Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I'm trying to address those who find no language to approach work like this picture.
Asher Kelman: Sunset from a Primitive: #1
The single photographic element, is shown three times in stacked panels in a triptych. The last minutes of the setting sun shines through trees. The shot is carefully made to show the rays and aurora we would see if we have a smoked glass to look through and protect our eyes. It's asymmetrical. The outline of the branches of the trees on the left shows spreading branches outlined by the sun. To the right the leaves are seen less clearly against a progressively bluer sky. The branches could be viewed as choices we might make as consequences or just as branches or something else if you wish. There are no rules to this.
The three panels represent a time sequence from top to bottom as the sun fades. The parts on the left have been separated by a vertical band which has some of the patina of the trees in it. So now we have time going vertically in the one axis and space going horizontally away to the right.
What about the sun? Where the sun is coming from is another dimension putting us at two end of a vast scale. We look at the sun as something awesome. No doubt, from the sun's point of view we, ourselves are the opposite. This picture is them compounded to provide some entertainment and a place for contemplation.
Put aside, for the moment, whether or not you like my picture. Some do and others might find it fails. Instead of "success" or "failure", I'd like to address those who find this kind of photographic work obscure, unreachable and in a language that seems to make no sense at all!
As you know, almost all the pictures I share are of beautiful people, especially students and models or else architecture that I admire. All these are real and understandable.
I show what I saw. Yes, I admit, there maybe some added whimsical prettiness or awesome scale compressed and curved to fit a frame, but everything is of something anyone could observe through such a particular lens. It's what I've called "factive". IOW, it's real life! Yes, the shading might be enhanced but essentially you have no barrier to "getting" the picture. You may or may not like it, but for sure it's understandable!
Now why would I or anyone else who happily makes pictures of real things, then consider making weird, unreal and fanciful pictures that might be a puzzle to understand? What I'm doing is asking you to allow me to lead you to see not what what one might see in real life(or that which might appear to be true but is actually staged or a photoshop creation), to something, well let's just call "fanciful". Here you are asked to see beyond what's shown. Put away the ideas that this is merely "artsy fartsy". Also please put aside for the moments ase any other terms that mght bother you like "impressionistic", "modern", "post-modern", "contemporary" and the like. Instead allow to me say what it means being "fanciful".
Well, for me, at least, being "fanciful" and not exact, allows us one extra leverage from the photograph. Beside showing real things that matter to us, we can also play games and muse! That's what poetry might be. It put's together thoughts in an order such that we imagine things in a novel, thought-provoking and often emotionally charged way. In dong so, the work might also have profound consequences, but that's not my intent here. My wish if to allow us to be amused and entertained based on out own library of experiences, songs, stories and life values.
There's a great value in using one thing to explain another even if it's only one vague quality we refer to, like "Your the death of me!" or "You're a brick!" or a "Prick!"
Think of something poetical like "cupid's arrow". Imagine how unpractical it might be to have a lover's arrow shot directly into one's heart! But this is allowed in the stuff of poetry and we only use the bow and arrow to make us think of the jolt one gets with the sight of a person one falls in love with. There's a sudden shock as one feels shaky, nervous, we might blush, our hearts race, we say silly things and become under some spell. It's simpler to think of being shot by cupid's arrow. It's that sort of work that pictures fanciful, (or "modern"/"contemporary") picture can do to us. They make the mind struggle with an image! Things are out of place in some way and in unexpected positions and relationships. So we have to think! It's a puzzle and can be fun! Either the artist can
Either way, the picture gives us satisfaction and amusement in just allowing us to contemplate according to our fancy or needs.
Here, in this series, real photographs are the start. What we hopefully end up with is a way of showing unending related ideas that you, the viewer supplies, but are referenced by the original picture. The work is constructed to stimulate your own fanciful thoughts, like a poem or song might do.
Instead of showing something real, (borrowing from the work of many artists), things might be exactly true, exaggerated or simplified to be representational. They may be even in shorthand simple strokes, so there's just enough elemental information for you, the viewer, to recognize the pieces that make up the whole.
In this type of fanciful work, I start with pieces that I call elements or primitives. Ideally, these should have been photographed carefully so that one has a choice of what will be perfectly extracted later on. Then different elements are positioned, maybe with markers or maybe blended in some way, to enable the pictorial elements to work together like a poem.
This is written with a humble basic intention to help you engage when otherwise you would just pass by with eyes rolled up to the sky! I hope this is not just more "artspeak" mumbo jumbo. Tell me if this is helpful at all . If anyone can help express this better, that too will be appreciated.
