“,,,, people say they need to express their emotions, I’m sick of that. Photography doesn’t teach you to express your emotions, it teaches you to see.” ~ Berenice Abbott
I HAVE PRESENTED THIS ABBOTT QUOTE PREVIOUSLY, most often in entries excoriating the Academic Lunatic Fringe crowd. A group which employs the medium of photography to create lens-based (their words) art; art that they attempt to load up with all manner of deep personal trauma, angst, insecurity, fears, conflicts, et al. iMo, the pictures they produce fail miserably to convey such “meaning(s)”–so much so that their work is always accompanied by a lengthy addendum–often thousands of words–aka: an artist statement in order to express verbally what they are trying to express visually.
That written, this entry is not about the ALF crowd. Rather it is about the idea that art is capable of, in addition to being visually interesting / pleasing / captivating, inciting a reaction in a viewer that includes feelings / emotions / thoughts. However, there is no question that what is considered to be visually interesting and/or emotionally / thought-fully engaging means many different things to many different people. Ya know, like the adage, one person’s treasure is another person’s trash and vice-versa.
That written, I do believe that there is a definably distinct difference in what is considered to visually interesting + emotion / thought-ful engagement between Fine Art photography and Decorative Art photography.
First a simple description: Fine Art is created primarily for aesthetic and intellectual reasons. It's meant to provoke thoughts, emotions, feelings–most often complex and open to interpretation–and to challenge our perceptions. Decorative Art is designed primarily to enhance simple, easily understood, visually pleasing, functional beauty. While the former tends to incite an “energetic” response, the latter tends to sooth and relax the viewer but, in any event, both have their place and serve a purpose in the art world.
That written, to my eye and sensibilities, the primary difference I see between the work of Fine Art photographers vs Decorative photographers is the difference between deadpan seeing–detached, straight-on, and objective views of the everyday–as opposed to sensationalized seeing–romanticized, idealistic / idyllic views of the picturesque.
In my picture making and viewing I prefer the deadpan aesthetic cuz I equate it with free thinking / association. That is to write that after I tell a viewer “Look at this”, I leave it up to the viewer of a deadpan aesthetic photo to make of it what they will. On the other hand, I believe that a sensationalist aesthetic picture is a form of propaganda-of-the-obvious inasmuch as the picture maker is loudly proclaiming to the viewer that “Ain’t this just the cat’s meow!”.
In any event and to my manner of thinking, I’ll take free thinking / association over propaganda-of-the-obvious any day of the week. However …..
…. I must admit that I wrestle with the simple fact that, when it comes to the emotion / feeling / thought incitement to be had when viewing a photograph, I am at a bit of a loss; as best as I can determine, I attribute that “loss” to the fact that I rarely go all gaga over the viewing of a (Fine Art) photograph–mine or those made by others.
That written, that fact should not be understood to mean that I do not experience an intense attraction to some–in truth, many–photographs. Rather, it is that my attraction to and subsequent involvement with photographs is primarily centered around the “tingling” I experience, re: my visual senses faculties / apparatus, which generates a feeling I can not put into words / thoughts (nor do I want to); kinda like a zen consciousness moment, a direct experience, emptying the mind of rigid concepts to perceive reality exactly as it is in the present moment.
That written, I do recognize that my attraction to certain photographs–mine as well as those made by others–is based around a feng shui / ying and yang kinda thing–the combination of soft and hard, light and dark, static and dynamic elements that create, to my eye and sensibilities, a harmonious composition. A sense of balance that incites my eye to dance and skitter across the surface of a print in manner that is varied, never exactly the same and never boring, over repeated viewings.
It should be noted that the “tingling” I experience is rarely induced by what is literally depicted in a photograph, aka: the thing pointed to, That’s cuz, when I am looking at a photograph, I am not looking at what is literally depicted; rather, I am looking at the print, in and of itself, as an objet d’art. What pricks my eye and sensibilities is, to quote Szarkowski, the pattern created by the pointer.
It should also be noted that most of what is written in this entry is Fine Art Photography specific. Most certainly FAP, built upon the foundation and appreciation of aesthetic principles, is not dismissive of the literally depicted referent(s) to be seen in a photograph. But that written, in most examples of FAP the pattern created by the photographer is considered to be more important than the thing pointed to.
Or, as Sleepy LaBeef stated, “It ain’t what ya eat, it’s the way how ya chew it.”
