Starting a series

I read that this section is for one person to put a collection of pictures in which they are trying to define theme, motif, ideas, style and so on to allow one to tackle a different area of photography where they have no refined skills or where they want to improve their way of presenting things.

Lately, I have seen black and white pictures who had something in common between them, but I am not entirely sure what. Nevertheless, I found myself attracted to the style. Here is one:





Click on the picture for more!

Jerome,

There's immediate capture of our attention. I know a lot of my reactions but I'd like to hold them so as not to influence your nascent thoughts as you continue creating. After several new images, I'll add my feedback. Suffice to say that this image is impressive and worthy of your new series and our attention.

Asher

Jerome, A stiking image immediately I saw it.

I clicked a few bw Flickr images too.

I shall come back to this after viewing it more.

Should be an impressive series.

Regards.

Jerome Marot said:

I read that this section is for one person to put a collection of pictures in which they are trying to define theme, motif, ideas, style and so on to allow one to tackle a different area of photography where they have no refined skills or where they want to improve their way of presenting things.

Lately, I have seen black and white pictures who had something in common between them, but I am not entirely sure what. Nevertheless, I found myself attracted to the style. Here is one:

Jerome Marot: The Beach​

Click on the picture for more!

Click to expand...

Jerome - is the link a visual / conceptual / emotional or a mixture you want to explore?

can you post them here and arrange them how you read them ?

btw the image above is almost frightening..

cheers

I am sorry for the link. I did not intend to attract the intention on the fact that the picture was clickable (my pictures usually are to comply with flickr terms of use). This is, for the moment, the only picture in the series.

Jerome Marot said:

I am sorry for the link. I did not intend to attract the intention on the fact that the picture was clickable (my pictures usually are to comply with flickr terms of use). This is, for the moment, the only picture in the series.

Click to expand...

Oops, Jerome!

Pointing out the link was entirely my fault and error! I mistakenly added that note when I discovered the image was clickable. I did not know any other reason for going to the bother to make the image clickable, but to link related information, LOL! I imagined that one or more of the images on Flickr would end up in the series. That was a puzzle for me too and so my comments. My prime suspect, for this series, was the "Trees Against the Sky", another B&W picture; everything converges. So, as in "Beach", the picture here, our gaze is commanded to the image center.

Now I'm really looking forward for how the series will build. For sure, this is not going to be anything casual.

Asher

Jerome,

It isn't yet clear to me what you have in mind for the series. You say you have seen some B/Ws that have something in common but you aren't sure what. Now that the Flickr issue is out of the way, did you mean some images of your own that you have already taken? Or, someone else's? Or some of your own yet to be taken?

The image presented here speaks to me. Of the seeming disconnectedness of the figures to the weather. The other human element, the building, functioning in a similar way, yet with more endurance in the fact of the weather -- weather beaten sort of, but still standing. The pole says permanence to me. And all this in the face of the constantly changing weather conditions presented.

Jean

Jean Henderson said:

Jerome,

It isn't yet clear to me what you have in mind for the series. You say you have seen some B/Ws that have something in common but you aren't sure what. Now that the Flickr issue is out of the way, did you mean some images of your own that you have already taken? Or, someone else's? Or some of your own yet to be taken?

Click to expand...

I meant other people's images, seen over an extended period of time. Simply, that day, I was at the beach and I thought that I had seen something similar (although not a beach) and maybe I should try to take it in a similar way. But I don't remember the other pictures exactly. The idea was simply to have an object to focus the camera on, to have a seemingly unrelated background and to have a strong but simple composition. And the B&W post-processing. I don't know why it would work.

I don't usually take pictures in that manner and I thought it would be a good idea to start a series. So the other pictures but one or two are not yet taken. I understood that this was the purpose of this part of the forum: that someone starts something new for him or her, post pictures over the course of a few months and get feedback about the development.

The image presented here speaks to me. Of the seeming disconnectedness of the figures to the weather. The other human element, the building, functioning in a similar way, yet with more endurance in the fact of the weather -- weather beaten sort of, but still standing. The pole says permanence to me. And all this in the face of the constantly changing weather conditions presented.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the feedback.

I will add another photo taken the same day on the same beach, but in a different orientation:

Hi Jerome,

Jerome Marot said:

I meant other people's images, seen over an extended period of time. Simply, that day, I was at the beach and I thought that I had seen something similar (although not a beach) and maybe I should try to take it in a similar way. But I don't remember the other pictures exactly. The idea was simply to have an object to focus the camera on, to have a seemingly unrelated background and to have a strong but simple composition. And the B&W post-processing. I don't know why it would work...

