Abstract

Comments and critique welcome.

Thanks, Andy

Andy,

1. Is this part of a body of work that you've undertaken or just a "lazy snap"?
2. What do YOU like about this? Does it convey something to you? What foundational statement can you offer?

Good questions. It is difficult to comment on work in a vacuum. I always ask for background information before critiquing or reviewing student work. Here's some questions I ask routinely:

- How much work did you put in this piece ?

- What was your goal when you created this piece ?

- Who is your audience (sorry, "myself" is not enough) ?

- What difficulties do you face and need help with right now ?

- What do you want to express in this image ?

Ken Tanaka said:

Andy,

1. Is this part of a body of work that you've undertaken or just a "lazy snap"?
2. What do YOU like about this? Does it convey something to you? What foundational statement can you offer?

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Hi Ken, thanks for the feedback.
A little more than a lazy snap I suppose, and hopefully will eventually be part of a series.

I've never thought in terms of foundational statements but off the cuff, I'd say that I'm looking for hidden gems in nature. I like to think that most people at that place at that time would have been oblivious to the gorgeous little light show going on.

So, a bit like a native tour guide drawing attention to the medicinal qualities of an otherwise scraggly looking shrub (if you follow my drift).

And as far as what I like about the shot, I love the bold colours, the dollops of blue and gold and the laws of physics!

Fair 'nuff, Andy. May I make two recommendations?

1. Draft a statement for the prospective work and follow through by creating a body of images towards that statement. You may ultimately change the original statement...perhaps several times...as you delve into the project further and discover new aspects you want to pursue. You don't have to show the statement to anyone. But such a personal commitment can have an energizing and crystalizing effect on your work.

2. Along the way you'll want to make decisions regarding what aspects you want viewers to react most strongly to. For example, in this image, the wonders of surface tension (?) or color and geometry. That is, do you want viewers to be able to identify your subjects and marvel at what they normally might not notice?

3. Follow-through. Whether it takes a few weeks or a few years, follow through with the project. You'll be rewarded for the effort in many ways.

I have been working on a remotely kindred project for several months and have some appreciation of your inspiration.

Good luck.

Alain Briot said:

Good questions. It is difficult to comment on work in a vacuum. I always ask for background information before critiquing or reviewing student work. Here's some questions I ask routinely:

- How much work did you put in this piece ?

- What was your goal when you created this piece ?

- Who is your audience (sorry, "myself" is not enough) ?

- What difficulties do you face and need help with right now ?

- What do you want to express in this image ?

Click to expand...

Alain, thanks also for the feedback,
Lot's of questions so apparently you're interested enough to know some more.

Work?, more like play, trying to find a halfway comfortable position at the edge of a tidal pool amongst the razor sharp oysters and searching for something quirky and a little obscure whilst trusting my instincts to avoid being drenched in saltwater.

Goal?..Maybe to offer up a pretty trinket like a delicate shell to a curious and receptive recipient.

Audience?..Specifically those who might be swayed in some tiny way to delve a bit deeper into the natural world ( hopefully the young).

Difficulties?..Motivation, inspiration and remuneration.

Express/expression?..There's more to see than meets the eye.

Andy,

Your answers are very good. I like to have background information on your work. Your image is very nice and abstract. Ken's comments are also helpful. Working on a project will let you move forward much faster. You will be working within a specific framework which will help focus your energy and creativity.

Ken Tanaka said:

Fair 'nuff, Andy. May I make two recommendations?

1. Draft a statement for the prospective work and follow through by creating a body of images towards that statement. You may ultimately change the original statement...perhaps several times...as you delve into the project further and discover new aspects you want to pursue. You don't have to show the statement to anyone. But such a personal commitment can have an energizing and crystalizing effect on your work.

2. Along the way you'll want to make decisions regarding what aspects you want viewers to react most strongly to. For example, in this image, the wonders of surface tension (?) or color and geometry. That is, do you want viewers to be able to identify your subjects and marvel at what they normally might not notice?

3. Follow-through. Whether it takes a few weeks or a few years, follow through with the project. You'll be rewarded for the effort in many ways.

I have been working on a remotely kindred project for several months and have some appreciation of your inspiration.

