Now to some musings

First, lets look at something quite abstract. How can you represent someone with the least detail? Oriol Llauradó Ballesta attempted to represent people with just lines and his images are quite interesting. To me this is an extension of  caricatures – a few lines of ink and voila – a personality springs into life before you. Can you do that with a camera?  Give it a try

This leads me to the whole idea of photographic exploration and developing your own style. Christopher Malcolm has written a thought provoking essay on this in f Stoppers. To quote “Like an in-demand art forger, I’d learned all the brush strokes and could recreate a Picasso with such perfection that it could fool all but the most astute of observers. But being able to recreate a Picasso isn’t the same thing as actually being Picasso.”  Isn’t that what we do at camera clubs? Learn the techniques of others but don’t create our own unique style? By all means, we need to learn the methods, but for some of us there is a need to go further.

Finally, there is a debate that rages about fine art and fine art photography. Here is a discussion of that by Elliot McGucken that presents many views. I strongly recommend you read it to help you understand what drives a lot of the talented photographers in the world.

I’ll leave it at that for now