Click to expand...

Perhaps "Deja Vu" or "Dreams" might be what you are looking for as a uniting element. In that case, B&W would work by abstracting and removing us one layer from the reality.

Jerome Marot said:

... I understood that this was the purpose of this part of the forum: that someone starts something new for him or her, post pictures over the course of a few months and get feedback about the development..

Click to expand...

Definitely! I am looking forward to seeing the development of this project. I will comment to the best of my abilities.

I feel something..but shall wait for the next image.

Regards.

Jerome Marot said:

I will add another photo taken the same day on the same beach, but in a different orientation:

Click to expand...

Jerome,

I suspect, (but do not know for certain), the guiding motif from the two pictures above which you have admitted to the series and then this one I noticed in your Flickr collection:

Asher Kelman said:

...... I imagined that one or more of the images on Flickr would end up in the series. That was a puzzle for me too and so my comments. My prime suspect, for this series, was the "Trees Against the Sky", another B&W picture; everything converges. So, as in "Beach", the picture here, our gaze is commanded to the image center.

Click to expand...

The two images you have posted plus my observation of the image I have wondered about, the "B&W "Fall Colors", induce a family of reactions but they do have some undeniable quality and effects on us in common. The caveat in any opinion at this early stage is that with only a few images, we can miss the essential thread and be distracted by some happenstance strategies used to make the picture which do not actually define the series. So what can we identify, even tentatively, so far?

First, all the images are strong. Secondly, we have no choice but to bring what we are carrying to the center. So far, it seems to me, and let me offer with some trepidation, that the important motif in common could be "A Centripetal force on Us"; some over-riding need or tendency for drawing things together despite distractions, influences intentions to the contrary. This seems to be about focus on importance and togetherness in our lives.

I do hope these reactions of mine are useful and have some resonance with your intent and the gestalt of your path and goals in this series.

Asher

Sorry for the delay in responding.

I realize now that I should not have started this series or, maybe, that I should have started it a year ago. The problem is that I am starting by the end: the first image will probably be the strongest, because it is the product of a long maturation. I looked at some of my pictures last week-end, and I realize that I had been toying unconsciously with the concept for some time. The problem was to recognize it.

So what is the "concept"? I think I have been influenced by the thread "reading the reading" at some point and the idea to play with the reader's reading, to provoke unease in the viewer. Mainstream photographs (using "mainstream" for the lack of a better word, I mean the kind of classical composition that is taught in beginners' courses) teach to create a "gentle" reading, letting the reader slowly explore the frame. That leads to put subjects at off center points (basically 1/3-2/3 or any close "golden" number) so that the photographer can find a balance and movement between them. Indeed the classical beginners' course teaches to avoid centered compositions, since they do not allow to play with the viewer's reading: the subject is just there and the gaze has nowhere to go. So you are right when you notice that the composition of the three images is similar, basically strongly centered and symmetric.

But then the question becomes: how do we escape from the problem that the centered composition is static?

At the same time, I have also be influenced by photographers like Stephen Shore, William Eggleston, the Becher couple, the "new topographics" school (there was a thread about the "altered landscape" here which referenced them) and a few other exhibitions I visited, which were interested in picturing the mundane, the trivial, the landscape or object next door. I played a bit with the idea of picturing uninteresting objects.

There is a way to escape the immobility of the centered composition, that is to put a subject that the viewer gaze will want to escape spot at the center. Indeed the effect that "The beach #1" is "almost frightening" as noted by Mark Hampton comes from the pole right at the center, which we don't really want to see there. Now, I don't pretend to have found the idea to put a distraction where the viewer is expecting the subject, I am pretty sure I have seen it somewhere else (*), but I know I have been toying with that idea the past year as the two examples below show. I have also be playing with depth of field as a way to blur the line between the subject and the distraction (for "The Beach #1" the subject would be the landscape and the distraction would be the pole), but that may not be a great idea: "The beach #1" works because everything is sharp.

(*) I am not sure where I have seen the idea in a photograph, but René Magritte used it in some paintings, e.g. "Le fils de l'homme" (see image bottom).


Unfortunately, now that I have analyzed this composition system (because it is a "system", a "trick"), I realize that it is a dead end. If I go and take 100 landscape pictures with a silly object smack at the middle, the trick will be pretty obvious. So now I have to find a way to go beyond that. That may take a while so please be patient.

