WEEK 42: Artistic: Minimalist – Isolate your subject using the minimalist approach. Inspire someone with your art.
Wow, I am at the last day of the year and I still have 9 photos to complete for the 52 week challenge! This really has been more difficult that I expected, especially after I lost momentum in the summer months. I started on January 7th, 2016 so I still have a week to try to do as many as possible.
This piece is called Red Room Redux as it was a color photo that I desaturated to make it look more moody.
Not taking photographs may seem an odd subject to write about on a blog that was really set up to feed my photography website but it’s something I have been thinking about for quite a long time now. I am going to leave the philosophical discussion about living life in reality, rather than through a LCD screen, to which I eluded in the entry Missing the Point back in September, and instead blather on briefly (is that possible) about the rights and wrongs of photographing in Art Galleries.
I bring this up following a recent trip to New York City (or simply “NYC” as the trendies like to call it) where we visited the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Frick Collection.
As always, I carry a camera with me and in this case it was my trusty little Panasonic DMC-LX5. It’s a few models old, but does a great job with a decent wide-angle/zoom lens and is compact enough to slip in a jacket pocket. For those that may be interested in such things I usually have it set on aperture priority and have the lens stopped full open to gather as much light as possible – there being no flash built in.
MoMA was heaving with visitors, to the point in fact where it was quite difficult to appreciate the art, and the number of people clicking away, mainly with their phones, was quite surprising. This is not necessarily a problem as MoMA is quite liberal with their photography policy, even though there are many items on loan from private collections that should not be photographed as they do not belong to MoMA. As usual, I asked the staff before taking a few shots for reference and was told of ones which I could not photograph, but most visitors did not seem to be asking. It is assumed these days that we can all photograph anything, I guess.
This overuse of photography came to a head in front of Van Gogh’s Starry Night which was surrounded by a veritable scrum of viewers adopting paparazzi-like stances with overhead snapping as if the monaural artist may himself appear briefly in the village church window depicted in work and they may miss it! It seemed quite ridiculous and I was unable to actually get in front of the painting for even a brief uninterrupted close view, which was a shame.
The other behavior that seems to be odd to me and which I have not seen before was the art-selfie, as I shall call it. I was surprised to see just how many people were obsessed with getting a photograph next to a painting or sculpture, rather than actually examining the composition or skill of the artist for a few minutes. The order of play for many guests seemed to be: stand in front of art, turn your back on it, smile (or pout), click, upload, move on.
On the other hand The Frick Collection takes the opposite approach to MoMA and only permits photographs in the garden room. No photographing in the 16 galleries is allowed. I respected their approach and, to be honest, it probably contributed in part for an improved ability to examine some of the works in much greater detail that MoMA afforded.
Now, to the point of this ramble: I was looking at reviews of The Frick Collection on TripAdvisor and I noticed that among the 400+ photographs uploaded by visitors are several images of the art pieces taken within the galleries themselves. This makes me ask a few questions such as, firstly, why are people so ignorant that they seem to think that rules don’t apply to them and, secondly, why doesn’t the Gallery or TripAdvisor police this clear breach of their policy and copyright?
As a member of a large online art community there never seems to be a day without one or more artist complaining about copyright infringement and the stealing of their images for unauthorized, uncredited and unpaid use by third parties on the web. Such conversations are usually met with vociferous defence from all quarters that “artist’s rights” or the “copyright holder’s rights” are sacrosanct and must be defended at all costs against all infringers. It can often get quite heated and complicated due to the nuances of interpreting copyright law and even the definition of “art.”
I realize that such a small sample size cannot really allow conclusions to be drawn but if the commercial outlets (and I use this term deliberately because they do make money from the display of the art) are inconsistent and fairly indifferent to enforcing their rules what are the rest of us to do?
Does this mean that, at least from the perspective of what could be regarded as “public art” the rules of copyright are no longer in play? In effect, has “mob rule,” or perhaps more appropriately, “phone rule” changed the game, and is it for good or bad? If the galleries do not pursue the infringers are they, in effect, condoning this behavior? I would be interested to hear any opinions on this below.
Today is the memorial of Stephen Biko’s death in custody of the South African police, back in 1977. He was founder of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) and I first became aware of him though Ian’s reference in Reasons to be Cheerful (Part 3) in July 1979, ahead of Peter Gabriel’s iconic tribute to him in the song “Biko” the following year. Bizarrely, “Biko’s” was also the name of the burger bar at my Student Union in University in the UK in the 1980’s. It is odd how the SU chose to memorialize people, but hey, that was the 80’s for you. I am sad to see that it is no longer the case.
Now, obviously I do not have any photographs of Steve Biko that I have taken myself and in some ways it’s odd to include him in a list as a “Reason to Be Cheerful.” I can only assume that Ian was eluding to the fact that heroes like Steve Biko are a real reason to be cheerful. For that reason it seems appropriate for me to not post a simple photo but rather his likeness in the style of the famous Obama “Hope” imagery.
If you have been observing the online art world over the last few years you may have noticed just how popular have become city skyline silhouettes, often in dark colors but also as watercolors.
