Sunday 22 November 2015

Abstract


When I was posting the above image on my Flickr page the other day I stopped myself short of tagging it with the term "abstract". In practical terms it was a good tag to use, a word a lot of people might search on, drawing more eyeballs to my image. It made me uncomfortable though, so that even after I finally decided to use it I went back and took it out. Heaven forbid I do anything myself that might lend credence to a photograph, one I took no less, being referred to as "an abstract."

 Before you jump to any conclusions though let me hasten to add that that "abstract" is not something I find objectionable or in any way wish not to be associated with my work. Quite the opposite. What bothers me is that when a particular image is deemed to be "abstract", especially "an abstract", the implication is that it possesses some quality that distinguishes it from all those other images that aren't abstract. The problem is there are no such photographs. If I could point to a single realization I've acquired over the years that is most critical to who I am as a photographer today it is the understanding that when I make a photograph, especially one with any sort of expressive intent, abstraction is, without exception, the whole point. That point only gets lost when the term is used to single out only some images from all the rest.

To be clear here I'm not imagining that acquired any special talent that allows me imbue my work with some subtle abstract quality that I'm surprised others don't see. What I'm suggesting applies equally to anyone who has ever made a photograph whether or not they had any notion of this. While this may not be of much interest to those who do photography practical documentary purposed, but even here images are occasionally seem to posses a compelling visual appeal purely by accident. The reason is simple, a camera is a tool of abstraction, that's what it is, that's it's very nature. In short, if it's a photograph, it's abstract.

By this point I am imagining most if not all of you are thinking something along the lines of "But that's ludicrous. I know what abstract art is and that beautiful shot I took of my nephew standing by the window that everybody loves so much is not it!" So if you are thinking something along those lines, given that we're all intelligent, reasonable people here, it's probably safe to assume that I'm not using that word abstract in quite the same way you are. If this were a mere semantic quibble though I'd have done you a disservice allowing you to read as far as you have. The understanding I've come to of that word abstraction though is how I make sense of the fact that the some of the most mundane sights, things you might have passed right by and never even thought to cast a glance towards, perhaps a row of dishes drying on a rack or a clump of trees lying across a soggy field of barley, can become the subjects of photographs we find absolutely captivating. Not incidentally I also find it immensely helpful in the way I understand and approach my own work. When you're trying to make a interesting photographs it can't hurt to have an idea about what it is about photographs that can make them so interesting. If you have a notion to read on then I'll try to make it worth your while.

First, let's talk about the way the word abstract is usually used with reference to art. I think it would be fair to say that whatever the particular usage it is meant to convey a sense of the intangible. We might call the work of a surrealist like Dali abstract because what it depicts defies our sense of how we've come to understand how the world works. Or it could be used with reference to "installation art" such as that pioneered by Marcel Duchamp who used very concrete objects to represent and invite the contemplation of abstract concepts. Perhaps more than anything however it calls to mind non-representational art epitomized by the work of Jackson Pollock whose expressive paint dripped canvases bear no relation or resemblance to anything found outside the world of the psyche. All are abstract, certainly, in obvious though different ways.

The only trouble with this in my view is that when a painting, photograph or any other piece of art is only referred to as abstract when it incorporates some unusual element of abstraction that makes it stand out the message is that when art doesn't have these elements the word abstract doesn't apply. The reason that's not trivial is that it can keep us from appreciating how the element of abstraction is at play throughout all art. As I see it, it is the very essence of art. So how can we ever understand art if we think the word only applies when, for example, a painter is attempting to depict a state of mind without reference to some external "thing"?