Asher
Asher Kelman: Sunset from a Primitive: #1
The single photographic element, is shown three times in stacked panels in a triptych. The last minutes of the setting sun shines through trees. The shot is carefully made to show the rays and aurora we would see if we have a smoked glass to look through and protect our eyes. It's asymmetrical. The outline of the branches of the trees on the left shows spreading branches outlined by the sun. To the right the leaves are seen less clearly against a progressively bluer sky. The branches could be viewed as choices we might make as consequences or just as branches or something else if you wish. There are no rules to this.
The three panels represent a time sequence from top to bottom as the sun fades. The parts on the left have been separated by a vertical band which has some of the patina of the trees in it. So now we have time going vertically in the one axis and space going horizontally away to the right.
What about the sun? Where the sun is coming from is another dimension putting us at two end of a vast scale. We look at the sun as something awesome. No doubt, from the sun's point of view we, ourselves are the opposite. This picture is them compounded to provide some entertainment and a place for contemplation.
Put aside, for the moment, whether or not you like my picture. Some do and others might find it fails. Instead of "success" or "failure", I'd like to address those who find this kind of photographic work obscure, unreachable and in a language that seems to make no sense at all!
As you know, almost all the pictures I share are of beautiful people, especially students and models or else architecture that I admire. All these are real and understandable.
I show what I saw. Yes, I admit, there maybe some added whimsical prettiness or awesome scale compressed and curved to fit a frame, but everything is of something anyone could observe through such a particular lens. It's what I've called "factive". IOW, it's real life! Yes, the shading might be enhanced but essentially you have no barrier to "getting" the picture. You may or may not like it, but for sure it's understandable!
Now why would I or anyone else who happily makes pictures of real things, then consider making weird, unreal and fanciful pictures that might be a puzzle to understand? What I'm doing is asking you to allow me to lead you to see not what what one might see in real life(or that which might appear to be true but is actually staged or a photoshop creation), to something, well let's just call "fanciful". Here you are asked to see beyond what's shown. Put away the ideas that this is merely "artsy fartsy". Also please put aside for the moments ase any other terms that mght bother you like "impressionistic", "modern", "post-modern", "contemporary" and the like. Instead allow to me say what it means being "fanciful".
Well, for me, at least, being "fanciful" and not exact, allows us one extra leverage from the photograph. Beside showing real things that matter to us, we can also play games and muse! That's what poetry might be. It put's together thoughts in an order such that we imagine things in a novel, thought-provoking and often emotionally charged way. In dong so, the work might also have profound consequences, but that's not my intent here. My wish if to allow us to be amused and entertained based on out own library of experiences, songs, stories and life values.
There's a great value in using one thing to explain another even if it's only one vague quality we refer to, like "Your the death of me!" or "You're a brick!" or a "Prick!"
Think of something poetical like "cupid's arrow". Imagine how unpractical it might be to have a lover's arrow shot directly into one's heart! But this is allowed in the stuff of poetry and we only use the bow and arrow to make us think of the jolt one gets with the sight of a person one falls in love with. There's a sudden shock as one feels shaky, nervous, we might blush, our hearts race, we say silly things and become under some spell. It's simpler to think of being shot by cupid's arrow. It's that sort of work that pictures fanciful, (or "modern"/"contemporary") picture can do to us. They make the mind struggle with an image! Things are out of place in some way and in unexpected positions and relationships. So we have to think! It's a puzzle and can be fun! Either the artist can
- Direct meaning or
- Provide a shaped space where the viewers can bring their own ideas and memories to muse and wander,
Either way, the picture gives us satisfaction and amusement in just allowing us to contemplate according to our fancy or needs.
Here, in this series, real photographs are the start. What we hopefully end up with is a way of showing unending related ideas that you, the viewer supplies, but are referenced by the original picture. The work is constructed to stimulate your own fanciful thoughts, like a poem or song might do.
Instead of showing something real, (borrowing from the work of many artists), things might be exactly true, exaggerated or simplified to be representational. They may be even in shorthand simple strokes, so there's just enough elemental information for you, the viewer, to recognize the pieces that make up the whole.
In this type of fanciful work, I start with pieces that I call elements or primitives. Ideally, these should have been photographed carefully so that one has a choice of what will be perfectly extracted later on. Then different elements are positioned, maybe with markers or maybe blended in some way, to enable the pictorial elements to work together like a poem.
This is written with a humble basic intention to help you engage when otherwise you would just pass by with eyes rolled up to the sky! I hope this is not just more "artspeak" mumbo jumbo. Tell me if this is helpful at all . If anyone can help express this better, that too will be appreciated.
Asher
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