Learning How to Focus

ancient urban 4, photograph

“Sharpness is a bourgeois concept.”

– Henri Cartier-Bresson

I have a strong preference for photographic images that are partially out of focus. They seem to reside in that in-between, on the edge place that I find most interesting.

They remind me of the moment when you wake up from a dream and some elements of your consciousness are from the dream state while some are from your newly wakened state.

Finding just the right mix of abstract/literal, in focus/out of focus, distorted/straight is a challenge. I find that it’s a fine line one balances on. A little too far in either direction just feels off somehow. This actually adds an additional challenge for me as an artist, which provides a little extra creative juice to add to the mix.

Of course, this is all subject to personal taste. There are definitely folks who just have no interest in photography that isn’t tack sharp, infinite depth of field, etc.

For those of you in this camp, I refer you back to Henri Cartier-Bresson…

A Leap of Faith

ancient urban 3, photograph

“Its not that we need new ideas, but we need to stop having old ideas.”

– Edwin Land

What is your relationship with your past? With work you’ve done before? With the work of others you’ve been inspired by?

For me it’s a most delicate balance. I can get too enamored of what has worked for me in the past and find myself unconsciously repeating it. Or I’ll find myself emulating work I see that I like from others. This can hold me back from exploring new ideas.

On the other hand, it’s important to understand what I like and don’t like, what has worked or not. So the past informs me, it provides important clues about what I should do next. The trick is to extract enough from it to be the seed of new thought and work, but not to retain so much that it constrains.

I try to use the past as a springboard, not a hitching post. And like the experience of having just sprung from the board,  the feeling of turning your back on ideas that have meant something to you in the past can be both exhilirating and terrifying.

A true leap of faith…

What is Real?

hands 4, photograph

“They are imbeciles who call my work abstract. That which they call abstract is the most realistic, because what is real is not the exterior but the idea, the essence of things”.

– Constantin Brancusi

Smart people in many fields, ranging from classical philosophy (Plato) to modern physics to Kashmir Shaivism and Buddhism, point out that external appearances are not real in some fundamental way. They are transient, illusory, a deception.

We have it backwards – what we think of abstract is real and what we perceive of as real is abstract. Of course, it’s hard to live one’s everyday life with this perspective. But, as artists, we have the freedom to entertain this viewpoint in our work.

This is why most of my photography explores a shadow world, a level or two below what we think of as reality. It’s like the part of the iceberg below the waterline – there’s much more there to explore than what’s on the surface. That volume has extraordinary dimension. It is from there that the parts we see emerge above the surface.

It’s reassuring to know that there is so much more in the abstract world beneath the surface of things – no end to what we can explore!

 

 

Show Announcement!

vapors 7, photograph

I’m excited to announce I will be having a one person show starting March 31st through mid-June at the art gallery at Thumbprint Cellars in Healdsburg. This is a wonderful venue for displaying art and I will be hanging 15 or so large pieces on canvas, many never printed before. I will have several “mini-themes” on display including several from my Vapors series, some very large nature abstracts, some figurative pieces and a new urban series.

There will be an opening Friday, April 1st from 5-7pm. If you are in the area it would be great if you could stop in so I could say hello and share with you what I’ve been up to. Thumbprint Cellars will be doing a wine tasting and food pairing that evening as well.

This show is part of the Winery Program associated with the Art at the Source Open Studio event I will be doing this year June 4/5 and 11/12. I hope you also get a chance to come by then!

Why, not How…

hands 3, photograph

“The moment a man begins to talk about technique that’s proof that he is fresh out of ideas.”

– Raymond Chandler

I really don’t like to talk to people about how I’ve done a particular shot. You might have gathered that from reading this blog, where I rarely if ever discuss how the photograph was made. This is definitely not a how-to type of blog…

It’s not that I’m protecting some great secret, I just think it’s beside the point. The point is how the photography makes you feel, what emotional or intellectual response does it elicit, not technical details about what camera or lens was used, what lighting, exposure, etc. When I get into that kind of discussion with someone, I know they’re not really seeing the photograph.

Since I tend to shoot images that involve a fair amount of technique, some of it unusual, I’m opening myself up to more than my share of such questions and conversations. And I accept that – but I do relish the times when someone talks to me about how they feel about the image. And I feel myself deflate a bit each time I hear “how did you do that?”.

 

Representin’

hands 3, photograph

“I wished to copy nature. I could not. But I was satisfied when I discovered the sun, for instance, could not be reproduced, but only represented by something else.”

– Paul Cezanne

Another worthy distinction to bear in mind as an artist – the difference between reproduction and representation.

As a creator and as a viewer of art, I find representation much more interesting – and, of course, as Cezanne says, you really can’t reproduce another thing anyway!

There are many choices that go into deciding how to represent something. You have to make decisions about how your approach will be like and how it will be different from the thing represented. This provides ample room for interpretation and expression. There are an infinite number of ways to represent something, a very finite (perhaps singular) number of ways to reproduce it. As a viewer of art, trying to understand how and why the work represents it’s subject offers a visual and intellectual challenge that engages me.

When I think about representing, I am forced to consider what are the essential qualities of the thing so I can attempt to make those more evident in the piece. This deepens my understanding and experience of my subject in a way that simply reproducing it does not.

Just another way that artmaking is so much about the process, not just the end result.