Explore!

Here is what a dictionary says about 'explore':
(1) to investigate, study, or analyze;
(2) to travel over (new territory) for adventure or discovery;
(3) to examine especially for diagnostic purposes.

And when I said that this blog was going to explore and understand photography, those definitions were what I had in mind. I wanted to investigate it, study it, analyze it, and examine it. But more than that, I wanted to travel and discover the new photographic territories and have an adventure in and with it.

Color Harmony and The Production of Aesthetic Images (Part One)

"Our response to colours is complex, involving reactions at an emotional, subjective level to physical facts of light at different wavelengths." (Michael Freeman, 2005)

As common and ordinary as it is, color is a complex phenomenon. As the above quote aptly put it, discussing color is basically discussing about our response to it. That response may be scientific - as that made by physicists and/or chemists - or aesthetic - like that made by artists, designers, and photography practitioners like ourselves.

When it comes to the issue of the production and assessment of beauty, which I believe what aesthetic is essentially about, the nagging question about color is what makes certain combinations of colors harmonious or pleasing to look at?

Many of us (read: artists, designers, photographers, or even ordinary consumers or art works) would probably just say it's a gut instinct. We just know it and can feel it when a certain combination of colors is right. But this answer will of course be confusing to those who do not have the "talent" for that kind of gut or those who are learning to understand how colors work the magic in a pleasing composition. So what do aesthetic theories say about it?

According to art historian John Gage, the theory of harmony can be classified into four. The first of these views harmony as or in terms of scale, just like that of music. Then there are also theories that consider harmony in terms of complementary relations, resemblance in the level of brightness/value, and the psychological response given by the subjects. In addition to these, there are also others who say that hues and expectations may also play a significant role in the construction of what is considered to be a harmony.

That being explained, we may also ask another question, that is, if harmony is really the issue when it comes to composing colors (or other elements for that matter) in the making of beautiful images? Certainly art (including photographic art) is not just about harmony. As many art connoisseurs know, elements of discord can sometimes also play a role in the making of aesthetic objects. However, I don't think this is the right place to wage on this kind of argument. Let us just concentrate on the issue of what is pleasing about color composition.

Text and photo by Eki Akhwan

To be continued in the next part.

Photo Exploration # 24: I still have yet to understand

What's the limit of an exploration?

I'd say, it's understanding. For as long as we have not reached a desirable and satisfactory understanding of what we set out to explore in the first place and of the answers found that have since generated more questions, that exploration shall not come to an end. Exploration in this sense, therefore, is the essence of our life's journey on its own. It is a never-ending quest to understand, to quench the thirst we were born with.

Our exploration - our life's journey - may consist of smaller, more manageable sub-explorations. Together, they form a stream - a huge stream - of life energy that keeps us moving, living. When that stream stops flowing, that is to say when our quests for answers have stopped, then that's when life ends.

This photo is part of that smaller sub-exploration of mine of the wonder of the visual world; how I come to like what I see, what moves me to cast the spell of camera magic and freeze it in a frame, and how that interplay of the inner and outer worlds in that simple act of pressing the button of the camera gives me so much satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) to me.

Please do forgive me for these visual and verbal ramblings ...

Eki Qushay Akhwan

Photo Exploration # 23: Feet and Stillettos

Feet and stillettos ... two things that go together.

As you can obviously see, this photo is heavily cropped at the top and a little bit at the bottom. I did it to get rid of the extraneous visual elements that will distract attention from the main point (the point of interest) of this photograph. The compositional simplification I did to this photo, I think, helps accentuate the feet (both of the girl's and the chair's), and hence articulates the impact I want to achieve in presenting the subject.

Now the question is, how much cropping are we allowed to perform in photography?

There are no exact guideline to this. Some photographers, like Henri Cartier-Bresson, simply oppose after-the-fact cropping as, according to him, it would destroy the "geometrically correct interplay of proportions" of the original scene. Many other photographers, of course, have more linient attitude about cropping.

Generally speaking, however, cropping is a very useful way of enhancing a photograph's composition. It does so by removing unwanted or distracting elements, correcting compositional balance, or hiding/covering a framing mistake. It also helps create the visual impacts you want with your photograph.

Text and photo by Eki Qushay Akhwan.

Meeting The "Photo Scavenger Hunt" Thematic Challenge: Things That Go Fast

Every now and then photographers need to create a challenge (in the form of a project of some sort) or meet a challenge posed by others to hone their photographic skills and keep their creative powers alive.

My post today is about meeting that kind of challenge.

Photo Scavenger Hunt is a photographic weekly thematic challenge initiated by a photo blogger friend of mine, Carrie Hayes of View of You Photography. For this week, the theme is "things that go fast" - and here is my interpretation of it.

How fast is fast? Well, I think that depends very much on what yard stick .you're using. A car can be fast, but it would seem slow compared to a rocket, for example. A bicycle may be slow when compared to a car, but it definitely is faster when compared with walking.

Fotografer kadang-kadang perlu menciptakan tantangan atau menjawab tantangan yang diberikan oleh orang lain untuk mengasah kemahiran fotografi dan kreatifitasnya.

Photo Exploration # 18: Urbanites 01

JAGAT FOTOGRAFI received KREATIV BLOGGER AWARD from a fellow photo blogger Laetitia of Malta Magic. Thanks a lot, Laetitia.

Photo Exploration # 17: Construction

My participation for this week's theme of Photo Scavenger Hunter: Construction.

This concrete skeleton is going to be an indoor tennis stadium of the Faculty of Sports Education of the Indonesia University of Education, Bandung.

Photo Exploration # 15: Colors

"There is a clear difference between a photograph in which there happens to be colour, and one in which the colour works to make the image what it is."

(Freeman, Michael.Digital Photography Expert: Colour. Cambridge, England: ILEX, 2005)

The legitimacy of color as a subject of a photograph has been debated among photographers for a long time. For those who are against it, the concentration on "beautiful colors in pleasing relationships" is considered to be one of the two "categories of failure" of color photography (Szarkowski in Freeman, 2005: 133). Though "pleasing," an image that makes color its (primary) subject is considered by some art critics as a photograph "in search of a subject," or a "formless" photograph (op cit.).

This is the Indonesian version of the above text:
Warna sebagai subjek foto yang sah telah lama diperdebatkan di kalangan para fotografer. Bagi yang tidak setuju terhadap warna sebagai subjek foto, konsentrasi pada "warna-warna yang indah" dianggap sebagai salah satu dari dua "kategori kegagalan" fotografi warna. Meskipun tampak "indah," sebuah foto yang menjadikan warna sebagai subjek utamnaya dianggap oleh sebagian kritikus seni sebagai foto yang "kehilangan subjeknya" atau foto yang "tak berbentuk".

This is what the above photograph looks like when it is desaturated. The "pleasing" effect, as you can see, is gone.

Skywatch Post 01 (NT)

This photograph is for this blog's participantion is Skywatch Friday. To see other participants' photographs, please check here.

Photo Exploration # 13: A Place Where Knowledge Seats

Photo Exploration # 12: Home

Photo Exploration # 7: Time for A Football Fan and Photography Addict

In many ways, a football/soccer fan and a photography addict are the same. Their lives are saturated with the objects of their fascination.

I took this photograph in the classroom of my one-on-one tuition student of Bahasa Indonesia as a foreign language. My student, a British national, is a heavy weight football fan. His teacher, that's me, is a photography addict. This is what happened when we met in the class one day in one of our twice-a-week sessions.

Can you see which team is his favorite?