I have noticed a lot of photographers (including myself) drifting lately towards more painterly photographs. William Neill’s Dec 2007 photo essay in the latest Outdoor Photographer is a perfect example. We attempt to accomplish imagery with a camera and lens that most of us probably couldn’t do with a brush and canvas. Perhaps there is some admiration of painters that have freedom to create their own realities. There is also perhaps a little dissatisfaction with simply documenting a scene before us.
Similarly, I know a lot of painters use reference photographs in attempts to make their work look more like reality. I often wonder if you have a blank canvas open to whatever you imagine being on it, does a flower need to look like a flower? I know some painters visit this site, and I would appreciate your insight into this. Personally I have always been drawn more towards work that only lightly touches on reality, but have more emphasis on the conceptual thinking of the painter. I suppose this explains my attraction also to painterly photographs.
I am certainly not well versed in painting trends to know if there is a general movement towards more realistic or more abstract portrayals. Given the medium is hundreds of years old, I am not sure if there are any trends but simply preferences of the artist. But I do see many more abstract images from photographers through the use of shallow depth of field, camera movements and the like. It is an interesting intersection to think about how the two mediums and our perceptions or desires for reality influence each other. Are there boundaries to consider in how far each one can stray from the traditional before becoming too abstract?
I think the crossroads of the two is an interesting place to pull up a chair and watch those coming through. Some folks will walk down their own familiar road and turn back quickly – others you see charging on through to the other side and making all sorts of crazy turns.
Interesting topic. As a painter, I used to use photographs to paint from. I’d actually ended up given painting up a decade ago in favor of photography–I could never duplicate what the camera lens could capture so perfectly (& relatively effortlessly!) Yet the camera lens couldn’t capture what the eye/brain experienced, either. Close, but not quite the same thing. These days I’ve returned to painting to let my creative juices flow in ways it didn’t with a camera. I only recently got my first digital camera & although I like it for a variety of reasons, it doesn’t come near my old Asahi Pentax (with all of those different lenses.) Unfortunately my Pentax died before Hurricane Katrina & I just haven’t had the “umph” to go get it fixed. I’m cool, though. I’m enjoying the painting again. As for the blank canvas & the flower–that’s part of the beauty of art. No, it doesn’t need to look like a flower. It might even “work” better if it DOESN’T look like a flower. I’d gotten caught up in trying to imitate, rather than create. In this I wasn’t true to my creative nature–I was stifling it. I still enjoy photography (& am still learning how to use my camera,) but I have found a new enjoyment & respect for the blank canvas, so much an invitation; feel free to create…whatever you like.
Mark, the photograph you have placed on the left side is a perfect example I think where photographing and painting could easily meet: i.e. with a lot of work and thorough underpainting, lots of layers I think
you could paint the very same image equally well.
I think what you are talking about is putting the emphasis on the essence of an object, be it light, colour or form, not the overall natural appearance. That is what more abstract painters, photographers or any
other visual artist is doing. The freedom you have as a painter to create your own reality is certainly an advantage – as a photographer you are still bound to the reality in front of you. The only possibility you have as a photographer is to pick out such details or to alienate the object, that the whole escapes the reality – as you have done in the photograph above. I think this is really the creative part of photography, to see what’s behind the common, what the eye depicts and the brain translates.
If you start to blur this correlation so that the brain cannot identify any more what the eye really sees then photography comes down to the essence of “something”. As an example: a couple of months ago I started to paint crystals and I thought about how I would paint them. I did not want to paint them as photorealistic objects – I wanted to get down to the basics. So I tried to figure out what the essence of a crystal is: transparency, colour, reflections, light and shadows and a certain structure which depends on the arrangement of their atoms etc.
What I try to say with all this is, that it depends on what you – as a photographer – want to achieve: either you try to document what the eye sees with the best possible, technically perfect photo or you ask yourself what the characteristic of a scene you like, an object might reveal to you and try to grab the essence of it, an emotion, colour and light, shadows etc.