Good luck.

Click to expand...

Thanks Ken for your succinct instructions. This is such a good move on your part. Thanks also to ALain for adding:

- How much work did you put in this piece ?

- What was your goal when you created this piece ?

- Who is your audience (sorry, "myself"* is not enough) ?

- What difficulties do you face and need help with right now ?

- What do you want to express in this image ?

These should be the basis for a guide to new pictures that are not intended as "Snaps" in Laybeck Café posted for cuteness or fun.

Thanks for this clarity, both of you!

Asher

*Aside: Not to divert from these great points, I do want to put on record that, to me at least, its fine for the audience, at least in the beginning to be oneself. All my own work is for me. When I'll share it, hopefully you will like it too. If not, I will still value my work. Of course, I'd like my work to mean something to others too. Still, the bare minimum audience for affirming what might be of value is self. For professional work, to earn money, then the answer better be focused, (or one is lucky to have genius) or else one will starve!

Andy,

Thanks for being so willing to accept these suggestions. That really makes your picture so much more worthwhile for us. Now I'm fascinated by the image so I'm dying to know what it was before abstraction.. and may I add

-the how, if you care to share, 'though not required

-the medium and size of the picture when delivered. I ask this since the concept of "presence" can be influenced by the mode of presentation.

As an example Nicolas Claris boat pictures sometime come ten for high and that means a lot in walking by people as the boat is just across the water, some mere 10-20 meters or so. Alain, your recent Mesa Pictures pictures I'd like to see huge too as these images should humble us.

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

Alain, your recent Mesa Pictures pictures I'd like to see huge too as these images should humble us.

Asher

Click to expand...

I agree. These have to be very large. I have a show in Oregon right now (I posted the announcement in the news section a week ago) and I'll have a show of the work I posted in the Medium format section later this year in my home gallery. I will announce here too. Images at these shows are 16x20 minimum going up to 40x50 and larger. On the web 500-600 pixels wide is the maximum size I post.

Asher, thanks for your input.

The image is a sea urchin in a rockpool, just a few spines breaking the surface.
The golden light is late sun reflected off nearby yellow sandstone, shot on 35mm velvia, no tricks.

I don't imagine I'll reproduce it in any huge format. Unlike Alain and Nicholas' work, it's not an awe inspiring vista or feeling of the expanse of the ocean we're dealing with.

Andy brown said:

Asher, thanks for your input.

The image is a sea urchin in a rockpool, just a few spines breaking the surface.
The golden light is late sun reflected off nearby yellow sandstone, shot on 35mm velvia, no tricks.

I don't imagine I'll reproduce it in any huge format. Unlike Alain and Nicholas' work, it's not an awe inspiring vista or feeling of the expanse of the ocean we're dealing with.

Click to expand...

Hi Andy,

Small things can be awesome too! Have you more in this series, of course you do. I'll admit my ignorance, but I did imagine sharks or submarines going by, LOL!

This picture might work best as part of a series of related images. The mood and sense established by one might then extend to the others. The first opens up the path to the next part of a journey where we can experience things in a new way, perhaps.

I want to withhold opinions a while as I need to learn how to look at your work. One part of art is that the observers must be qualified, sometimes, to get the full extent of experience you have been able to obtain as you were immersed in this aquatic world, (alien to most of us)! I believe that just as the photographer must work to deliver the best image they can, the observer naive to this universe of yours, might have to labor in like manner. I don't mind that effort. Your introduction, however, will make that easier for me, certainly.

In addition, this photograph will be "made" and brought out optimally in its final printing. The choice of paper, I'll hazard, might make a difference on the way this rather delicate picture works, or not. Alain or other printer maivins might have special advice or insight here.

Asher

Andy brown said:

I don't imagine I'll reproduce it in any huge format. Unlike Alain and Nicholas' work, it's not an awe inspiring vista or feeling of the expanse of the ocean we're dealing with.

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Hi Andy
I dissagree with you, your image is more than nice, it's appealing!

I would very easily imagine a large print (at least 6 feet wide) on a white wall in a contempory decored living room…

Thanks for sharing!

