits. I worked where we dealt a lot with building contractors. There was one of them who was so utterly incompetent as a builder that his only recourse for income was becoming a career litigation Expert Witness. Same goes for Industry Efficiency Experts; most of them couldn't run a hot dog stand successfully by themselves.