<- Click hereIt was a beautiful and brisk afternoon today. On my way home I passed this nineteenth century carriage house which has been boarded up. The details have that melted Victorian look. It's as if they made aerodynamic buildings back then.
But this isn't really about the carriage house. Nope, I'm more interested in the idea of an abstract image made up from parts of the carriage house. Parts like these here in this opening image.
I liked the composition, and framed it tightly. Ditto the colors and shapes. Frankly, I think it's not a bad graphic, but... Well can a different composition distill out the essence of these colors and shapes? Since I've already cropped away so much that makes this "Carriage House", well suppose I then create motion to leave the viewer with a study in just color, light and line?
And if i do that, how much of the original needs to be included to give it some sense of authenticity? Howzabout this much? I guess what I'm getting at is the question of resonance. Which of these images resonates most attractively to you? In a way I'm wondering which you think is the "better" image. And, of course, why? Normally i go through a number of alternative images when I prepare for my blog uploading. And somehow I intuit which one is right... which effort means that I am finished with the subject. But this time... well I wonder.
The first is crisp and hot, the second is rich and romantic. To me, they're each poetic because I think that the subject, mixed with the day, mixed with my take all mash together to justify the effort I've taken. But since I want to communicate either an idea or an emotional reaction to this moment in Lancaster I'm interested in your reaction, and input. Whuddaya think/feel about theset two? Anyone?
PS... Um I hope that the first image I posted here will dispell all of those terrible rumors that I shoot all of my photography through a Coke bottle instead of a lens and that my equipment is incapable of taking a crisp, sharp image. Okay? Good, so now I shall never have to do that again... Whew.....
2 comments:
The first image most resonates with me. I like the geometric shapes, the texture in the bricks and shingles and all those hard diagonal lines that keep leading my eyes around the image in every possible direction. These elements are all gone in the second image and what's left just doesn't hold my attention like the other. But then I got to thinking, what if I'd seen the second image first? Would I then have been disappointed because everything I loved about it was taken away in the other version? Perhaps, but since we can't go back in time we'll never know.
I also have a preference for the first image, and for all the same reasons as Bill mentions. The blurring effect in the second image doesn't seem to allude to anything, or consolidate or enhance the composition. (The way the motion effects work so well in "Gloveless" from 2/16, or "Grand Whirl" from 2/5.) But thats just the impression I get.
You mention that you may work through several variations, and yet always seem to come away presenting the better interpretation. No doubt. After all, who else would be able to make such decisions regarding your artwork, if not you!
These "photographic" works that we produce are a synthesis of the real and the imagined. The realism comes in through the lens and is captured by the camera, usually in just a split second. The imagined, however, consumes everything else. It all becomes very interpretive, I think.
Thanks for sharing this,
-Michael
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