Calligraphic Abstracts

Calligraphic Abstracts

© 2012 Brooks Jensen. All rights reserved.
www.brooksjensenarts.com

Commentary
Here's another of the roughly 400 images of these calligraphic abstracts from the painted walls of Fort Worden near Port Townsend, Washington. What a dilemma I'm having with this work! What does one do with 400 images in a given project?

The obvious answer would be to edit, edit, and edit more until there's a comfortable 80 to 100 that could fit in a book. Do I then simply toss out the remaining 300 — out to the garbage can, never to be seen by mortal eyes again? I'd easily do that if I felt the 300 remaining images were inferior, but the dilemma deepens when I realize that the 300 remaining images from this project may be better than the top 10 images from any number of my other projects!

I'd never heard anybody talk about this issue until I started bringing it up with a few of my photographic friends. Much to my surprise, it's a common problem. A photographer discovers some interesting point of view and gets to work only to find that the potential for the project is far greater than anything they've ever done in previous projects. Before long, boxes of prints start to stack up. In a rich vision, variations are irresistible. Imagine the possible variations presented to Bruce Barnbaum when he first started photographing in the slit canyons; or the amazing possibilities presented to Frederick Evans as he photographed the cathedrals of England; or Eugene Atgét photographing the streets of Paris; or Edward Weston and all those little Mexican tchotchkes. What do we do with all of these? It's a serious question for which I have not a single suggestion, let alone a definitive answer.

So, like so many photographers before me, I continue to do the work because I can't imagine not doing the work. The pile of prints continues to grow, the problem deepens, and so far my only response is to play ostrich and keep producing them in the hopes that something will occur to me somewhere in the undefined future. In some regards, it's polar opposite — having no idea what to photograph — is a much simpler and easier problem to solve.

And, by the way, this says nothing of the variations available in any given abstract when the possibilities are endless. I can't decide which I toss out between the above and this variation, let alone all the other compositions I've photographed there.

Discussion
Add your comments and observations to the discussion by using the "Comments" link at the bottom of this post.

Comments

[Glenn Gilchrist]

I understand the problem, although have not dealt with one of quite this scope, thankfully I think :)

Have you considered large mural made up of several hundred smaller prints carefully arranged? From the looks of what you posted, it could be stunning.

[Alan Berkson]

As I remember, Brooks, you proposed and then collected and produced a pdf of the reader's iterations of your original images back in 2006 called 'The Experiment' in LensWork Extended #64. I participated and was thrilled to see my images in this project. And one of your abstracts from this series served as an original. I also remember that this idea died on the vine and was no longer pursued. Like that instance, maybe some ideas don't need to be formalized or even attempted.

[MichaelT]

I agree with Glenn: a mural is a great idea. Another idea that I had is based upon something I came upon recently. A clay artist created these small, unique 6x6 abstracted shapes based upon nature and incorporating natural and animal elements (shells, quills, seeds, etc.). It was up to the viewer / buyer to put them together in whatever number and arrangement they pleased them (singularly, Nx1, NxN...). I wonder if you could do the same thing: put up the 400 and allow the viewer / buyer to put them together in either any configuration they want (like the clay artist) or something you mandate (e.g. 3x1, 2x2, 3x3); and then printed onto a single sheet of media (e.g. a 3x1 might be each image size of 4x6 with the overall print size to be 16x9). You get my idea.. Might be a new an interesting way to deal with this nice to have problem!

[Terry McDonald]

Beautiful image, Brooks, with such huge potential, as you outline in your commentary. I think we all face this from time to time in finding a new (to us) way of seeing or travel destination or seeing the results of our own macro photography for the first time. One year we had a perfect hoar frost with brilliant sunshine and I happened not to be working that morning. The images created are some of my most admired. A wonderful juxtaposition of opportunity, subject, lighting and, to some degree, talent. Sadly, it begs the question of how much "straight" photography has to do with talent and vision and how much it has to do with opportunity and timing – "ƒ8 and be there".

[Mark Gilvey]

Hello Brooks,

It's Mark, the one who has been learning but not doing; that is until you nudged me. I find myself in a similar dilemma; 10,000 images to sort through. Asking myself which ones to work on. I look at them and I see potential for so many; even those one might not consider. What happens when I take what appears to be a mediocre image and make it better than one that on first view, before processing, development, enrichment, life, one would think it would be a better image. I have no choice but to develop each and then end up with a collection of images that might or might not fall into a project.

Do I present them as one-off's, maybe I'll discover a collection/project within each group? I don't know yet as I'm still working toward just making a collection. It brings up so many questions but I need to move forward without thinking about it too much right now.

[Mark Kinsman]

Perhaps this is too obvious, but group them by some common theme , shape, section of wall, season/ time of year shot etc and then offer each theme set as part of a volume set in PDF book format, with an optional 10 print folio....the question becomes: is it strong enough work to support this idea? I've always enjoyed your abstracts and suspect it could indeed this project idea.