>Am I now biased as a photographer? such that I can't see the
art >in art?
An interesting subject, this is.
I did reread your post and stewed on it for a bit. There is a
difference between light as the "subject" and light as a
"compositional tool".
Obviously, photography (and painting) is all about "light". Or
is it? Light is the means of making a photograph and painting
happen--both in the creation and in the viewing. For this
aspect, light is used as a means of energy transfer. Light is
the engine behind our entire visual process. Is "light" the
"means to an end" or is it the "end" itself?
There are many "subjects" that we can point our cameras at.
Light sources and reflections are only two of those subjects.
If I take a telephoto picture of the sun it shows a whole lot of
light. Does this make the picture superior to others?
Light can be the subject (as in the above illustration)--and
most of us have a number of examples of this in our own piles of
pictures, but light can be used as a compositional element.
Somebody mentioned "Rembrandt Lighting". With Rembrandt
Lighting, the subject isn't the light--far from it. The light
is a compositional tool to enhance the primary subject.
Maintaining a "lightness" in your art is fine. But it is also
stylitic. Just like framing a landscape photograph with tree
branches, it's cool once in a while, but you wouldn't want all
of your pictures to be that way.
George Anderson (occasional list member) is one photographer
that truely grasps how to capture "light" in his photographs. I
am amazed (and humbled) by his photographs. He knows how to
balance it with the rest of the subject to create a picture with
"legs".David Meunch is a rather famous photographer that has
"light" down to an artform, but to a fault. Just like framing
your pictures with tree branches, David takes it over the top.
I like his work, but tire of it quickly.
Maintaining a luminiscy to our photographs is important. This is
difficult to achieve with most color photography--much easier
and more important in B&W where the full tonal scale must be
represented to define the visual boundaries in a decidedly
abstract artform.
AG-Schnozz
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >
|