In the “about” section of my website, when discussing my style I said “my photographs tend to break down into two types: those that look like photographs and those that don’t.” I’m not sure, but I think I’ve added a third type (or at the very least a subcategory of those that look like photographs). I’m not even sure how to describe the third type. The word “abstract” keeps popping into my head. Wikipedia says “Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world.” I rather like that definition.
In the last few months, I’ve noticed a few of my images starting to look like the one above. All photographs “use a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition,” So I guess compositions either “exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world” or exist mostly with a dependence upon visual references in the world. In other words, they are either abstract or representational, or some combination of the two. I think the composition of the photograph above clearly exists with a degree of independence from visual references in the world, so it is at least partly abstract.
So what, you may ask. I’m not sure, but somehow for me it yields better compositions if I think about such dichotomies.
