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Documenting a period in my development that could become pivotal

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Power of water in paint and photographs







In these pictures I believe the paintings do tell something I can not photograph.

8 comments:

Kay Dennison said...

Indeed!!!!!! It's why I love art so much. A photo may speak a thousand words but a painting expresses and elicits a thousand feelings!

Diane Widler Wenzel said...

Kay,
Thank you for saying so well that a photograph speaks as opposed to a painting which pulls out of the painter a thousand feelings. The feelings come as the painting is made as a response between the eye to the brain to the heart and directed through the hand. Then the feelings continue as it is seen by the viewer.

Rain Trueax said...

Interesting thoughts. I think photography and paintings are each art forms in their own way. Paintings can be fudged, creating a world that never existed. Photography is more challenging in a way as it must be there and even with photoshop, what you didn't originally capture with the camera cannot be manipulated into existence. Also when you work with the photoshop process, you have to crop and enhance in ways that create the feeling or the techniques do nothing. Both forms require the artist's eye to give someone who was not there the feeling the viewer experienced.

Diane Widler Wenzel said...

The difference between outdoor, plein air painting and photogrphy is the initial time spent on each aspect of what you see. Once the photographer is close to what he is seeking it takes just a second to push the button. The plein air painter in the prolonged process of mapping his response, becomes involved in eye brain and hand sequence producing a longer memory making activity. The painter fixes on his painting requiring blinders to the passage of time. The photographer is more free to keep seeing more images. Seeing through the lens and the photograph at the same time as being liberating causes the photographer to search, find and focus. The photographic process is educating in a different way than painting en-plein air. Neither is better than the other. They painter's process is just different from the photographers.

Rain Trueax said...

I think that anybody who successfully photographs anything to an art form level likely spends a lot of time with the object also as in taking many photos. When at home, you have maybe 10 to look at and study the shapes and colors to get it down to one. People who snap pictures without spending time get tourist shots. Photographers also will wait for the perfect lighting as they cannot manipulate it into being. A plein air painter is also looking at their paper. I don't say both aren't in their own way an art but neither is more connected to what is but rather it is dependent on the person behind the lens or the brush. Are they connecting or not and likely if they are not painting or photo will be stale

Diane Widler Wenzel said...

Comparing photography and painting for creative potential is complex. Clarity might come from analizing the process step by step. 1)Selection of subject and view! In motivation the photographer and painter have the potential of being equal in their connection to the subject. A big percentage of the outcome of a work depends on selection of what is important. 2) Craftsmanship and skill! Immediate emotional response is possible in paint if the painter is skilled at making fast impressions. He makes an emotional choice on placement of the image in relation to the surface. Sometimes the image just appears almost without feeling effort based on the subconscious experience of the painter in his craft. For the photographer to capture immediacy, he needs quick reflexes and fast equipment. And he can never be finished on location. 3) The component of memory or immagination in resolving the image! The photographer in the studio, then, must always rely on memory to manipulate the image to highten the emotions he is feeling both on location and in the studio. Most Plein Air painters, myself included, finish paintings in the studio relying on memory. The more controlled environment of the studio opens up possibilities of being in control of the design sometimes for better and sometimes for killing immediacy. 4) Artist's preference! The other component of creating with either brush or photography is the feeling the artist gets from the process. As a painter I most often feel joy in my immediate energy in being in tune with the atmosphere of the day. Making adjustments on how fast my paint dries makes me feel like I am in the moment and part of the place. My personal preference is for the outdoor painting experience. To me a camera is a technology that is in between me and the subject. So with this annalysis it all boils down to both methods are creative with artistic potential, the difference is preference.

Rain Trueax said...

The camera is a tool as the brush is a tool. The first part of a photograph is looking at it and deciding what aspect to record or even if it's worth recording. One big difference is you can be on a hike and capture something that a painter would have to delay the walk to do the same.

There is a huge difference between the artistic photographer and the one who just records an event as in tourism type. The latter might get lucky and capture something but they may not even know it when they do. A lot of people have no desire for their camera to do more than record the event.

To me, whatever tool you use, nothing is the same as the eye and the memory in the head later. Memories in the end are the only thing left as the painting is not real either. I have seen enough stale photos or paintings to know neither tool guarantees the Zen feeling of recapturing the moment. As you said in your fourth point, it's purely what a person prefers for themselves and hense subjective, not objective.

With the photo programs available to the ordinary person, what an amateur photographer can do was once only available to the professional. I haven't gotten into much of that for myself but admire it when I see what others have created by blending together several photographs and sometimes using the paint tools. It's like a whole new world but it still begins with photographs that have the information and then the artistic vision to see what is possible. Often when I take a photo, I know it won't be much until it's cropped and enhanced but I know what it can be.

Diane Widler Wenzel said...

Rain, I agree painting is not social when you are with others on an outing unless they are painting too. Taking pictures in a social group doesn't hold people up as much. It is usually workable although the photographer can get left behind because they move slower.
I have to agree that the art in both a photograph and the painting comes from the artist's head and heart.