Tones vs. Aesthetics + Abstracts

[Don_ih]

the choosen tones are the aestethics of your print

Tones are what you see. Aesthetics would be the (emotional, spiritual, intellectual) impact of what you see.
{Moderator's Note - these posts started out in the "Simplified Zone System thread, and were moved here}

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Tones are what you see. Aesthetics would be the (emotional, spiritual, intellectual) impact of what you see.

A full range of nice tones adds to the aesthetics.

 

[Don_ih]

A full range of nice tones adds to the aesthetics.

There are no aesthetics without the tones. The point of my comment was to indicate the distinction between the two.

 

[tykos]

Tones are what you see. Aesthetics would be the (emotional, spiritual, intellectual) impact of what you see.

the impact is formed by the tones you see and how they interact in the print. it's a black and white print: nothing to see except various shades of gray. more or less...

 

[Don_ih]

the impact is formed by the tones you see and how they interact in the print. it's a black and white print: nothing to see except various shades of gray. more or less...

That's a misrepresentation of "seeing".

The image is formed by the tones you see. When you look at a black and white photo:

you don't call what you see "shades of grey" - in my example, you'd say you see a cow. Whether or not there is anything significant about it is a different matter. Whether or not there is any "aesthetic" to the image is tied up in the subject, the composition, the rendition, the viewer, etc. - all of which is conceptually well past perception of tones.

A person never sees without an attempt to identify. Even when confronted by a purely abstract photo, there will be an attempt to identify - which may be completely impossible -, which may leave the viewer dwelling only on shades and possibly shapes. But that will still come with the knowledge of the inability to identify, which is itself a form of identification: the abstract or unidentifiable, non-referential, just whatever it is named or what it is in itself.

 

[DREW WILEY]

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?

 

[Don_ih]

Is there such a thing as an "abstract" photo?

Sure. But perhaps there are only degrees. A silhouette is, in a way, an abstract photo. A macro photo of a textile weave pattern is an abstraction of a different kind. The first simplifies the subject (to a profile or outline) and the second subject is a detail that has left the object behind.

A total abstraction would be difficult, particularly for a photo.

Or another way of looking at it is that a photo is, by its nature, an abstraction.

Obviously forks, but not entire forks, and it's not a photo of forks-as-forks. They're not sticking food in someone's mouth - they've been abstracted from function and made to cast shadows.

 

[BrianShaw]

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?

Barbara Kasten comes to mind with the colorful forms and mirrors.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

The aesthetic discussion starting post # 227 on tone and abstraction—with the added subtext of "what is seeing" and "what is looking"—is extremely interesting. Should have its own thread and not be lost in this one.

 

[BrianShaw]

That’s a great idea. Perhaps @koraks or @MattKing would peel those off so we can prattle on…

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

A full range of nice tones adds to the aesthetics.

There are no aesthetics without the tones. The point of my comment was to indicate the distinction between the two.

To clarify my point, well-presented mid-tones such as in Tmax can add to an aesthetic differently than a picture that is basically hard blacks and whites like Tri-X.

 

[Don_ih]

To clarify my point, well-presented mid-tones such as in Tmax can add to an aesthetic differently than a picture that is basically hard blacks and whites like Tri-X.

Not denying that, Alan - I was just talking about something a little different.

 

[Milpool]

Alan, just a technical note… TMax and Tri-X can both do any midtones you want (or hard blacks/whites).

To clarify my point, well-presented mid-tones such as in Tmax can add to an aesthetic differently than a picture that is basically hard blacks and whites like Tri-X.

 

[MattKing]

New thread to move a discussion to.

 

[cliveh]

That's a misrepresentation of "seeing".

The image is formed by the tones you see. When you look at a black and white photo:
View attachment 377551
you don't call what you see "shades of grey" - in my example, you'd say you see a cow. Whether or not there is anything significant about it is a different matter. Whether or not there is any "aesthetic" to the image is tied up in the subject, the composition, the rendition, the viewer, etc. - all of which is conceptually well past perception of tones.

A person never sees without an attempt to identify. Even when confronted by a purely abstract photo, there will be an attempt to identify - which may be completely impossible -, which may leave the viewer dwelling only on shades and possibly shapes. But that will still come with the knowledge of the inability to identify, which is itself a form of identification: the abstract or unidentifiable, non-referential, just whatever it is named or what it is in itself.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Obviously forks, but not entire forks, and it's not a photo of forks-as-forks. They're not sticking food in someone's mouth - they've been abstracted from function and made to cast shadows.

At first I thought you were bending the definition a bit much. But after thinking about it, I'm no longer sure. It's certainly complicated.

My problem with your forks example is that the viewer may see the photo as an astraction only if he wants to. At any moment he's able to simply view them as forks—forks that cast a shadow, but forks nevertheless.

Shouldn't a true abstraction be independent of the viewer's intent? Shouldn't it be filled with such ambiguity that even though you may wonder if it's "real" object, and what "real" object it is, you are still left with no other choice but seeing as an abstraction? Can there be degrees, or levels of abstraction?

Minor White comes to mind—and I chose him purposefully because this thread started with a discussion about tones and the zone system—, but there are others.


Very abstract? :

Less abstract? :

 

[Dan Pavel]

"Whether or not there is any "aesthetic" to the image is tied up in the subject, ..." The "aesthetic" is never tied up in the subject of an image. The subject "per se" has no aesthetic value, is neither beautiful nor ugly.

