Evening Windows (Los Angeles)

Evening Windows - Los Angeles  2012

Taken with an Olympus E-PL1 with a Panasonic lens (20mm, 40mm equiv).

When a painter stands in front of a blank canvas, the issue is, what to put in.

When a photographer stands in front of a scene, the issue is, what to leave out.

The camera, by default, puts everything in. Even the most dedicated photorealist painter can't put everything in.

In the olden times, photographers had to "leave stuff out" by varying the field of view, changing the lens, moving the camera around or cropping after the fact.

With Photoshop, photographers have more freedom in  leaving stuff out. Each new iteration of Photoshop provides more sophisticated tools to accomplish this. Below, the original version of the above photo.

Evening Windows (Original) - Los Angeles  2012

L.A. Buildings

I took these photos while wandering around downtown L.A. on a Saturday morning . . . in the photorealist tradition, I think. (Empty urban sites.) Perspective isn't 100%, but pretty close.

Photos: Beaudry—Los Angeles, 2010; Buildings—Los Angeles, 2010

MOCA

During his most recent trip to L.A. Mike visited the Museum of Contemporary Art, located on Grand Avenue. The featured exhibit was a 30-year retrospective of the museum's collection.

As Mike wandered through the exhibit halls he was slightly disappointed to find that there were no photorealist painters represented, although there were a few representative specimens of Pop Art. Perhaps photorealism doesn't fit into the museum's aesthetic.

There were also a number of photographers in the show, most notably and successfully images from Robert Frank's The Americans. Mike was slightly disappointed to find that there were no West Coast photographers represented (with the sole exception of Lewis Baltz, a number of whose photos were jammed together against one wall with no space between the frames, top or bottom . . . quite impossible to view.) No Edward Westons, Max Yavnos or Minor Whites. Perhaps these kinds of photographs don't fit into the museum's aesthetic.

In honor of the nature of the show, Mike took a blurred self-portrait photo in the vicinity, then messed with it in Photoshop to give it that contemporary look.

Photos: Ticket Office (MOCA)—Los Angeles, 2010; Self-Portrait (Downtown)—Los Angeles, 2010

Self-Portrait & Parking Lot

Mike had his rear brake pads replaced at Japan Autos in the "industrial" section of San Rafael.

Walking around with coffee cup and camera, he came upon a) a reflective window across the street, with the sun peeking over the roof and hitting Mike's head, causing him to squint, and b) a recession-caused abandoned parking lot.

How come the photorealist people can get people to buy paintings of parking lots, but photographers can't? (More on the photorealist conundrum here.)

Photos: Self-Portrait—Marin County, 2009; Parking Lot—Marin County, 2009

Stable Pix

Apropos of nothing, here’s an interesting quote:

Art is the selective re-creation or conversion of reality by the human mind into concrete imagery according to an artist's metaphysical value judgments. Real or imagined concepts are filtered and altered through the human mind to the artist's hand to create an image or sound that did not exist before. The reason photography does not qualify as art is that the process removes the filter of the human mind as an interpretative element. Although photography requires technical skill, in the final analysis it is only a mechanical recording of reality.

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Photos: Hay in Barn—Marin County, 2009; Stable Tools—Marin County, 2009

That Photorealist Conundrum

Well, we were sitting in SFO drinking our coffee prior to our flight to Seattle when I noticed this very handsome painting (oil?, watercolor?) by James Torlakson—one of my favorite photorealist artists. Luckily the fellow sitting in the booth directly in front of the piece left so I could take this snap.

As it turns out, this work has been mentioned in the New York Times:

THE San Francisco airport's heralded art includes both a permanent collection and a series of premier temporary exhibits. Art hangs on corridor walls and in waiting areas, dangles over escalators and moving sidewalks, and lodges in cases along the walls of the tunnels that link the three terminals. . . . Pieces range from such San Francisco scenes as Glorias Cozzo Adams's "Cityscape No. 33," which hangs near Gate 81, to James Torlakson's "Behind Ted McMann's Garage," a stark work mounted in a lounge near Gate 69 that shows an unhitched trailer sitting on rich, dark soil.

