Re: [Leica] PAW 33-abstract photography

[Mark Rabiner <mark@rabinergroup.com>]

Aquiles Almansi wrote:
> 
> Love the quote! It seems to be the source of Strunk
> and White, the 40-pages Bible of "correct" English.
> 
> But I'm not sure that it's really the same point. If
> you take out the adjectives, you minimize the
> probability of adding "noise", i.e., of leading people
> to assume that you see things in ways you don't
> necessarily do. That is, the probability of leading
> our audience to put things in the wrong context.
> 
> What "abstractists" have in mind is a different thing:
> eliminating all possible context, so that all meaning
> is lost and only "pure form" remains. Sounds a little
> crazy, but it's logically possible.
> 
> It is, of course, the exact opposite of what
> "documentary" photographers have in mind.
> 
> Since I think that Chris is nicely documenting an
> interesting (for me) fact in his neighborghood, I
> suggested he takes the "abstract" thing off the title.
> It just gives the wrong context to his photograph,
> i.e., it adds "noise" in the sense I defined above.
> 
> Achilles
> 
><Snip> 


What I remember my art and photography teachers saying was that an
abstraction was not representing or imitating external reality or the
objects of nature. It was not a small somthing out of context. It was
put together from the artists brain alone.
In other words if you're looking at a bunch of pink paint on the canvas
with black dots its not a small part of a watermelon.
It's just a bunch of pink stuff with black dots because that's what the
artist felt like painting. Don't even ask the artist if it reminds him
of watermelon or if he likes Watermelon.

When we zoom way in on a piece of watermelon with our lens so you can
see the fur on the seeds and the pink stuff looks like huge clumps to
the extent that people don't have a clue what they are looking at we
have not created an abstraction.
We've created a SUBSTRACTION. That's mainly what cameras do and is a
photo thing. Abstraction is a painting or sculpture thing.

Now i imagine we can throw a bunch of pigment down on the floor or do a
Jackson Pollock thing and shoot that. I'd think that might be an
abstraction. Actually come to think of it it would be a photograph of an
abstraction. I say that doesn't count. The abstraction is the work of
art you've created on the floor. Copying it is another thing.

No I'm happy with my substractions. I love shooting things out of
context so you don't know exactly what your looking at but you like the
textures, shapes, patterns perhaps color and not in that order.

IF we get frustrated with the fact that photography records the things
around us, what is there and is not a made up Fig Newton of our own
imaginations then we can take up a painting, or sculpture course or just
figure it out for ourselves. 
Make sure all your brushes have red dots on them.

Mark Rabiner
Portland, Oregon USA
http://www.rabinergroup.com
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