As graphic artwork they have a certain appeal and the other day as i was looking at the stock market online I noticed that the daily trade volume of shares could also be viewed as a sort of “skyline.” I have therefore created a series of graphic art images based on the volumes of shares traded daily on the Dow Jones Index tracker over an entire year.
It would certainly make for a conversation piece on the wall of a stock trader. Here’s the one for 2009 – what do you think?
If you click the image it will take you to my art website and show you more from the series.
The old man sat very still on the park bench, just as he had been requested. Although it was cold with the snow falling he wasn’t too bothered. After all the well spoken gentlemen had said he could keep the coat and the hat as long as they could capture his likeness on their photographic equipment. To be honest, he was grateful for a little attention too, although it was the clothing and the dime they had given him that was sure to help get through the next day or two.
They had seen him sitting there shivering and remarked about his beard and his blue eyes. He thought they were a little odd but then he wasn’t sure how the younger generation really acted any more. It had all been so different when he was their age.
He remained in his position for about 20 minutes while the young men fiddled about with their contraption, moving large plates of glass in wooden frames back and forth in a serious manner. His stomach was rumbling now, but he sat like a statue, as he had promised. There was no way he was going to jeopardize this offer. Finally, they thanked him and he slowly rose, stamped his feet and headed through the snow to where he knew he could get a warm meal and a hot drink on this cold day.
Several days back I wrote of my recent kiln disasters with my holey bowls and the addition of the concepts of shivering and dunting to my ever-expanding vocabulary of ceramics. Well, lo and behold I turned up to the art studio a few days later only to be confronted by yet more disappointment.
This time it was not hand made art bowls, but two simpler wheel-thrown bowls that had succumbed to a similar fate. Again, luckily no other art work was impacted (literally) so it was only my work that was ruined.
So, as it doesn’t seem to be the design of the works that is causing the issue, we are left with the conclusion that it’s the choice of clay I have been using. I have recently switched to Hugo gray clay, one that is very suited for sculpting and handbuilding, since we had over 50 lbs of it left over from other sculpting activities. This clay is said to throw well and be adaptable to all craft glazes up to cone 7 for vitrification, so I didn’t think there would be any problems and I cannot understand why I am having so much trouble with it.
Not surprisingly, the Studio Director no longer wants to fire this to high fire, for fear of damaging the kiln, so we have agreed that we will bisque fire what I have and I will then use low fire stroking coats to do a second low fire (cone 06) to get some color onto the pieces.
If anyone has any ideas as to why this may be happening, please feel free to add a comment.
Today is the 90th anniversary of the death of Oscar-Claude Monet, father of impressionist painting. Monet was driven to document the French countryside by painting the same scenes repeatedly under differing light conditions throughout the seasons.
He is best known for his paintings of the water lilies which he cultivated in his man-made ponds at Giverny, about 50 miles (80 km) from Paris. To be honest I can understand his fascination with these beautiful flowers, although painting them day in and day out for over 20 years is nothing less than obsessive.
Although we do not have lily ponds at our house we are fortunate enough to have giant lily pond near us at Longwood Gardens and I offer these photographs of these wonderful blooms as an homage to the great painter.
WEEK 48: Artistic: Bokeh – A shallow depth of field is often used to isolate the subject. Create an artistic interpretation using shallow depth of field.
The term bokeh is used to describe the quality produced in photography by having parts of the image out of focus. I like to use this effect in many compositions but, seeing as we are nearing xmas I decided that I could use the lights on our tree to convey the shape of the tree itself without actually showing the tree. This is really an extreme bokeh effect. Let me know what you think.
WEEK 47: Landscape: Abandoned – Capture an image of that which others have forgotten. It may be the last image before it’s gone from us forever.
These are the abandoned smokestacks and factory buildings of a local Pennsylvanian steelworks. I deliberately focused through the chain link fencing as I think it adds a certain context to the imagery, as do the grasses growing in the yard.
It’s been over 6 months since I shared a photo related to the 52 week photography challenge but I didn’t share the short story I wrote to accompany the photo on my website. As it has been a while since I have shared a story on this blog I thought I would post it now in its entirety:
He looked out at the tops of the houses through the shattered window. The town was quiet now that it was daylight, although even the sun seemed to begrudge showing itself this morning. The battle had been unexpected, extremely violent but thankfully localized. Oh, and weird, to say the least. When the biker gang had ridden into town like some cowboy gangsters they hadn’t expected much resistance. They’d been before and got what they wanted without much trouble from the townsfolk. They hadn’t figured on the resentment that had been building up all year in anticipation of this day and so were totally taken by surprise when the doors of the convent burst open. The looks on their stunned faces were priceless, especially from their evil tattooed leader. He thought he was tough, but when faced with shotgun-wielding nuns screaming obscenities he, like the rest, was momentarily paralyzed with confusion. That’s all that was needed, as Mother Superior had predicted. The invaders had only managed one reflexive shot in response and it went high and broke the window up in the tower. And this gray morning the gravedigger was busy digging twelve holes…
Adventuring the globe whilst based in the beautiful PNW, with a focus on fitness & adventure travel, conservation and a healthy balanced lifestyle. All with my beautiful partner in crime, Stephanie!
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