Having said that let me take a moment to reel things in a bit. I'm a photographer, this is a photography blog so let's get back to talking about photography more specifically. To me the central mystery of photography and why I even bother with it boils down to the following question:
 How is it that, finding myself before some rather pedestrian scene or object, something I might otherwise have walked right by without a thought, point a camera at it, trip the shutter and end up with something beautiful and engaging enough to want to hang on my wall so I can look at it everyday for years? 
Objectively that thing on the wall is just a pale reflection of whatever it was that I photographed in the first place. To start out with it's been removed from the context of its surroundings to be confined within the rectangular borders of a print. There's no motion, no depth, no hint of the sounds or smells that were present when it was taken. If it's a photograph I made chances are very strong even the colour has been left behind. Given that the thing photographed was often not worth a second glance to begin with this whole endeavour sounds like a profound waste, a good quantity of time material of effort gone to take something that may not have been all that interesting to start and make it even less so.

Except that it isn't. A photograph can be so much more than a poor substitute for the thing photographed, a mere memento. It can become a new thing entirely, not despite the loss of context, dimension or motion but because of them. When we remove these things we make them less specific and therefore more universal. This is how that old pair of shoes in the front foyer you just haven't gotten around to throwing out yet can, when photographed, become all things that have been cast aside and forgotten about. We may not even be aware of the symbolism when we see it, but w well conceived and executed photograph can make you feel it even though those actual shoes in the foyer strike you as a pair of meaningless inanimate objects that would be cause for embarrassment if they were still laying there when company stopped by.

What has happened here is abstraction. That may not seem like it has much to do with the way we usually hear the word abstract use. Commonly understood abstract is sort of the opposite number to that which is real and concrete such that abolishing slavery is a concrete action while freedom is the abstract notion behind it. Fair enough, but it doesn't really help much with our understanding of how a photograph of a thing can possess engaging qualities that even the thing itself lacked. For that I want to go a bit deeper at what that word I keep batting around, "abstract", means more generally. It's comes from the Latin "abstractus" meaning drawn or pulled away. It would have been used mainly to describe some sort of material process such as separating, or drawing away, the wheat from the chaff, the metal from the ore and so on. More simply it means to take a pile of stuff that is a mix of things you want and things you don't, pull away only bits you're after, and leave the rest behind.

Now as a photographer, if you hold it in mind that this is what abstract means you'll see at first that it's a process that's at play in every photograph you've ever made or ever will make. On a foundation like this it now becomes simple to understand how all of the camera's inherent limitations - the way it flattens a three dimensional scene, severing its connection to limitless surroundings to imprison it within a tiny rectangle, all motion arrested, all sounds silenced - these are not limitations at all but the source of its power, the means by which we draw the photographic wheat from the chaotic chaff of the world around us.

I believe any photographer possessing even a modest talent will have some intuitive sense of all this, and even if they go on to great mastery may never put their now highly developed sense into these terms. When we reserve the word abstract denote only work of a more experimental nature the developing photographer (i.e. any photographer not on their death bed) is left to grope in the dark on their own for this understanding. Nor is it enough to save the word to mean "especially abstract" or "abstract in an unusual way". For example, photography has been called an "art of subtraction", where subtraction means something very close to what I mean by abstraction, so why don't I just say subtraction and leave those who want to talk about abstract photography as a special category alone? The answer is that used this way the new word "subtract" in no way fails to apply once we start talking about the things people like to refer to as distinctly "abstract", such as an image in which we have subtracted the cues that normally allow us to clearly identify the subject, thereby introducing one more abstraction.

The problem isn't the choice of terms, it's that we're trying to use terms to draw a distinction between things for which no fundamental distinction exists. Pretending they do only obscures things more, stifling our understanding along the way. The kinds of abstraction we use - the more abstract black and white rather than colour or more abstract still photography rather than motion pictures - are creative choices and asserting that the choice to photograph the more abstract distorted reflection of a subject (thereby creating "an abstract") rather than shooting it straight on is somehow different in kind from all the other choices does nothing but put up additional barriers to understanding.