Nicolas Claris said:

Hi Andy
I dissagree with you, your image is more than nice, it's appealing!

I would very easily imagine a large print (at least 6 feet wide) on a white wall in a contempory decored living room…

Thanks for sharing!

Click to expand...

Ex: Gabriel Orozsco, Orange Flies, C-print, 16" x 20", auctioned at Phillips de Pury last night for $12,125.


Andy Brown, "Pricks in Water", C-print mounted on aluminum, 60" x 80", asking $26,400.

How's that look?

Ken Tanaka said:

Andy Brown, "Pricks in Water", C-print mounted on aluminum, 60" x 80", asking $26,400.

How's that look?

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A bit exy, I can't afford it!
Ken I already have one titled 'pricks in water'(a couple of my mates at the pool!)

Thanks very much for the encouragement here guys.

I am re-energised by your positivity and waiting patiently for the right combination of tide and swell to get back down there.


$26K, must go down to the op shop and buy myself a beret.

Ken,

I'd not pay a penny over $24,700 given the prices of the large works by the same artist are in abundant supply in several stores in NYC. He's getting overpriced. soon other people will discover rock pools and then everyone one and his brother are going to be Andy Browns! Hey, the entire stage at the LA Fashion week was decorated with spikes and these girls in spikes had to cat walk between these! Fankly, he's over rated.

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

Ken,

Hey, the entire stage at the LA Fashion week was decorated with spikes and these girls in spikes had to cat walk between these! Fankly, he's over rated.

Asher

Click to expand...

Sure, over rated but don't tell anyone.

The girls' urchin bikinis were a hit though...right? ( shades of Madonna but much pointier)

Andy brown said:

Sure, over rated but don't tell anyone.

The girls' urchin bikinis were a hit though...right? ( shades of Madonna but much pointier)

Click to expand...

Hi Andy,

Now Madonna is iconic for renewal without changing the actual facts of life. Transmuting from one sphere of existence to another, without paying any gatekeeper's money is what an artist should do! Imagine, perhaps the most famous sexually experienced female of this age defining herself, as born again, "Like a virgin touched for the very first time!" Madonna, in her shape- shifting dancing and art presentation, is the paradigm for breaking rules, ever redefining some new universe.

She recognizes that everything real has defining parameters which clothe it. We can choose to look deeper than the clothing to get at the essence of things. Drama does that in 1 hour, a movie in 120 minutes, her performance is 20 minutes a time, if you can keep up with her! But a picture? You have just 5 minutes or less to live or die in our glance.

I've been thinking long and hard about this picture. In what way is it abstract? I wasn't there with you wading in the rock pool. I do not know exactly what it might look like with everything clearly revealed as in some other pics in the first set. However, it seems to me that we are looking at a thin depth of focus of what is really there. So perhaps we are not abstracting, rather we are "slicing". Every single person with your gear from your position, (having made all your composition choices) could have gotten pretty well that picture at that instance with your setup.

Now I'm on grounds for which I do not have a geo-location map! There's no voice to guide me as to the geography of "abstract". So permit me to go on as best I can and not to lead you too far astray.

I consider that in "abstracting" we might, amongst other choices, take from the apparently real experience, certain shapes, themes and relationships, but free these chosen elements in our new virtual universe of much of the respected rules of our current real universe. This means we leave behind much of the reality: requirements, library, cousins and aunts. We do not, then, get a "slice" of what was there, just a sort of lyrical, colorful essence used for something else, perhaps, though not necessarily. I just looked for some essence that could act as the muse for something new, seeing how one might obtain such an "abstract" from your photograph. I found the edges and then used this to get the final form together with the some of the original but did some shading to increase the material feel of "dancers" and "jet planes" moving around the canvas.






Thanks for allowing me to present this for you to consider. That's generous of you since you already decided what your work should be.

