A quick run through of some of my most significant influences.
[Read more…]Revised Thoughts on Art
The purpose of this post is to update, and entirely contradict, my first post on “What is Art?” written at hour zero of this project, in November 2017.
[Read more…]Surrealist Photography
[Read more…]“Surrealism is not a style but a state of mind. It aims to subvert reality.”
Tate Modern, describing the Surrealism Beyond Boarders Exhibition, February 2022.
Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida
Roland Barthes (1915-1980) was a French philosopher and literary theorist, he was not a photographer. This book deals with the question: what is a photograph? from that perspective.
Barthes describes the essence of photography as distinct from both art and history.
Art, he contests, is the result of a creative process undertaken by an artist; whereas a photograph is primarily the preservation of “something that was”.
History is a perspective on past events; always open to challenge and contradiction. A photograph, by contrast, is undeniably “something that was”, and it is up to the viewer to infer meaning. A meaning which, as I show below, may change from person to person or evolve over time.
The photographer, and the subject, if it is a person aware of being photographed, can suggest an implied meaning. However, without knowledge of this intent, the viewer may see the image differently, and derive a meaning entirely personal to them.
Tim Flack’s fine book on horse photography, ‘Equus’, ends with this quote from Barthes’ book: “Ultimately a photograph looks like anyone except the person it represents.”
[Read more…]LAB Colour
Photoshop’s route to more vibrant colours via an alternative colour space. This post looks at the Photoshop LAB colour space:
- how it mirrors the biology of human vision at a deeper level than the RGB of the retina’s cones
- how it can be effectively manipulated.