Often I will just play with an image just to keep in practice regarding my Photoshop skills. I spent about 2 hours on this one, just trying different things, not having a particular agenda since it wasn’t commissioned. I like having some time to do that and it is essential for any artist to spend time just ‘goofing’ off so to speak. Without it your work can become so stale and uninspiring that you cease to do it any more.
I love doing portraits with one eye closed. There is something so disconcerting about
it at first. But it then also allows you to think about two different aspects of the
person at the same time, and how they coexist. Plus it just looks really cool.
This is the fifth in a week long series on Photography. Check out Monday’s offering
to get the scoop on it from the beginning.
One of my favorite artists, Robert Irwin, has a saying that became the title of his
biography. ‘Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees’. That is why
drawing instructors teach on how to see negative space because negative space doesn’t
have a name, it doesn’t make you conjure up what an elbow is suppose to look like, or
a breast, or a tree or a couch. It is just a shape and it is just defined by the line
or the shadows or texture, that’s all.
So, when wondering what to take a photo of, don’t worry so much about the ‘thing’ you
are trying to photograph, all named and defined, but look at it without naming it.
Find the line or tone or texture or color that is within it and make an image of
those things. Your photos will be much better, I promise.