Stripping Reality To Pay Perception

"Art is a lie that makes us realize truth." - Pablo Picasso


Ok, I've never studied art, but I do have some ideas on the subject because my love of photography as an art form has really made me think about how to produce images that convey meaning and not just information.

In my mind, there are two parts to a photographic image: the information it accurately conveys about reality, and the feelings it invokes in the mind of the viewer. One exists implicitly, it's basically "data". The other spontaneously pops into existence only upon viewing - it depends on human interpretation.

These two parts, Objective Reality and Perception, are very different things. Indeed, in great art they often don't even get along all that well.

Allow me to me restate that another way: a photograph does not have to be an accurate depiction of objective reality to be good. In fact, reality often "costs" an image more than it is worth. Constructed abstractions of reality are usually more successful in conveying feeling because the viewer doesn't spontaneously jump into a left-brain analysis of the scene. The subject can be presented pure, stripped bare of all the reality that would otherwise get in the way of what is being said.

I think this is the property that the abstract painters figured out but didn't invent: perception is more important than and in many cases in direct competition to objective reality.

Ever wonder why modern art photographers produce so many black & white and monochromatic images, a hundred years after the invention of color film? Because without color, you lose many of the cues your brain uses to "bin" images into preconceived boxes. You are forced to concentrate on form and form becomes everything. So images that rely on form are enhanced. Less reality, more feeling. Look at this bear, Bernard...you remember him, he's my blog mascot...

Now imagine him with a big splash of gaudy green leaves behind him. It would diminish the impact of this photograph tremendously. So I stripped it out.

Here's another example. From a technical standpoint, this is a truly terrible photograph. It's out of focus, blurring most of the detail in the scene. It was taken while I was spinning on my heels, so it's off kilter in just about every way it can be. It's definitely "reality challenged".

But it clearly shows a young boy having a happy childhood run outdoors in the fall. The emotion drips from this one.

Now imagine it sharply focused. You would pick up details like individual hairs, the texture of the clothing, and well, lots more lines on stuff. Would that extra information add something, or take something away?

And imagine I had used a faster shutter speed or flash, and had not been spinning around to follow the arc of motion. The blur in the background of the scene would be gone, replaced by detailed concrete. Would that help or hurt the conveyance of the sheer childhood joy that exists here?

I think we all know the answer to that.