Beyond the Print

[James Clark]

In addition to the display of images I am talking about the extension of photography to encompass "time" or how the image environment changes, e.g. how a sunrise/sunset view changes over many minutes.  An image sequence can capture that ambience.  I would like to see discussion about how best to "capture a time period" of a scene.
We are familiar with 24/30 frame per second image sequences (video), what about slower sequences?  I have a sequence of waves moving on a shore causing changing patterns in sand. One image/print does not do the scene justice - what makes it engaging is how the scene constantly changes creating pseudo-abstract patterns unique to that location and time-of-day. By displaying the image sequence on an "electronic picture frame" every time I look the image is same/different.  Another example is a sequence from a close-up panorama of tree texture - every time I look at the image it is same/different - I have captured the variety and visual complexity that could not be represented by a single image. I have "extended" the ambience of the scene.

I love the way Stephen Wilkes does it in his "Day to Night" series:

http://stephenwilkes.com/fine-art/day-to-night/52fa99eb-3e5c-461e-af58-56020af4b6c2

[pearlstreet]

I love the way Stephen Wilkes does it in his "Day to Night" series:

http://stephenwilkes.com/fine-art/day-to-night/52fa99eb-3e5c-461e-af58-56020af4b6c2

Me too, James. :-)

[Victor_John]

I love the way Stephen Wilkes does it in his "Day to Night" series:

http://stephenwilkes.com/fine-art/day-to-night/52fa99eb-3e5c-461e-af58-56020af4b6c2

This raises a point about "Style".  Another word that might be appropriate is "Branding" - Stephen Wilkes can be associated with his (unique) "Day to Night" series.  Artists are not "branded" by their use of e.g. paper - it is the content on the paper that identifies their "style".

I may have picked the wrong Blog to discuss my use of electronic displays as being "Beyond the Print".  My mistake may have been to go too high in abstraction level and thus moved away from "Style".

[Rob C]

This raises a point about "Style".  Another word that might be appropriate is "Branding" - Stephen Wilkes can be associated with his (unique) "Day to Night" series. Artists are not "branded" by their use of e.g. paper - it is the content on the paper that identifies their "style".

I may have picked the wrong Blog to discuss my use of electronic displays as being "Beyond the Print".  My mistake may have been to go too high in abstraction level and thus moved away from "Style".

Equally, I think mistake are made when people try to intellectualise and over-complicate a simple thing like an image. I think pretty much everybody loses the plot when they attempt to give a complicated reason for the existence of an image. An image exists because at a give moment somebody thought it was interesting, or pretty or otherwise of meaning to them. That's all photography, non-commissioned, ever is. Is all any art ever is: it seemed a good idea at the time.

If folks could only accept it for what it is, we would all be spared the tedium (if not rising sense of hysteria) of reading artist's statements.

If anything brings photography and most of the rest of art into disrpute, it's those promoting it as something that it is not.

Rob

[Victor_John]

I note that Samsung have just announced a new display panel that is used as “framed art” when not used as a TV.

http://vancouversun.com/technology/personal-tech/is-it-art-or-television-new-tv-set-can-serve-as-both

My point has been that the display technology is getting better and cheaper.  I have a number of $100 displays scattered around the house displaying my "art".  It is true that their quality could be better - but it slowly is.

Our role as photographic artists is to take advantage and “push the envelope” of creativity.  We can do better than “an instant in time” to convey the emotion of a place.

[Rob C]

I note that Samsung have just announced a new display panel that is used as “framed art” when not used as a TV.

http://vancouversun.com/technology/personal-tech/is-it-art-or-television-new-tv-set-can-serve-as-both

My point has been that the display technology is getting better and cheaper.  I have a number of $100 displays scattered around the house displaying my "art".  It is true that their quality could be better - but it slowly is.

Our role as photographic artists is to take advantage and “push the envelope” of creativity.  We can do better than “an instant in time” to convey the emotion of a place.

Possibly the best way is with the help of a few G&Ts.

In another situation, it's hard to beat a Campari Soda on a terrace of the Carlton in Cannes.

In most real situations photography comes in as a very distant also-ran.

Rob

[Victor_John]

Following some advice from Alain Briot (www.beautiful-landscape.com), I have updated my web site www.changingstaticimages.com to reflect my current work.  This should provide visitors with a reason to revisit the site.  It also shows the variety of ways that electronic displays can increase the visual communication of "being there" over single paper prints.