***

In the literature of photography I have seen it said that part of the quality of a work of art derives from the amount of physical effort that has gone into it. Therefore, under this somewhat mystical concept, a platinum print—all other things being equal—would have more value than an inkjet print.

I’m trying to get at the essential difference between Torlakson’s trailer and my trailer (shown underneath). Could there be an inherent difference due to his spending much more time creating his work? I mean, he had to (probably) take the photo, re-compose, draw and paint the work.

His description of his working method is as follows:

When I paint an image, I break it down in my mind and put it back together in the second dimension as if it were a puzzle. The pieces of the puzzle are the compositional elements of shape, texture, light, value, hue, line, etc. If the elements are assembled harmoniously, the painting will function well as both an abstract composition and a realistic image.

So it takes him a lot longer. Still, I doubt that you can give it any extra esoteric value due only to the time factor. (And to be honest, getting the right look from a digital file sometimes takes quite a bit of work in Photoshop, anyway.) His is photo-based. Mine is photo-based . . . is a photo, actually. His is pretty big—I wouldn’t be able to enlarge the file that much. (I probably could if I took multiple exposures and used photomerge.)

No. As a Cal State L.A. alumni with an Economics degree (!), I’d guess that the extra time needed to produce these labor-intensive works serves in the main to restrict the output, thereby increasing the rarity value. Supply and demand. An analogy would be to the fine wine market where boutique wineries command premium prices in large part due to their small supply.

Note also that a major difference lies in the market for which both works were created. The painter’s market is a sophisticated one in which a large painting of a trailer can be appreciated and even find buyers. Large scale photos of trailers might sell at a Farmer’s Market, but probably not. (I like to show some things that are somewhat off-beat, but mainly the things that sell are the landscapes.)

So it’s both: the labor intensive limited edition product, and the market. (And of course, other things too. More discussion later, I'm sure.) The difference in audience is between those who attend art gallery openings and those who attend Farmers Markets . I’m hoping that one day I’ll get lucky and have someone at my booth who attends both.

Photos: Trailer (Torlakson), SFO—San Francisco, 2009; Horse Trailer—Marin County, 2008

The Cloisters

We visited The Cloisters on an overcast, damp day and wandered about through the artworks and the outside gardens. One particular favorite of mine was "The Annunciation Triptych"—a 16th Century oil painting almost photorealistic in its detail.

This part of New York was quiet and subdued in the luminous October light.

Photos: Columns (The Cloisters)—New York, 2006; Park Entrance—New York, 2006

Photomerge Issue

I’ve been trying to figure out how to do a multiple-photograph photomerge of subjects that have lines and angles in them. That is, I’ve merged natural scenes before, fairly successfully (see the Owens Valley photo, and Autumn Leaves photo) but wouldn’t it be cool to be able to merge some shots of a building façade? That way, you could make a really big print of window reflections (for example) in the photorealist style.

Here’s an attempt at such a subject (in this case, a vacant building in back of the San Rafael Trader Joe’s.) On top is the merge (of six separate shots) as produced by Photoshop. Below is what remained after desperate perspective-control measures were undertaken. As we can see, a lot of subject matter had to be cropped out.

I guess it would help if I had a wonderful perspective-control lens. Yeah, right. Or, what about a separate software program dedicated solely to merges?

We will have to think on this.

Photo: Vacant Building in Rain—Marin County, 2009

Interior Spaces

Yes, "Interior Spaces" should be the title of my next gallery show:

"Mundy’s lapidary images in his latest exhibit, ‘Interior Spaces,’ resonate with the cold precision of photorealist geometry. The sense of longing that accrues blah blah blah . . ."

Um, maybe not.

Photos: Ferry Building Interior—San Francisco, 2005; Herbst Pavilion Interior—San Francisco, 2009

Recent Work (2008): Truck & Building

This was taken in back of the feed store in Novato; the sun was low in the west.

