Really Abstract (The Album)
If Realism and Abstraction had a Baby
Welcome to Really Abstract where I post abstract street photography recorded while wandering aimlessly but aimfully, now that I’m a full-time flaneur.
My previous two posts were about my concept of the Photographer as Recording Artist producing Album Oriented Recordings, loosely translated from the music business without attribution.
In that spirit, as Muddy Waters sang that the blues had a baby and they named it rock and roll, I called my bastard child of realism and abstraction Really Abstract.
The title of the first album was cribbed from Picasso’s quotation about there being no such thing as abstract art.
There is no abstract art. You must start with something. Afterwards, you can remove all traces of reality. Pablo Picasso
As mentioned in my First Post Ever, this quotation was important to my evolution in photography. My project didn’t exactly develop in response to it, but it seemed a pretty apt description of what I was up to. Take the realism of street photography, crop out all but the finest traces of reality until it looks like abstract art. In other words, make pictures that split the difference between realism and abstraction.
The photos collected below were all taken in twenty-eighteen. The album was the result of a trip to France that was instrumental to the development of my project in two ways. Most importantly, I took to the streets of Paris with the intention of shooting abstracts and secondly, I arrived in France intending to take pictures in other cities.
Before this trip I had only ever photographed Paris with the expectation that the city would inspire me like a muse. I kept the faith that Paris would put subject matter before me and show me what to shoot. I never prepared or set any parameters other than to keep an open mind and give in to the city as a meditation of some sort.
This was the first trip where I decided to impose my concept of abstraction on Paris. Going a step further, we went south to see what I could find in the ancient cities of Arles and Nîmes.
Eighteen photos were selected for the album specifically to minimize the cost of a photo book, though I never did get around to printing any copies. I did print about fifty four-by-sixes and carried them around for months showing anyone who would look at them. In retrospect, not all of those fifty were worth the paper they were printed on.
Looking at the twenty-eighteen work with twenty-twenty-five eyes, any of those fifty that might seem to have been harshly excluded from Really Abstract merely foreshadow a sensibility that was still forming and had yet to emerge. If I had to make the selection all over again today, these are the best of the bunch, especially if I stay true to the project as I understood it then.
Really Abstract
All albums must have a cover. I choose cover images partly because they are landscape oriented and could fold in the middle as front and back covers simulating a good old-fashioned gate-fold. The other reason is because I really like the picture.
The cover of Really Abstract was recorded in Arles. It’s a photograph of a photograph of the banks of the Rhone that was blown up and plastered over the storefront of a failed business. The vintage photo, and its state of decay, make a statement of the past meeting the present with a portend of prospects. The shades of grey with a touch of blue in the corner reinforce the somber mood, despite being captured in the sunny late summer in Provence.
Apart from the cover, three more were from Arles, one was from Nimes, and the rest of the album was recorded in Paris. Click on the images to enlarge them and leave a comment to let me know what you think.
