Beauty in Photography (4) - People in the Picture

 

Without a doubt the Halibut Point landscape is riveting in itself. But no matter how compelling the scene, the appearance of a human draws immediate attention.

The person may give us a sense of witnessing intrinsic beauty,...

...or connect with memories of our own beautiful experiences.

Iconic life moments brought to the quarry cliffs add to their drama and poignancy.

Simple gestures unite natural beauty and universal responses.

Unseen beauty in the children's faces amplifies the visible joy of the adults.

Artistic intention combines beauty of content with beauty of composition, into a story of people and place.

"Why do most great pictures look uncontrived? Why do photographers bother with the deception, especially since it so often requires the hardest work of all? The answer is, I think, that the deception is necessary if the goal of art is to be reached: only pictures that look as if they had been easily made can convincingly suggest that Beauty is commonplace."

Robert Adams, Beauty in Photography

Subject, story, and circumstances unite for only an instant into an image distilling life into compositional beauty. 

"Photography is by nature on intimate terms with old familiar subject matter; all that remains now is for us to create new illusions in the service of truth." - Robert Adams

The story of the landscape, even of the people, may be revealed by other actors. 

"Though I have just stressed the formal qualities of these pictures, their beauty is not, to repeat, solely a matter of related shapes. Beauty is, at least in part, always tied to subject matter." - Robert Adams

"If a view of geography does not imply something more enduring than a specific piece of terrain then the picture will hold us only briefly." - Robert Adams

Beauty in Photography (3) - Abstractions

Traversing the landscape of Halibut Point I return to the questions and insights of Robert Adams' Beauty in Photography. 

"The Beauty that concerns me is that of Form," he writes. "Beauty is, in my view, a synonym for the coherence and structure underlying life."

Sometimes this leads to abstractions pulled like taffy from the facts of the environment. Twisting, swirling strands appear as little enhancements and contradictions. Their shapes and colors tell stories of their own interwoven with the accustomed narratives.

On, on, on goes the pulse of life. Its familiar details reconfigure enchantingly. The new and the worn make portraits of vitality. Robert Adams offers these further thoughts.

"Art simplifies. It is never exactly equal to life. In the visual arts, this careful sorting out in favor of order is called composition."

"Art's beauty does not lead, of course, to narrow doctrine. The Form it affirms is not neatly finished, at least to our eyes. It does not lead directly to a theology or a system of ethics."

"The job of the photographer...is not to catalogue indisputable fact but to try to be coherent about intuition and hope."

"...how do we judge art? Basically, I think, by whether it reveals to us important Form that we ourselves have experienced but to which we have not paid adequate attention. Successful art rediscovers Beauty for us."

"Photography is by nature on intimate terms with old familiar subject matter; all that remains now is for us to create new illusions in the service of truth."

"One standard, then, for the evaluation of art is the degree to which it gives us a fresh intimation of Form."

"Geography by itself is difficult to value accurately‒what we hope for from the artist is help in discovering the significance of a place."

"The form to which art points is of an incontrovertible brilliance, but it is also far too intense to examine directly. We are compelled to understand Form by its fragmentary reflection in the daily objects around us; art will never fully define light."

"The beauty of art can also be judged by its scope. The greatest beauty tends to encompass most; the artworks of largest importance frequently have within them the widest diversity....This is so, I think, because most of life seems shapeless most of the time, and the art that squares with this powerful impression seems most convincingly to confront disagreeable fact."

Beauty in Photography (2)

A pointed challenge went out to poets from William Carlos Williams in 1927: "No ideas but in things." 

My camera the instrument deals exclusively with 'things'. But in photography the act, I play with abstractions between the eye and the sensual mind. Peculiarities of truth get attention and perhaps further bending. I look around for delight. 

Here are some examples from this week.

Cat Brier

In the past few days I have walked past countless leaves released from the greenness of their summer responsibilities into transitional shapes and colors on their way to decomposition into humus.

