Thursday, March 29, 2007

Art and Intention

The O'Reilly Emerging Tech conference is one of the premier events in the high-tech industry and showcases some of its most illustrious thought-leaders. So what does this have to do with fine art photography? Read on.....(No, this posting ***isn't*** going to reverse-engineer a digital camera.)

The conference's keynote speech was build on the premise that most people treat "techies" as the people who understand technology best. But it speculated that perhaps "the naifs" -- kids, disenfranchised people, techno have-nots -- are actually those who have the best insight into how technology should work.

Put this way, it's easy to see how this translates into the art world.

Most people treat professional artists, gallery owners, educators, and critics as those who understand "art" best. But who hasn't seen the sheer delight in the face of a toddler finger-painting? Who ***really*** has the purest vision: the painter trying to sell a certain numebr of work each month? Or the child running up with his newest drawing, saying "Look what I made just for you!!!" ?

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Some Women Really Do See the World Differently...

Last fall, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran a story on tetrachromats, people who can see four distinct ranges of color (instead of the three with which most of us live.) At this point, it is believed that only women have the potential for super color vision.

Each of the three standard color-detecting cones in the retina -- blue, green and red -- can pick up about 100 different gradations of color. But the brain can combine those variations exponentially, so that the average person can distinguish about one million different hues.

A true tetrachromat has another type of cone in between the red and green -- somewhere in the orange range -- and its 100 shades theoretically would allow her to see 100 million different colors. But because most people's eyes aren't capable of seeing the world the way a true four-color viewer perceives it, there's little way of knowing how many advantages that might give to the tetrachromats.

Scientists estimate that 2 percent to 3 percent of the world's women may have the kind of fourth cone that lies smack between the standard red and green cones, which could give them a colossal range. This means there could be 99 million women in the world with true four-color vision.

Why only women? The genes for the pigments in green and red cones lie on the X chromosome, and only women have two X chromosomes, creating the opportunity for one type of red cone to be activated on one X chromosome and the other type of red cone on the other one. (In a few cases, women may have two distinct green cones on either X chromosome.)

However, it's unlikely that all of the women with four types of color cones will have the potential for superior color vision. This is because for many women, their two red cones will be so close to each other in the wavelengths they detect that they won't see things much differently than a typical three-color person does.

But before they pat themselves on the back for their superior evolution, says the newspaper, it's important to note that humans are just getting back to where birds, amphibians, and reptiles have been for eons.

Even so, it's fascinating to think how many women artists might be tetrachromats.

Friday, March 16, 2007

The Opposite of.....

A late-night thought:

Is the opposite of an artist:

- someone who creates "not art", or
- someone who doesn't create anything at all?

I'm interested in your thoughts, as long as your answer isn't "Someone who ruminates in her blog isntead of creating art." :-)

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

On Women in Art

ArtNet ran an interesting article on why there are so few women represented in today's art scene... and why no one seems to find that unusual. Since women are reportedly more likely to be right-brained and creative, this anomaly makes little sense to me.

I belong to several arts organizations and the sizable percentage of members in each group is female. (Of course, this might mean only that women are more likely to join art associations than are men, who may prefer to "go it alone.")

My hunch is that no matter how many women are creating art these days, men may be:

  • more aggressive about promoting their work
  • more forthright about anouncing thier "vision", and
  • more proactive about handling the business aspects of being an artist.


Read the article here: www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/davis/davis3-12-07.asp. (It's written by a man, if you care about that kind of thing.)

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

On Artistic Arrogance

I couldn't resist posting this gem from Mark Ravenhill of The Guardian (K):

"The very act of writing a novel or painting or performing your song needs arrogance - an arrogance that says: 'I have a unique insight and I have the talent to give that insight a form and the confidence to ask you to come and have a look at what I'm doing.' That is an arrogance that puts us somewhere up there with the gods."


which he follows with, only a few paragraphs later:

"The truth is that this arrogance is only a fleeting moment. It's the fuel to get the unsteady craft off the ground. Pretty soon, the doubt sets in."


Near the end of the article, where he talks about stifling the urge to rework everything he's ever written, he adds:

"But it's better to move on and create more imperfect work than to go over the same ground seeking for impossible perfection."


I don't totally agree with this last statement, but it certainly captures the need to keep moving forward and creating new work, rather than revisiting the past.

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Show Post-Mortem

Last week, I took down the library show and returned many of the included works to their usual spots on my walls. It made me realize how much I take for granted being surrounded by artworks on a day-to-day basis.

My daughter moved into her latest apartment nearly a year ago, and there's nary a wall print to be found there so far. (There are a few of my photos leaning against the wall, a fact which I'm trying not to take personally: after all, they could be stashed in the closet or under her bed.)

How has YOUR life been transformed by art? Leave a comment here:

Photo as Art, Revisited

I've been trolling the Internet recently for some current thought on whether photography is an art or craft (or perhaps neither, in the wrong hands.) Here's a quote that got me thinking:

"If we use a camera as a recording device (such as in medicine or forensics), it's [just] a tool and photography is a craft. But when we use that camera to express ourselves and to transform a mental image to a physical one, then it's an art."


Not quite sure what the author would have to say about Marcel Duchamp's "sculptures" ("Sometimes a toilet is just a toilet", perhaps?) And I've seen some beautifully rendered representational photos that would certainly qualify as art.

And how would the author consider photorealistic painting, life studies, portraits, etc? Yes, the creators of these works also record what they see before them (often trying to do so as faithfully as possible.) But is it harder to make the art/craft distinction because they are using pencils or paintbrushes instead of lens-based media?

Monday, March 5, 2007

How good are ***you*** at recognizing photos?

Cognitive Daily ran an experiment to find out how good people were at recognizing famous faces and other things in extremely low-resolution photos.

The results were rather impressive, even with only a few sparse pixels' worth of information. Researches found that people can recognize faces using just 12 × 14 pixels' worth of information. So they decide to go back and see if that number could be further reduced.

So how'd they do? Find out here: scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2007/03/casual_fridays_we_can_identify.php

Thursday, March 1, 2007

Why the Camera Adds 10 Pounds

We've all heard the phrase "Cameras don't lie." So then why do people often look heavier in photos than in real life?

The short answer is a combination of bad lighting, odd angles, and the focal length of the lens being used. To learn more, read this article from Slate: www.slate.com/id/2160377/?GT1=9129