[Victor_John]

I was happy to see the Kevin Raber video on Digital Wall Frames.  He covered some of the benefits that I covered in this thread last year. I now wait for people to discover the possibility to capture and display more than "a moment in time" that I suggested in my first post.  I think this is where Landscape Photography as an art will/should develop in the future.  As I covered in my earlier posts I think "sequences" of images provides a better "capture" of some scenes (like sunsets) than one image.

[RSL]

If folks could only accept it for what it is, we would all be spared the tedium (if not rising sense of hysteria) of reading artist's statements.

Hear hear!!! I'll clink my glass to that.

[Victor_John]

Noting that this topic has not been discussed for a long time, I wonder if attitudes towards it have changed?    I have not seen much discussion on web photography sites about the capture of landscapes where the light changes with time.

Victor
https://www.changingstaticimages.com/

[Rob C]

Victor, it just isn't too many people's favourite method of enjoying their snaps.

I sense an obsession with "change" and the fixing of things wot ain't broke.

Personally, I enjoy my photographs most of all on the iPad: no setting up, no breaking down; as long as there's wifi I can look at my site or someone else's with no trouble at all. That is convenient, and a pleasure to boot. I have no interest in making motion images, and sequences are not much more than attempts at that - even if of unrelated subjects. I sent some prints off to someone this week, and as good as I think them to have been, I know them very well, and readying them for posting was the first time I'd seen them in perhaps a year. I felt no desire to do anything more with them, nor have another look at the rest of the ones in the boxes.

As for pleasing other people: I have had an amateur photographer uncle in the family and believe me, slide shows bore me to hell and back. I have enjoyed one slide show in my life, one presented by the late, great Sam Haskins. Why would I imagine other non-photographers that sometimes visit would be thrilled to be confronted with an electronic version of the dreaded slide show? Just because I like photography doesn't mean everyone else is thrilled to bits by it. Rather, it can rapidly become an embarrrasing case of running out of new ways of saying oooo and ahhh. Of couse, it's relatively easy if you photograph kittens. Much prettier than babies.

:-)

[Victor_John]

Victor, it just isn't too many people's favourite method of enjoying their snaps.

I sense an obsession with "change" and the fixing of things wot ain't broke.


:-)

I am not talking about "snaps".  I think electronic screens can "enable" the display how light can change with time.  I believe it adds the "time" dimension to landscapes.

I often sit and enjoy the beauty of nature and am sensitive to how it changes with time, whether it is over 20 minutes of a sunset or minutes with surf on a beach.

After many years of producing prints, I now find them "insufficient".

Victor
https://www.changingstaticimages.com/

[Rob C]

I am not talking about "snaps".  I think electronic screens can "enable" the display how light can change with time.  I believe it adds the "time" dimension to landscapes.

I often sit and enjoy the beauty of nature and am sensitive to how it changes with time, whether it is over 20 minutes of a sunset or minutes with surf on a beach.

After many years of producing prints, I now find them "insufficient".

Victor
https://www.changingstaticimages.com/

That is my position too; the problem is perhaps nothing really to do with the medium on which we see them, but with familarity.

I could extend that reasoning to covering your current mood for electronically showing them in whatever sequence or over whatever time scale you may choose. Frankly, unless the photographs are of something that has huge emotional meaning to one, where the photograph, per se, is not the actual object of veneration but simply the key to something far more important represented within it, all I see in the idea is novelty which will wear off unless the images hold more than themselves. You could give me the Mona Lisa, and after a week, the best thing I could think of doing with it would be to sell.

There's a very good photographer who contributes to this site; he tells us that he has no framed photographs of his work on display at home. In some ways, that has come to strike me as a healthy attitude and a very good sign of his current position in life. I, on the other hand, do have some of my own pix on the walls, and they are almost all work-related. Why do I keep them there, so many years after I retired from the battle? Simple: they remind me that I once achieved some things, and that old age and retirement do not negate or deny a pleasant past. Just like my stolen Rolex, in fact: symbols of good times once lived. Loss of either is loss of far more than objects.

The above does not imply that the images are fantastic; it states that some people used to think that they were more than good enough to pay me to go and produce them. Especially in a current world of freebies and discounted stock, that holds personal meaning and validation. Snaps are sometimes far more than snaps, even if they are not pipes.

Trouble is, mostly, they are not much of anything at all.

;-)