I like the photo, the composition, the light, the texture of the ice. It is good enough, but not great. I spent some time thinking about why this is not a great photo to me. I had this idea in my mind of my goal being a simple image. One that contains no extraneous information. When I tried to take this simple image of the flower design in the ice I couldn't do it. It wasn't interesting enough.
I did some more reading online about photography with intent and came across this article by Kurt Budlinger. He suggests that the key to a great image is telling a story. To tell a story with an image you have to know what story you are telling. I really connected to this idea and I am giving myself a new goal. The next time I go out photographing I want to take the photo that describes something important about the world. The exercise of only taking one photo does help me to focus and think. So I will challenge myself to only take one photo, and to have the photo tell a story. I will share the photo I take on the next blog posting. Wish me good luck!
That's all for now,
Kyle (and Bre)
In the predigital age when developing film was expensive, a lot of us thought this way. But not as thoroughly as you are thinking...good luck and I look forward to the story!
ReplyDeleteI sent Jared a card of one of your photos yesterday - grass bent over by the wind in the sand. When I see that photo I get a whole picture - the river running, the wind, the sand shifting, the rapid rumbling up ahead - but someone else might get an entirely different story. I think the essence of art is to trigger images that speak to the whole person, body, mind and spirit, in a way that opens us to the connection between ourselves and the universe. Japanese gardens and art and music and ice sculpture are examples. Stories are a metaphor and so are we.
I'd enjoy hearing from some of your other readers on the definition of art, Dave Blum especially...
ReplyDeleteI've always liked the definition of art proposed by Scott McCloud in "Understanding Comics": anything people do that isn't for the purpose of survival or reproduction. But that definition doesn't say anything about what makes art good or valuable, or why we create it at all. That's a much harder question.
ReplyDeleteGood luck!
Kyle friend posted a comment on Facebook the other day that "Earth without "art" is just 'Eh'." I like that image... but it speaks more to the human capacity to find beauty in the natural world than to our ability to tell a story through art.
ReplyDelete1) I really like this photo as abstract art.
ReplyDelete2) Go for it, Kyle--this is a really interesting exercise, and of course what makes it hardest is not knowing what comes next in potential images.
3) Some years ago, I consciously started chosing not to bring my camera on some excursions because I found myself framing everything, and composing, etc., and not being in the moment in the place. I like doing that, though I still compose pictures in my head, even without a camera.
4) Your mom is right--with limited film in the "old days" we did have to think more about pressing the button; however, professional photographers have always taken tons of images and then chosen from them -- do you delete photos, or keep them all? That seems another discipline, to choose to delete images.
5) Japan seems like a great place to practice a discipline of focus on art/beauty in single images/things. It's so... zen?