Green.
All images April 7-13, 2008 Central Arkansas (c) by Kirk Jordan
pic one: Sweetgum in "Calico" green
Pic two: Elm
Pic three: Willow oak by night, ASA 3200, 4 seconds hand-held, with flash
Pics four and six: Unknown Oak with twist and shout zoom motion.
Pic five: Scarlet (?) Oak, covered in floral catkins.
The Mighty Works Project exists to thank God for chloroplasts.
Kirk... very cool pics and appreciate some of the spec info (not that I know what to do with an ASA, mind you, but my husband has just taken up an interest in photography and I think he might!).
ReplyDeleteQuestion for you: How much of what you do is art versus scieince? Is there a right or wrong way, say, to capture and understand/view lighting? Or is it all pretty much subjective... if the light looks good to me, then it's good lighting...??? And when you take a pic... do you have a bunch of technical parameters running around in your mind before you shoot (is lighting optimal... is object in center of frame, etc.) or are operating more on artistic and creative instinct?
I love the art form... could cruise around flickr.com all day if I had the time... but would like to have more of an appreciation for it. I just kind of point and click and hope the kids are smiling... but suspect there's a LOT more to it than that... :)
Dear Sarah
ReplyDeleteSorry so late in reply. Not only have I been busy, but sometimes I start writing treatises inside my head, and what should be a simple answer gets too big.
A first quick thought is that both science and art share a common objective. They attempt to take something of total reality, then simplify it in a way we can digest it.
Beyond that, I believe that art (and especially photography) can never be fully divorced from technique, or “science” if you will.
In as much as each photograph chronicles a physical event – i.e., light passing though glass and impacting some medium (be it a film emulsion or digital receptor field), it seems that even an over exposed, out of focus, or poorly framed picture is much about physics.
I think your question, however, has more to do with style or “representation.”
I know a number of photographers, whose primary goal is to record nature as they see it. These photographers may tweak the sky with a polarizing filter (for deeper hue) but such tinkering in within bounds.
For example, a photographer whose primary goal is faithful re-presentation of nature, might use a flash to perk up color in a plant, but he would be disappointed if you “saw” that he had used flash.
I understand this approach and feel it is valid, as a set of imposed limitations. On the other hand, it represents a contrived “ideal” since, a photograph by its very nature, distorts the thing that is represented.
I have heard said that some aboriginal peoples, having never seen a photograph, could make no sense of Polaroid snapshots. It took them time to see patterns in the photos as “objects” or even as representations of themselves -- then they wondered why they were so small… or flat.
So we begin with a distortion. The framed, flat, and reduced scale of the image already moves us away from reality. Then take away color, or add the perspective manipulation inherent in lenses, and the final result is taken farther from “reality.”
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The other day I was flipping through old posts and came across some thoughts about what constitutes art. I believe that most art (be it photography, film, painting, theatre, poetry, sculpture, etc, results from some kind of subtract-and-twist process.
In short, we are treated to too much reality in all forms. So the goal of the artisan is to throw most of the totality away so that only a small patch of reality is left...a bite sized piece that we can begin to digest.
When this idea is applied to photography, the frame not only serves to fence content, but to exclude the greater part of the visible world. The photographer can extend even more control by eliminating color, or using selective focus, or limiting perspective. The more of reality that is thrown out, the more the photographer can invest in the remaining elements.
The same idea might be applied to the art of a play-write, who not only records human discourse, but also excludes every kind of communication that does not support the story at hand. Likewise, in movie craft, "years and years" of real life time are thrown out the window so that only a small portion of the total story time is secured. (And Michelangelo, chipped away all the granite that did not look like David!)
All in all, I see the artist as a kind of editor whose goal is to make reality tangible by excluding the greater part, then highlighting or amplifying the small portion that remains. For example, a skilled portrait photographer would seek to exclude any elements that distract from his subject, then include or highlight select elements which enhance his subject. The subsequent, addition, amplification or distortion is probably what moves science into art.
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Anyway, I am a bit off topic as concerns your question. While I clearly value and appreciate “highly realistic” depictions of nature, I have found that my goal is more often to suggest something beyond that which is visible. Other things (or ideas) that I sometimes suggest in my photos are “the fourth dimension i.e… time, various emotions, or even the unseen and guiding hand of God. Since these attribute are largely beyond seeing, I resort to embellishments and distortion to suggest them.
Ugh, Why can't I write a short response? I just read what I wrote and see I didn't respond to several of your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteSome quick thoughts. Clearly light which is attractive to the eye, should also be attractive as recorded, but there is never an absolute correlation.
For example, some of my portrait clients are excited when they see a bright bold-blue day, and disappointed by overcast skies. But when it comes to a portrait, soft diffused light is much preferable to hard light. A building may look good against that kind of sky, but a person can hardly keep his or her eyes open in that kind of light.
As a rule, grand things are generally disappointing in pictures. It is very hard to suggest the true scale of a mountain or the grandness of the Grand Canyon in a picture. On the other hand, things that that are insignificant or ordinary can be made powerful with the right presentation.
In the end, photography is ALL about light, so I recommend using light in all of its incarnations. Especially light that is slanted, diffused, or altered in the process of falling. Perhaps the hardest light to work under is high noon - but even that can work is some situations.
(Most landscape photographers prefer the light just around sunrise and sunset.
There is one kind of light that happens very rarely in Arkansas (but more often out west, and when it happens I go plum crazy.
The sun is setting at your back, with storm clouds before you (to the east) the sun dips below the shelf of overhead clouds and illumines gold subjects against stormy skies. Wonderful.
Fascinating, Kirk! Thanks so much for sharing your insights (and amazing talent). My oldest son has to do a photography project for school... I'm getting him on your blog tonight!
ReplyDeleteAny resources (books, videos, etc.) you might recommend for those of us who only recently learned to keep the thumb out of the frame?
Thanks!
Sarah
you very well could be the only person I have ever seen or heard thank God for Chloroplasts. That is funny, yet probably neglected from day to day....LOL
ReplyDelete