As Roger and I, and all really acceptable photographers will tell you, (over and over till you get sick of hearing it) that light (without which there would be no image) makes the photograph, painting, whatever succeed or fail. I could easily make an argument for light being the end all and be all for ANY KIND OF ART. So I will.
Take a nice beautiful 7 carrot blue-white diamond, put that diamond in really bad light and what do you have? A rock, or worse yet just some well cut glass. The point being that everything we perceive with our eyes needs light reflecting off of a surface for us to see it; change the light, change what you see. Now the game has changed, Now that we have invented the “transparency,” we have radically changed how we can see, perceive, and interpret color and shape. We have taken the need for “being there,” at the moment of occurrence, to being able see or witness something at a later date.
We no longer need light hitting an object and bouncing off of it to “see” something; we can put a light source behind some kind of transparent medium, that has variations of color or of grey that light can travel through and there you have it. You now have a representation of something—it is not the Thing though. Once you leave behind the object that light is actually bouncing from to your eyes, and move on to this other method/mode of perception, you rely on someone else’s IDEA/conception of what this object was, or felt like to the person who created the IMAGE of the object, at that moment in time! This is very important. Once you are not looking at the object yourself, you are looking at someone else’s interpretation of that object!
So, enter Photoshop, and its lessers, and the ability to, for lack of a better word, lie. Well, isn’t that one of the big complaints? Especially by those who have noted some of the deleterious effects of its use in much of advertising, and I DO agree with them in this, Photoshop has been used to make people appear more perfect than is attainable without endangering a person’s life. But, I am not here to talk about that, that is a different subject, and one I have hit on multiple times already.
The reason for Photoshop to even exist is because of that backlit transparency development. We, I, change what was, to what “may have been/could be” by moving light and color, Photoshop allows us to do this; not only does it allow us to do this but it lets us do this with such precision that 99.9% of the people who see an image of mine will never know (without the metadata to look at) what is “real” and what is not. What do I mean by “real?” Simply, what my camera recorded, with minor adjustment for color, sharpness, lens distortion correction, all attempts on my part to make the image more like what (MY) eyes saw, at the moment I hit the shutter button. A recording of a moment in time, nothing more.
Now we come to the two images that this post is ostensibly about: Roger Gauthier’s Image, his on the left, my version obviously the other. The Pixel count is the same, CMYK (if you work in that space) the same base colors, but greyed or burned, other than that they are the same color. So it IS the same image. Well no it was. Now It should at lease Feel Different, I hope very different. I did hold back somewhat, or not hold back but backtracked in my history to the point that you see, because I had gotten to the point of adding things that did NOT belong in an image I had chosen to just modify. I had gotten to the point of creating a whole new image, and that was not my intent.
Emotional content/feel, those are what Roger and I created. To me his image is light and positive, lighter colors with some intense reds in places, not a hot red but a living red as in a rose. This is a place of color and life. At this moment, there are not many people around, but I can see that at times there would be, and they would enjoy the area, light and bright, with implications for social interaction. In short, a place to “enjoy” the process of moving through.
My version on the other hand, is not currently a place of joy. Maybe it was, maybe it will be again, but not now, not at this moment. This is a place to move through, to pick up the pace, not to linger, not to stop and have a conversation. Echoes are more muffled, by the high shadows, sounds don’t carry as far, they are absorbed in the darker reaches. Even the destination is somewhat in question it is a deeper red, an angry red. To me this space says move on, go, get where you want to be, just not here. GO!
Color: it’s a lot of fun to mess with, and an easy way to mess with peoples emotions.
James Longster, © 2015
A Tail Of Two Images.
Original image: very early in the day, sun's coming up, light pours in in huge quantities and wets everything with day-warming colours. People are beginning to come in for a day's work, fresh and full of optimism.
ReplyDeleteImage at the left: It's the end of a long and tiring day. The sun is about to vanish. Colours are still hot but much more subdued, and it feels like there was a pending doom on the whole place. The last persons are leaving the place, tired and uncertain. Almost dispiriting.
••••••••••••••••
About what you said about Photoshop and light: you forgot to mention that you can add colour and light liberally and at whim using an electronic brush and a decent WACO'M tablet, the workhorse of any of us creators of digital images, coupled with a powerful computer like the new cylindrical Mac Pro, without equal on the market.
So at the end of it, my image is not only a photograph on which I applied some effects. The photograph merely served as a basis on which I modified everything, including forms and shapes, colours, and of course light, the heart of it all.
Now which one is the best? You and I know very well that there is absolutely no answer to that. A matter of mood, personality, the feeling we want to transmit… In those essays we often do you and I, there is nothing left to chance. Everything is important and the result cannot be fully appreciated at a glance. Here, I am glad to say that we have reached a new level, and I am moved.
Both results are stunning.
Some Americans would frown on this, but I raise my glass of French (maybe expensive, who knows) wine to you and your work. Health!
I think you directed the mood of the two images pretty well. It is pretty much what I was shooting for in the image that I modified.
DeleteAs far as forgetting to mention the ability to add color and light, I guess to a large extent I was talking to "you" specifically and in that case it was a "given" that you would assume this to be part of the overall. But, you are correct, the abilities of Photoshop are nearly limitless so far as the ability to move the effects of color and transparency are concerned. It is our eyes and minds that convert the colors we see, filtered through or minds "eye/experience" to decide what is "a color on a surface, and what is light.
This light and colour, discussion could go all over the place, even to the point where some would say that metaphysics was getting involved. I am not interested in that particular discussion at this point, personally, I like real physics, you start talking META then some like to bring "other explanations (that cannot be proved) into the discussion. Not ready for that not much interested in it either.
So, I will say: Light is light, colour is colour, and the mind uses the information the eyes have transmitted, to create an understandable, referential visual construct . . . . . OMG I went too far, light and color are interpreted by our minds to make of it what our minds have a reference for, there done!
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteAbout painting with light and colour, I was a bit twisting your tail, you know, just for the fun of it. Sure I knew that we knew that I knew that you knew… oops, I missed a stop somewhere.
DeleteAnyway, I find this kind of essay not only challenging, but, how shall I say, quite moving, you know? And I end up comparing the two and marvelling at all that we can do you and I, so much to try, do and learn, and so little time, goddamn, so little time, not enough time, never enough time to butt your head against the wall. Never enough time! It's depressing.
BTW, mi amigo Yankee, why don't you add on your page this gadget that allows people to become followers, like I have on my blog? That allows people to follow you directly, it's quite useful if you want to build a followers list. Essential in fact, I would say.
ReplyDeleteSheesh, my husband is stoopid. ***I*** have been getting each post by email since the beginning of this blog. Or nearly.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, I have to say that I prefer the lighter image (NOT because it's Hubby's vision). From the beginning, I've imagined a church there (to the God of consumerism?), probably because of the benches. I lose this vision in the shadowed image. OK, so I'm unable to see the shadowed image for itself. Sue me.