Asher

Well... In terms of abstract I don't know so much but any object in our lifes comes abstract with a macro or micro, depending the brand. However, I think the term "Abstract" is a bit overused.
We cannot state what we're seeing, but just because the image is too close and non recognizible, it doesn't mean "abstract" -unless you wanted to portray an specific characteristic of the subject-. However, in that case, the act of portray would be objetive, like in scientific photography. Besides that, anything which is non recognizible, rarely will draw the attention of the viewer.
I think that the term goes beyond the index, the subject it self. I mean, what's that? Well, it's a close up of X object or subject. So the photo stills prisioned of its signicant.
Using micros/macros is an easy way to create some "Abstract" figures.
We can state 2 kind of abstract: 1) Aesthetical ones and 2) conceptual ones. Both points, points beyond the subject it self and, in order to achieve any of these points, must be a clear idea of what we're portraying. Other than that, we can get as much abstract photos as objects in our desk and they will have not aesthetical or conceptual sense. Oposite to this, the picture is just a close up which is directly linked with the object itself and it doesn't goes beyond.
Abstract photography is quite hard to do in some interesting manner and much more dfficult with normal lenses.

About the composition, well, it's too chaotic, to much elements distracts our attention insitead enhancing it. This doesn't mean that the pictures must be minimalist, because we have another discussion there, but distributing the objects, which are composing the image in a more orderly way, will prevent our eyes to start doing random movements when looking at the picture. Our brain just recognize this as chaos and it will not pay attention to that.
It's like walking among tons of people in a very populated city. Our brain doens't pay attention to everything, or we will get crazy. We tend to focus (by recognition) in some points of the image and follow a path, otherwise, our brain comprehends what we're seeing like a mass of figures and it gets bored with ease. Same happens with recogniceable subjects. If the relation between significant/mean (the subject) and the concept/meaning/significance (the idea) is too direct, to obvious, the photo will, again, be less interesting. In Spanish is "Significante" and "Significado" = Significante is the object it self and Significado, the meaning of the object. Example: "House" is the Significante and "place where people live" is the Significado. And that significado can be also the significante, opening the picture to something more complex, conceptual and abstract: the metaphor. And, far beyond, the metaphor of the metaphor.

Leo

Actually, I think Asher's twist and his creative, suggestive re-titling of this image are terrific. The forms and composition are perfect for such a theme, an overhead image of a stage with dancers. (Perhaps, "The Rockpoolettes"?)

The definitions of "abstract" in the art world are many. However, this would indeed be an authentic abstraction on dancers imaged from above regardless of how the forms were actually created. It actually comes close to being an "action abstract" (re: 1950's abstract expressionism).

Asher, I think you've just added another $20,000 to the asking price.

Ken, I'm starting to understand that my earlier understanding of how the Art World operates is actually quite close to reality

Asher, I agree that your reworking of Andy's image really does add something. Often I do not like this sort of work - perhaps that reflects the quantity and quality of the local photoshop art scene, but this I like. In terms of value, perhaps Ken is understating it - after all was it Richard Prince who got rich selling other peoples photos?

Mike

Just to give one of many concrete forms of reference, at least to how my mind works, lookat the this video of Dervish whirling Dancers.

The abstracted form, that I derived from the rockpool orignal, then approaches these snippets that will then reach out. These might chance to find other flashing references: common or rare ideas that flicker into the imagination, as one might make sense of it all. Or else we might be merely fascinated by the patterns. As if we have found a way of escaping, we're mesmerized. With that, there may be no search for meaning. We just stop and enjoy the rose.

Asher

I like this piece, but I can't say why. It engages me, makes me wonder, stimulated my imagination. I can't really add much of help or substantive critique, but .... it appeals.

Asher, thanks for the reworking, it's amazing, I'm seeing shapes that I hadn't realised existed in the image and aside from your visual of dancers, I'm getting a more stark idea of the spikes piercing from below like a cranky cat but the texture in the B/G is reminiscent of crystallizing honey.
I would never have thought to treat it like this so thankyou for the big eye opener.

Rachel, glad you like it, thanks for the kind words.

Leonardo, wow, taking abstract thinking to a new plane, present your boarding passes please!
Abstract was probably the wrong adjective, elementos escondido perhaps?
I'm not sure I fully understood your meaning but there is certainly food for thought in your post.
Thankyou.

Andy, did you see the Dervish Whirling Dancers in the viseo I linked. That's the link for my brain also views from balconies looking down at balls in Italy in the mansions along the grand canal.

Asher