{"id":147,"date":"2008-07-11T05:21:06","date_gmt":"2008-07-11T13:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/?p=147"},"modified":"2008-07-11T05:34:44","modified_gmt":"2008-07-11T13:34:44","slug":"the-photographer-as-artist-expressive-spectrum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/2008\/07\/11\/the-photographer-as-artist-expressive-spectrum\/","title":{"rendered":"The Photographer as Artist – Expressive Spectrum"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’re exploring art from the perspective of other artistic disciplines to shed light on what it means to be a photographer and an artist.\u00a0 (You can read The Photographer as Artist – Introduction.<\/a>)\u00a0 We’re doing this because photographers often seem to be expected to meet a “reality standard” that has not been imposed on other artists since the classic period of Greece two thousand years ago – “Did you use a filter?” “Are these colors real?” “Did you manipulate this photograph?”<\/p>\n

There are three areas to explore – what I call the Tripod of Artistry – the three legs upon which all arts and artists stand.\u00a0 This article looks at the first of the three – Expressive Spectrum.<\/p>\n

Medium<\/h3>\n

Every art discipline involves a medium.\u00a0 Painters choose from oils and canvas, water colors and paper, tempura and wood plus other combinations, resulting in a visual experience that often amazes us.\u00a0 Composers create musical scores which utilize instruments, voices and ensembles.\u00a0 The result is a musical experience for us to enjoy.\u00a0 Playwrights create the scripts that weave together the stage, sets, costumes and actors into a play.\u00a0 Authors create the written word.\u00a0 Performers use their instruments be they musical instruments as in the case of musicians or their bodies as in the case of actors, dancers or singers.\u00a0 Sculptors use marble, bronze, wood, metal, glass, clay and more.\u00a0 Every art has a medium that the artist uses as a tangible, persistent expression of his or her creation.<\/p>\n

There seems to be two types of artists.\u00a0 The first is the creator, the artist from whose inspirational wellspring something new is created.\u00a0 These are the painters, authors, composers, sculptors, architects, and so on –\u00a0the ones who create something out of nothing.\u00a0 Something flows from their imaginations on to their medium.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The second is the performer, the artist who interprets another artist’s work, another’s vision.\u00a0 These are the musicians, actors and dancers.\u00a0 Some art forms require the performer to bring the art work to life, to breathe life into it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Think of all the artists involved in the production of a great movie.\u00a0 You start with the novelist whose book is the foundation of the movie.\u00a0 The screen writer transforms the novel into a drama for the screen.\u00a0 Set designers bring the visual image to life.\u00a0 Costume designers create the mood of the period.\u00a0 Camera operators create the visual impact.\u00a0 From the actors come rich, complex characters. And directors intertwine all these talents together into a coherent, moving whole.<\/p>\n

The Medium’s Expressive Spectrum<\/h3>\n

But returning to the medium itself, there’s an interesting observation that can be made.\u00a0 The medium the artist chooses has a very profound impact on what the artist can say.\u00a0 Let’s look at a couple examples.\u00a0 Take the painters who choose oils versus water colors.\u00a0 Is each of these media capable of producing the same mood?\u00a0 While there is a great deal of overlap, in general water colors are capable of producing a more delicate painting while oils tend to be more bold.\u00a0 Trumpets herald the beginning of a race at the race track.\u00a0 Can you imagine attempting to do the same thing with a ukulele?\u00a0 It makes you smile just thinking about it.\u00a0 But on the other hand you don’t have trumpets accompanying a Hawaiian dancer either.<\/p>\n

So then, a musician who plays a trumpet will be capable of a certain latitude of expression while another musician who plays a ukulele will be capable of a totally different latitude of expression.\u00a0 Typically, the trumpet will be used for subjects (melodies) that are quite different from the ukulele from the triumphant entry of gods to the destruction of the universe.\u00a0 In fact, there may not be any overlap at all or at best minimal overlap between the subjects that are suitable for a trumpet and those suitable for a ukulele.<\/p>\n

But what happens when the same subject is interpreted with different media?\u00a0 Do you remember when Jimi Hendrix performed the Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock?\u00a0 You can hear it on You Tube <\/a>.\u00a0 It doesn’t come out the same as when performed by the US Army band (it’s not on You Tube but you can hear it here<\/a>).\u00a0 Granted, there’s a bit of a difference in interpretation but the medium is one of the elements that makes this difference possible.<\/p>\n

There’s one more point to draw about the expressive capacities of the medium, namely, each medium is capable of a range of expression, what I call the Expressive Spectrum.\u00a0 If you want to listen to an excellent example, check out Wynton Marsalis’ wonderful (and free) “web-only” album “Here…Now<\/a>.”\u00a0 The seven tracks are labeled Chorale, Speed, Strength, Style, Glamour, Pain and Heaven.\u00a0 You will get the idea.<\/p>\n

The point then is that the choice of medium profoundly affects what the artist can say through his or her art.\u00a0 Some media have very broad Expressive Spectra while others are more limited.<\/p>\n

Photography’s Expressive Spectrum<\/h3>\n

As photographers, our medium is the print or, more and more now, the JPEG file displayed on a monitor.\u00a0 The tool associated with the medium is of course the camera.\u00a0 And just like the painter who can choose from different brushes – broad, narrow, stiff, supple – and achieve different results, so to can we choose from different cameras – film, digital, point and shoot, D-SLR, large format, prosumer, professional, all of which will add their mark to the final expression.<\/p>\n

As to the Expressive Spectrum of our medium, well, it’s huge.\u00a0 Take two photographs from one photographer – W. Eugene Smith.\u00a0 Contrast the innocent beauty of The Walk to Paradise Garden<\/a> to the unforgettable and haunting Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath<\/a>.\u00a0 Or how about Edward Weston’s Bell Pepper<\/a>.\u00a0 Or maybe you would like a quick tour of some of Richard Avedon’s portraits<\/a>.\u00a0 Or check out David Hurn’s passion for his native Wales in “Land of My Fathers<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

It would seem that one could go on forever with one great photographer after another, each stretching the Expressive Spectrum of our medium in a new direction.\u00a0 Regardless of the subjects we choose or the tools we select with which to capture them, the Expressive Spectrum of our medium is rich with nearly endless possibilities.\u00a0 This is good news for us as artist photographers because it means we can pursue our passion and creative vision down virtually any path we can imagine.<\/p>\n

In the next article we will talk about the second leg of the Tripod of Artistry – Creative Vocabulary.<\/p>\n

(1072)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’re exploring art from the perspective of other artistic disciplines to shed light on what it means to be a photographer and an artist.\u00a0 (You can read The Photographer as Artist – Introduction.)\u00a0 We’re doing this because photographers often seem to be expected to meet a “reality standard” that has not been imposed on other … Continue reading “The Photographer as Artist – Expressive Spectrum”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[111,25,110,109,13],"class_list":["post-147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-photography-as-art","tag-expressive-spectrum","tag-fine-art","tag-medium","tag-photograher","tag-photography"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Nl7-2n","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}