In the mean time, other members are welcome to add more pictures to the thread if they wish so.

Now the examples I announced. First an earlier image where I played with depth of field to confuse the limit between what is the subject and what is not. Not a very good picture, just to show what I did before.

Another example of what I did a few months ago:


As I wrote, now I need to find a way beyond that idea...

The Center holds more, much more and is not worn out!

Jerome,

All of us who are still dynamic evolve in changing circumstances in the life path of that photographer, (at east if he/she is cognizant of what is going into the picture and how it might be experienced).

A very competent wedding, war or product photographer, guided by rigid needs downstream, will, perhaps, change little if at all, as most new incidents and experiences hardly if ever alter their already efficient workflow.

You, however, are in the first group and are hyper-aware. So, do not be so quick to abandon the center distraction that has impacted your compositions so distinctly. Don't consider this as a trick, rather as part of an array of tools to direct our reactions. It does not have to be just a distraction. There's a paradox. It can also draw objects inwards to be considered. But why?

The reading is in reality, not static with a small or thin central object, that idea is mistaken. Gaze will investigate the picture at the periphery, repeatedly, las when peeping through a hole in a wall, gradually discovering what's there, wonderful, useful, not so, or even dangerous.

I would strongly offer the suggestion that you remain working on the way the center can be used in the reading of the image to get more out of of the picture.

I'm impressed with your work and this is important for you and this community.

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

Don't consider this as a trick, rather as part of an array of tools to direct our reactions.

Click to expand...

I did not mean "trick" in a negative way. Maybe a "device" would be a better word.

The reading is in reality, not static with a small or thin central object, that idea is mistaken. Gaze will investigate the picture at the periphery, repeatedly, las when peeping through a hole in a wall, gradually discovering what's there, wonderful, useful, not so, or even dangerous.

Click to expand...

Certainly. The viewer's gaze explores the picture. When I talked about a "static" composition, I did not mean that the viewer will not investigate the picture at the periphery, but rather that he will come back to the same place again and again always in the same way. Consider this:


That is what I mean by "static": there is no distraction. It lacks some element to come alive.

I would strongly offer the suggestion that you remain working on the way the center can be used in the reading of the image to get more out of of the picture.

Click to expand...

I don't intend to abandon the idea, rather to expand it. But I still have to find how.

I'm impressed with your work and this is important for you and this community.

Click to expand...

Thank you.

Interestingly, Jerome, the link you gave me in another post on our planned gallery, introduced me to Frank Darius who seems to be using the center in a similar manner.







Asher

Asher Kelman said:

Interestingly, Jerome, the link you gave me in another post on our planned gallery, introduced me to Frank Darius who seems to be using the center in a similar manner.

© Frank Darius: from "Willkommen im Garten", Galerie Jordanow

Used for editorial comment only ​

Asher

Click to expand...

Asher - the centre here devides the vertical but also pulls together the whole image

- it's a sad broken place - tense with waiting - enclosed - even the very light is split - outside darkness presses.

or it could be I was looking at the work as I was listening to this

cheers

Not having studied art/design I am unable to contribute to the scholarly discussions of various

schools of art/painting and their thinking.

But that does not stop an individual ( me in this instance ) to have an emotional response to

to Jerome's work.

The responses people have are individual. They do not have to be similar..they can be at times.

The why ( one feels a particular emotional response is way way above my head..just as particles

traveling faster than speed of light ) is difficult.

Firstly, for me , it is the bw. Color would not have the same response. Not being particularly

concerned about ' rules ' or ' golden sections ' The center division is not the main attraction or

disattraction.

I am invited to look at the image as a whole..not being divided into sections. As a whole, the first

two images covey a feeling of longing for me. Longing because the participants feel distant from

something they might ( or are ) a part of. They are still undecided..standing aloof, unable to

cross over to the other side.

The trees, as I have mentioned elsewher, reach for the sky. Deep roots, noble roots, strong roots

striving to reach the source of their life..the sun in this instance.

Enchanting series Jerome.

Regards.

fahim mohammed said:

Not having studied art/design I am unable to contribute to the scholarly discussions of various schools of art/painting and their thinking.

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Don't say so. I have never studied art or design myself. I only pretend I understand such things on the Internet, when nobody is really looking.


Thank you for the kind words.

Jerome Marot said:

Don't say so. I have never studied art or design myself. I only pretend I understand such things on the Internet, when nobody is really looking.


Thank you for the kind words.

Click to expand...

I am behind you !