Staghorn Sumac and desiccated Bittersweet berries

Why do I halt only occasionally to take a picture? There might be an intrinsic story in this pattern of berries that almost but not quite survived the drought before shriveling to an inky constellation. Substance is there, 'things', along with abstractions of time and struggle. Ideas of gesture, proportion and composition add to the physical properties of the things.

Red Oak leaf on a pond

Surely circumstances, contrasts and ironies can contribute to beauty in photography.

Bittersweet berries and Cat Brier berries

Prettiness can create drawing power, as can composition, but by themselves they may not justify a second glance.

Winterberries

Familiarity touched with mystery helps open the mind to beauty in a way that neither would attain alone.

European Barberry

Elaborate shadows and the delicate thing contrast just enough with fine granite and the slashing black line.

Ruby or Cherry-faced Meadowhawk

An experience of beauty in a photograph may have more to do with affection for its subject than any artistic merit in the picture per se.

Yellow-rumped Warbler in Tupelo tree

Nevertheless, the principles of composition that invigorate painterly design will likewise multiply interest in a photograph.

Birch bark

Even when the subject elements are beautiful the photograph as a thing of its own rests on decisions of inspiration and craftsmanship.

Flower scape of a waterside sedge

Design originates in living forces. The idea of death amplifies life, and vice versa.

The same subject from another angle

A discovery can be rediscovered. The dark and the light can change places.

Pokeberry coming to fruit

Adapting Robert Adams' insight from last week about landscape pictures, we can attest to beauty in these photographs emanating from "three verities‒[nature], autobiography, and metaphor."

 

Beauty in Photography (1)

Beauty. In every human sphere it's an elusive term.

I sent away to a second-hand bookseller for a slim volume on the subject in relation to photography. It was a search for companionship, hopefully not runway lights for takeoffs or landings with the camera. The little book arrived. A clean bold tool of thought stood out right at the beginning. 

"Landscape pictures can offer us, I think, three verities‒geography, autobiography, and metaphor."

Robert Adams, Beauty in Photography, 1996

 

I looked to see how 'geography, autobiography, and metaphor' might have influenced landscape pictures I had taken this year at Halibut Point.

I was also curious how those criteria might apply to other types of photographs. For instance, could you substitute 'nature' for 'geography'? 

Adams went on to say, "the three kinds of information strengthen each other and reinforce what we all work to keep intact‒an affection for life."

"There is a certainty in geography that is a relief from the shadow world of romantic egoism. 

If landscape art were only reportage, however, it would amount to an ingredient for science, which it is not. There is always a subjective aspect in landscape art, something in the picture that tells us as much about who is behind the camera as about what is in front of it. 

Making photographs has to be, then, a personal matter; when it is not, the results are not persuasive. Only the artist's presence in the work can convince us."

"If a view of geography does not imply something more enduring than a specific piece of terrain then the picture will hold us only briefly.... 

The job of the photographer...is not to catalogue indisputable fact but to try to be coherent about intuition and hope."

"The Beauty that concerns me is that of Form. Beauty is, in my view, a synonym for the coherence and structure underlying life.... 

The form to which art points is of an incontrovertible brilliance, but it is also far too intense to examine directly. We are compelled to understand Form by its fragmentary reflection in the daily objects around us; art will never fully define light."

"How do we judge art? Basically, I think, by whether it reveals to us important Form that we ourselves have experienced but to which we have not paid adequate attention. Successful art rediscovers Beauty for us."

"Though I have just stressed the formal qualities of these pictures, their beauty is not, to repeat, solely a matter of related shapes. Beauty is, at least in part, always tied to subject matter."

"The only thing that is new in art is the example; the message is, broadly speaking, the same‒coherence, form, meaning.... 

What is new in art? Man Ray, who liked to make puzzles out of solutions, once observed that 'there is not progress in art, any more than there is in making love.' 

Minor White's understanding [is] of art as metaphor, as a suggestion of similarities between the known and the barely known."

Grape Plume Moth