What Makes Good Photography and is it the same for other kinds of Art ? Is Less Always More?

When I look at a photograph I look for a message; do they need and must have a message? Does art need to convey a message to the viewer and is that part of the art experience?

On a photograph we have a subject and the context of what we display, represent and compose in the photograph. The subject and the context make the photograph relevant, interesting, but can the subject or the context clutter the photograph? A photo is created by subtracting from the shot what is irrelevant and not necessary to what we want to express. Is it the same for other forms of art, lets say painting , sculpture? Is less always more?

Untitled- Work by Bill Thomas- BT-Thirdiimage

So what makes a photograph a piece of Art?

What do we do when we look for the first time to a photograph? We look for familiarity, if there is something familiar to us, then we look for emotion, how we feel about it, do we like it or not, does it attracts us or do we just want to move on to the next?

We first look at the photograph in a general context and then we start looking at the details, the colors, the different hues that attract our eye and also our mind. Depending on what colors we favor we will be attracted in different ways to a photograph. Then we look at the light and how it hits and the shadows it creates. A play of light and shadow that as photographers we can manipulate to draw the eyes of the viewer to those places we want to emphasize. It is at this point the two dimensional photograph becomes three dimensional by the shifting of light and the shadows making the details richer and with more texture. The same works for painting, even though in painting many times we add more elements, more color and details instead of subtracting and making it simple. How about sculpture? Again, it depends on what we want it to be.

I personally love landscape and nature photography, but my love is people photography; when photographing people the photograph becomes human and it evokes the emotion of the subject.

Good photography also has balance and it is clean of excessive clutter. If it is in color they must be bold, solid, clean, bright without excessive patterns and also harmonic compositions with few colors or just one simple color to create a soft, relaxing image.

Then we have depth and that is why we add either a strong background or we soften it into a blur to let the subject shine by itself. But, what if we chose to make the picture flat? with no depth? The same applies for a painting and how about sculpture, does it have depth, can it be flat with no depth?

Now, get closer, closer, closer, most of the best shots are close and many are parts of the total , a different experience by itself; by getting closer we get more texture,details and things appear to be different than what they are, many become abstracts and capture a different identity than the original subject. I am a fool for close ups and body parts.

How about the use of light? It has to be” interesting” and by that I mean dramatic. Long shadows do it for me any time and side and back lighting gives always good results. Early morning, late afternoon, but what about night shots with full moon, no flash of course. And how about hyperfocal to have a very close foreground and a very deep background? How doe we take advantage of light in art, photography, painting and also sculpture?  In sculpture we basically do it by carving, the texture we create, the shapes and if needed a good lighting element; the lay of light and shadow is so much more interesting in photography.

A good, very good photograph takes time, one has to think, look, connect and assimilate the subject and its context, working the subject in a ritual dance, letting the subject relax and feel comfortable, forgetting the lens is ogling it. Just like any other piece of art, one has to get comfortable with the material one uses, with the tools and with the idea of what it will become. It is all about passion, about a flirtatious dance with the material to understand it, see it as it is, assimilate it and transform it.

Origins- Italian Translucent White Alabaster