And if the word abstract makes you a little uneasy because you fancy yourself someone who goes for literal interpretations in photography, remind yourself that, in photography especially, the idea of being fully literal and the idea of interpretation are inevitably at loggerheads. As is true with so many things, in photography abstraction is inevitable. Learn to embrace it, to use it. It will bring you greater understanding and make you a better photographer. And if you're not sure how, imagine yourself standing in front of a print by a one of the great photographers who's name you would never think to associate with the idea of "abstract photography". Let's say it was Ansel Adams, and he was standing there with you so you could ask him how it was made. I don't know what his real answer would have been, but a perfectly true and valid answer could be... "I simply cropped away, desaturated and tonally compressed everything that wasn't Moonrise Hernandez."

See... abstract.



Saturday 14 November 2015

The Cool Colours of Autumn



It's perhaps only a small irony that we connect autumn, a season of cooling, with a palette of such warm colours as the green canopies above transform, taking on colours of flame which, even as they fade leave us with a warm earthy browns. I happen to be particularly fond of warmer tones;  I tend to favour them when making home decor choices, generally prefer my black and white prints to have a somewhat warmer than neutral tone to them and when I load up with colour film as I am wont to do each fall I imagine filling them with images dominated by warm earthy tones.

Often they are, but I'm often surprised myself at how often it's just the opposite. You may have noticed for example that the photo that accompanied "A Season for Colour" a few episodes back may have featured a small stand of trees with leaves in full yellow autumn glory, but these really provided a complimentary accent to the foreboding sky that occupies most of the image space with it's cool blue, tones that seem to speak of the months to come once the snow begins to fly. These aren't the images even I usually envision when I head out to do colour work at this time of year.

To me it seems this is a simple consequence of a being a predominantly black and white photographer with leanings toward the foreboding and moody set loose on the world with a colour emulsion. It's not that find myself ignoring what's in the camera and approaching what's in front of me the same way I do with the usual monochrome stock loaded. Except for those times when I may grab a camera on the way out the door to do other things I'm not committed to colour. There is always an extra film back in the pack when I carry either the Mamiya or Bronica system loaded with HP5+ or Acros and whenever a photograph to be made calls out for it, a not infrequent occurrence, I'll happily make the switch. I have to say there I rarely find myself in doubt as to which is called for, though there are situations when it seems either could work.

The image at the top is an example of this. Had I been shooting exclusively black and white that day I probably would have shot it more or less the same way. As it happens this was taken the same day I was testing out the Polaroid Automatic 220 that I wrote about previously. What I didn't mention there was that on that day a wicked wind was blowing up a minor havoc along the lake. As I emerged from the relative shelter of the nearby wooded path a few small breaks in the cloud was letting through the first rays of direct sun I had seen all day bringing a welcome drama to the wind whipped seascape. I was able to grab a Polaroid shot right off but the fast moving clouds meant I had to wait for another shaft of sun to bring the drama back again so I could get another shot with the Bronica. Good thing I did too because as fate would have it about 1/3 of the previous image I had done with the Polaroid ended up appearing in this exposure. Despite the distinctly un-autumn-like colour palette I think the sombre sky, weathered reeds and blustery weather so typical of this time of year make this an appropriately seasonal colour image.


One more example is this recent shot of my son Brennan. It was a bit of a side jaunt to the beach I took him on while running a few errands. Noting some rather interesting clouds before we left I grabbed my Nikon F80 on the way out the door. I can't say I was really planning to use him as a subject, but somehow he just belonged in the scene so how could I not? Now someone may prove me wrong, but I don't think too many would argue with the suggestion that it just wouldn't work the same way if he'd been wearing, say, a red hoodie. And though, yet again, the predominantly cool blue tones here hardly scream out autumn, despite the lack of any real queue I can point to here that gives away the fact that is image was taken in October rather than, say April, somehow there's still a sense of the season here. Maybe it's just me, because I know, because I was there. Maybe it's something else though, something about the lake, the clouds, the play of light. There are always things that can't be put into words. If there weren't we probably wouldn't bother with pictures.