The question what the trend might be is totally irrelevant in my opinion, unless you are a commercial artist who works mainly on commission. For the creative mind there are no boundaries at all and there shouldn’t be, besides a certain ethical aspect, which I consider as the only valid boundary.
Lana and Petra, thank you for your thoughtful posts. Perhaps another subject entirely, but perhaps fitting to both mediums is the aspect of balancing a personal vision with wanting to connect with a viewer. Some work can be very personal and fulfilling (which in itself is just fine), but few viewers can relate to it. And I do think that is an important consideration at some point during the process. Sometimes I wonder if a photograph becomes too abstract, does it limit its effectiveness to have an impact on a wider audience?
Mark, again I think it is not relevant whether the photo or the painting speaks to a wider audience because the viewer never can comprehend what the creator really felt or intended even if you give a hundred explanations. In the end the viewer even may correlate something completely different with the work.
Although I always say that making art is a form of communication I am also saying quite bluntly that it is something completely “selfish” in the sense, that I create something for myself, driven by MY purpose, by MY emotions. If you can attract a wider audience this is certainly an extra. But I don’t think this is a basic requirement of art nor should it be. But this again depends on the subject. If you want to create a dialogue with your work you better make clear that it is understood. Communication only functions if both directions are open and understood.
I agree with Petra in the “selfishness” of art. I don’t typically paint to please others–selfishly, I paint to please myself. This is most evident in my fantasy-themed works. The “powers that be” in the art community long ago decided that fantasy is “not art,” yet I keep at it (regardless of the rejections & snobbish dismissals.) It’s ironic that these art fascists actually deride & reject the use of one’s imagination. They accept the paintings I do of nature scenes, birds, etc., but fantasy is still & always “not art.” The way I see it, if I want to see rainy woods, I can simply look out my window, but to date I’ve never noticed a dragon out there. Considering this general attitude, if I did art to please others, I would have to limit my own creativity, & that’s the OPPOSITE of what art is really about.
I am not suggesting anyone create art to please others. I certainly don’t photograph that way. Artists should do what moves them personally. And perhaps I drifted a bit too much from my original topic, so I will stop there.
“Artists should do what moves them personally” – you bring it exactly to the point!
My opinion also – but that’s only mine…
I use my camera as a more painterly tool because… well, why not? I don’t think a camera should be limited to just doing representational art, just because it can do it so well. I enjoy pushing it, using it in “unnatural” ways, and seeing what I can accomplish.
Gotcha, Mark. I think I strayed w/my 2nd comment, too. The art fascists have been on my mind of late, but they can kiss my grits. Ultimately a camera can be a very artistic tool, of course. Particularly these days, w/so many programs out there to tweak graphics. I have one that will convert photos into various painting media; watercolor, oil, etc. It’s pretty cool, but often I prefer to pick up my brush & do it myself. Although I may paint what’s in the picture, my coloring’s usually far brighter than in the “real” world.
Keep snapping!
I’ve done enough art shows where I’ve had my work next to painters to sense that visually, painters and photographers are trying to achieve the same things. I’m not sure it’s so much a cross-roads as parallel tracks. Since the beginning of photography 170 years ago, photographers have been influenced by painters and painters by photographers. One can find examples of a painting that was inspired by a photograph which originally was inspired by a painting.
I find it telling that people will admire a realist painting by complimenting how it looks like a photograph and then move over to a photograph and exclaim how much it looks like a painting. It’s the same aesthetic isn’t it?
I would suggest that terms like “photorealistic” and “painterly photography” are misnomers. There are visual styles that apply equally to both mediums. Neither medium should be restrained by perceptions of what they are best suited to.
I think that each of us picks up a paintbrush or camera to essentially express ourselves. Technology has enabled all of us to explore our creativeness via countless techniques and tools. It is my thought that if you are moved during the process of creating and the viewer is moved (in whatever way) while looking at it, than the piece is ultimately successful.
Having said this, I encourage all of us to fully explore the various paths that calls us!