Another in the series of "photorealist" pix, as I like to call them. Not sure what makes them photorealist . . . I guess subject matter, mainly.

Taken with the Olympus C-8080. Since I was pointing the camera up, the verticals in the picture converged, with a sloping-inwards look. But! I've recently become aware of the "Distort" filter in Photoshop which allows you to not necessarily distort, but to correct distortion. Used here.

Photo: Truck & Building—Marin County, 2008

Reflections

I have been thinking about my photorealist theories. As we know, photorealist paintings use photography as a launching point. However, the end product of the photorealist, while superficially resembling a photograph, is almost never concerned with "the decisive moment"—the description of a particular moment in time, which informs even the most static of Weston still-lives.

Photorealists quite frequently start with a source photograph as their initial inspiration; they might even use back projectors outlining the photograph on their canvas. At that point, their main decisions have to do with overall composition and the issue of how much detail to put in.

My question is: could the process go in the other direction? In other words, given that photographic files are now, thanks to Photoshop, incredibly plastic, could one start with a photograph and "work backwards" to a photorealist composition? I wouldn’t doubt that it would be possible. One would have to decide what a "photorealist composition" is, to begin with, and then, how to technically achieve the result.

I decided to try, for the moment, to duplicate a Richard Estes photorealist painting. As we all know, Mr. Estes is famous for including reflections in his paintings. See here, and here. So all I would have to do would find a suitable subject (with reflections) and squeeze off a few shots.

Well, it wasn’t quite that easy, but during a recent trip to San Francisco (luncheon date with my daughter, Shawna) I tried to scout out various locations. It turned out that this photo of a revolving door was the best example that I was able to find. At the Citibank Building, I think . . . at the corner of, um, Montgomery and Market? Of course, there’s more to it than the initial exposure. This photo, then, is the first iteration of this project.

Photo: Revolving Door—San Francisco, 2008

Bus, Reflections

A lot of photorealist paintings have all kinds of reflections going on. So this photograph could possibly serve as a template for one, but . . . the interesting angle here is that I took it from inside the bus while it was stopped in traffic in front of the mirrored facade of this building.

So you still have the photographic concept of the moment, which I think is intrinsic to this particular photograph.

(The facade is actually reflecting the bus as well as the Fred French Building . . . I had to read the letters backwards and do a Google search. I would have liked to have visited Mr. French's building!)

Photo: Bus, Reflections—New York, 2003

Watercolor

I applied a watercolor filter in Photoshop . . . brings out the photorealist nature of the shot a bit more, I think. (Clicking on the photo will enlarge it.)

Photo: Sausalito Visitor Center—Marin County, 2008

Photorealism

I was in Sausalito yesterday, walking around, when I saw this composition. The interesting thing is that I didn’t see it as any kind of great photograph, but I did see it as a typical photorealist subject.

The ever-reliable Wikipedia states: "Photorealism is the genre of painting based on making a painting of a photograph." But that doesn’t quite nail down the category. What I’ve noticed is that the artists who practice photorealism are not—definitely not—photographers. They may be taking photographs, certainly, but not in a way that an actual practicing photographer would. A photographer, even a landscape photographer, has as a primary concern "the decisive moment," that moment when all is revealed and the shutter is tripped.

When we view photographs we cannot help be struck by the notion of the moment. The photographer, whether photographing a pepper in a funnel or capturing a little boy with a loaf of bread, is, we feel, engaged in the evanescence of the moment—for him, the decisive moment.

The photorealist painter’s aesthetic object, however, is focused more on the ordering of objects on a flat surface. Nothing to do with the "moment." From a photographer’s standpoint, the arrangements you see in most such paintings would be just a little bit too static, the compositions undynamic and flat. (Big generalizations.) But fascinating nonetheless.

That may be exactly the point. I find photorealist paintings, and realist paintings in general, to be aesthetically valuable in many cases not only as exquisite objects in their own right, but also as points of reference when navigating the thorny issue of photography as art.

Photo: Sausalito Visitor Center—Marin County, 2008