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I can still remember watching Steve Jobs make a big deal about Apple existing at the intersection of the Liberal Arts and Technology. It was a somewhat corny thing to say, for sure, but nevertheless I was always grateful that at least one technology company was trying to keep the engineers at arm's length. Photography is another discipline hanging out at the same intersection, and for a much longer time, too. Sometimes it seems like the art side is on a logarithmic trajectory while technology's path is exponential. Maybe I just need to rotate the image counterclockwise by ninety degrees...

Good light to you this weekend, fellow traveler.

Art: Path Dependent or State Function?

In my younger days I used to keep my old college thermodynamics textbook on my nightstand. If I was ever having trouble falling asleep, I would pick a page at random and just start reading. Sleep was all but guaranteed within a few minutes of opening the book. Much safer than pills. 

One of the concepts I remember from thermodynamics is the idea of state and path-dependent functions. Quantities that are either dependent or independent of the path you take from the initial to the final state. It was easy to understand how a path-independent state function might be useful for comparing results among various laboratories. 

In mountain climbing, I suppose the difficulty of the path matters in addition to the total height of the summit. But what about art? Consider an abstract image like the one shown above. Does it matter that it was captured entirely in camera and only changed to black and white in software? What if the image were created entirely in Photoshop? Does the path change the impact on the viewer?

When I go to a museum show, I usually ignore all the didactic material at first. Later, I go back and read it if I am keen to know more. 

Getting Out of the Math

In the world of photography, what could be more technically demanding than macro/micro imaging? I know, I know. It's just an example. When shooting at greater than life size, the technical issues a photographer must grapple with just keep piling up. Vibrations, focus, depth of field, sufficient light. At first, getting an image where at least *something* in the frame is in focus can be tough. The point is, it can be a real challenge to make lyrical or artful images when your mind is consumed with overcoming technical hurdles. I heard a podcast where two jazz musicians were talking about how to craft melodic improvised solos without getting too bogged down by the technical side of things. They called it getting out of the math. So, how do you get out of the math?

Tasting notes: Canon digital camera, Canon MP-E 65 mm f/2.8 lens at 5x.

Looking with photography

Photography is simultaneously an investigation of reality and a means to investigate reality. That’s according to an essay I’ve just started reading about abstraction in photography. It takes me several readings to be able to even start to unpack essay-length academic writing, so I won’t reference the original essay just yet. The gist of the argument, though, is that photography is not necessarily about looking at or looking through, but looking with. One way to think about this is that each time you go out with a camera, you are essentially doing an experiment, with the camera functioning as an instrument of investigation. Poking at reality with the camera. I was thinking about this concept while watching a YouTube video about how to photograph the Orion constellation and nebula using only a digital camera and a tripod (no other equipment). In total, several hundred frames (what the author called ‘the data’) were recorded and used to generate the final result. Of course, there is also the whole issue of assigning colors in a ‘realistic’ or at least reasonable manner, which amounted to ‘season to taste’. My approach to photographing this tree growing near my home was much more intuitive, but the images are getting better over time as I continue to return to the scene. Presently, I’m happy abstracting to a monochrome vision, but that could certainly change.