 

[DREW WILEY]

There's nothing abstract about that fork picture, Don. It's a seen tangible object with it's picture taken - Some forks which someone has arranged to mimic abstraction. All the time people go out an see interesting detail patterns in nature and call them abstractions.
Well composed or clumsily taken, they're still photos of actual objects. I have all kind of prints like that - lotsa big color ones. Whether people can relate to or even identify the content or not, they're still pictures. I once had a fellow cuss me out at a big exhibition opening because he couldn't figure out all the layers of the reflections I was dealing with, or what was rightside-up or upside-down. I was intrigued, not offended, by his response. But to attendees who had spent time in the mountains, it was a partially frozen lake doing something fascinating.

Those aren't abstractions you showed either, Alex; nor have I ever seen a Minor White abstraction. If anyone could have done it weightily, it would have been Brett Weston - but he didn't make abstractions either, but took selective photographic compositions of things he actual saw. A good composition might move you the way a painted abstraction might, but it got there by an entirely different route. According to most art historians, the first abstract painting was the little watercolor Kandinsky finally did with nothing figure-based left in it.

Now if someone went to the darkroom and swirled around developer or dyes, like some have done, that might be a legitimate usage of the expression "abstract"; but it wouldn't be a photograph.

 

[Don_ih]

My problem with your forks example

My forks example was in support of the idea that all photos are necessarily abstractions, more or less by virtue of not being the represented object (or lack thereof). It was not the same idea as what I said above it,

"Whether or not there is any "aesthetic" to the image is tied up in the subject, ..." The "aesthetic" is never tied up in the subject of an image. The subject "per se" has no aesthetic value, is neither beautiful nor ugly.

I said "Whether or not there is any "aesthetic" to the image is tied up in the subject, the composition, the rendition, the viewer, etc. - all of which is conceptually well past perception of tones." which is way more than what you quoted, both in words and concept. Also, the subject of a photo is not the actual object of the photo but that as seen in the photo. The subject is inextricable from the photo - even if you can't identify it.

It's a seen tangible object with it's picture taken

The object is an object. I was suggesting that a photo of an object can be understood as an abstraction.

I'm not talking in absolutes. I'm only suggesting ways of understanding that can be adopted or not.

Anyway, I'm done talking about it

 

[Alex Benjamin]

"Whether or not there is any "aesthetic" to the image is tied up in the subject, ..." The "aesthetic" is never tied up in the subject of an image. The subject "per se" has no aesthetic value, is neither beautiful nor ugly.

Agreed. The camera is without judgement.

Even when, I should add, the photographer is without taste.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Yesterday I pulled off the shelf a little book of Johsel Namkung's LF color photos of the NW. He had a wonderful eye, and was deeply inspired by abstract painting, and evinced that same ethos in his own work. But there's still a giant difference. Photographers discover something already there, even if they have to rearrange it in the studio. In his images, what resembles a Jackson Pollock painting is a complex pattern of lichen; wonderful swirls of color are Palouse wheat field in different seasons; then there are water pattern, complex swirls on big driftwood logs, etc. Every single one of them is something discovered and carefully composed (5X7 Sinar work).

If you want to see some of the craziest stuff, go to Nikon Small World and its incredible microscope images - all kinds of lighting tricks involved to obtain those images, and some very expensive equipment - but still, they're starting with something which can literally be seen.

The fact that photographic tonal relationships can express certain intangibles doesn't change that. Minor White has been mentioned. His pictures, which he himself classified as "equivalents" in the Stieglitz tradition, certainly had some compelling "Gestalt". But they're still discovered objects or scenes, selectively interpreted through the photographic medium.

 

[Pieter12]

All prints have tones and aesthetics. What is the point, here?

 

[Don_ih]

To clarify. When you talk about the subject of a work of fiction, you're not expecting that to be sitting out in the world somewhere. Because it's whatever the book is about - in this instance, something imaginary - but the point is you only get what the book gives you.
Similarly, the subject of a photo is what the photo gives you. You can distinguish it from the object of the photo, which is something you could possibly see from a different angle.
Also, a photo of a fork is not itself a fork. It's a photo. A photo of a scenic view is, likewise, not itself a scenic view, even if you frame it as though it were a window and pretend it is one.
So, feel free to discuss the aesthetic of a subjectless photo as much as you want. It's otherwise known as unexposed photo paper. You can argue whether the eventual fogging counts as a scenic view.

 

[Pieter12]

To clarify. When you talk about the subject of a work of fiction, you're not expecting that to be sitting out in the world somewhere. Because it's whatever the book is about - in this instance, something imaginary - but the point is you only get what the book gives you.
Similarly, the subject of a photo is what the photo gives you. You can distinguish it from the object of the photo, which is something you could possibly see from a different angle.
Also, a photo of a fork is not itself a fork. It's a photo. A photo of a scenic view is, likewise, not itself a scenic view, even if you frame it as though it were a window and pretend it is one.
So, feel free to discuss the aesthetic of a subjectless photo as much as you want. It's otherwise known as unexposed photo paper. You can argue whether the eventual fogging counts as a scenic view.

What if the subject of the photo is the shadow of the fork, not the fork itself? The shadow only exists because of the fork and light and a surface, but none of those are depicted.

 

[MattKing]

All prints have tones and aesthetics. What is the point, here?

In many ways, the choice of tones helps establish a hoped for aesthetic in the artifact we call a "print". And that choice of tones is often greatly determined by the photographer at the time of exposure, even if the contribution of the printer is necessary at the time of printing as well.
Yousuf Karsh's portrait of Pablo Casals comes to mind: