(embiggenable) • iPhone
(embiggenable) • iPhone
(embiggenable) • iPhone
ON A PREVIOUS ENTRY I PARAPHRASED A Sleepy LaBeef album title, It Ain't What You Eat, It's The Way How You Chew It, to reinforce a point, re: it ain't what you see, it's the way how you picture it. AKA: the Vision thing. The point of that entry addressed the topic of making pictures.
Fast forward to this entry and I'll paraphrase Sleepy once again...It Ain't What You See, It's The Way How You View It. The point of which is to address the topic of viewing pictures.
Since the dawn of picture making time, picture makers, Photography Division, have have had available, or, in some cases invented, various ways-far too numerous to mention-of presenting pictures for viewing. Over that time the most ubiquitous manner of presentation has to have been the drugstore snapshot print-which has subsequently been replaced by the practice of viewing a picture on a screen of one sort or another. A specific type of presentation was chosen by a picture maker dependent upon his/her specific presentationn/ display intentions. Each manner of presentation had its conventions and advantages.
The presentation / display intent this entry is most concerned with is that of addressing the issue of the perception a specific manner of presentation / display conveys or influences the idea that this is Art. That is, which presention / display is most likely to influence the perception of a viewer to consider a photographic print as an objet d'art as opposed to a mere "picture". And, to that end, I would strongly suggest that the manner of presentation / display is everything.
Let's get one thing out of way. If a picture maker ain't making prints, he/she ain't making anything. That is not to write that he/she is not getting a great deal of satisfaction / accomplishement / enjoyment from their picture making activities but, without making prints it is, admittedly albeit iMo, like acquiring the skills needed to play golf but never playing a round of golf.
All of the above written, I am not searching for the one and only / "perfect" manner of presentation / display. Rather, my current intention is to investigate the various ways in which various manners of presentation /display influence a viewer's perception of what is or is not considered to be Art. To that end I am working on putting together an (proposed) exhibit which presents / displays 10 of my pictures, each picture in 5 different ways:
as a stand-alone, loose print (8x8")
as a matted and framed print underglass
on a page in picture book (which contains all 10 pictures)
as a small snapshot print
as a un-matted, framed (no glass) large print (24x24")
The exhibit would invite viewers to express their choice, re: which presentation / display method best projects the perception of this-is-Art. That written, I'd be interested in reading your opinion.
FYI, as you might surmise based upon the pictures in this entry, I kinda, but not exclusively, lean toward the matted-and-framed-print-underglass approach as what most viewers might pick as their choice. That written, most of my gallery work has been presented / displayed as large-ish (24x24" images on 36x36" substrate), framed (classic thin metal gallery frames - no matte, no glass) prints.