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In the week since the Fine Art Astrophotography group was launched there have been several exchanges regarding the definition of “art.” For example, “How will I know that I am making art and not just another astrophotography?” Many of us that contribute to AstroBin have backgrounds in science, engineering, and technology, and not a lot of experience in the art world. I thought that it might be valuable to discuss how we recognize and create art as we explore astrophotography. There are different definitions of art, but for me the simplest has always been “art is a creative endeavor (painting, photography, dance, etc.) that evokes strong feelings in a person or is appreciated for its beauty.” That is to say, when you experience art, you feel something special. So with this as a thesis, I suggest that each of us will make “art” when our image “works” for us personally (i.e., we see it as beautiful, or evokes a sense of mystery, or it harkens to another powerful event, etc.). When we share that image with our group and other have similar reactions, its art. The more impactful the feeling and the larger the audience, the more powerful the art. Another topic that came up a few times was the idea of making art by “warping reality” and make something artificial. Needless to say, for many of us that do science for a living, this does not feel right. We collect data and do analyses to test hypotheses and better understand phenomena. When we do science, we often treat the data in different ways to better “see” patterns. For example, tens of thousand of numeric measures are just pages of numbers, but when we display them in a scatter plot we can sometimes see a pattern. Applying different functions to the data also reveal different relationships. In these science examples, the data were not changed, we simply displayed them in a different way to reveal something hidden in pages of numbers. I propose that we can consider our manipulation of our astrophotographic data in a similar way. Changing channel color assignments does not change the data. Differentially exposing portions of a frame to reveal textures and structures does not change the data. Instead of testing a hypothesis, however, we are make these changes in an effort to create an image that has the power to make us feel strong emotions. We are endeavoring to make art by manipulating our recordings of the shadow and light of the cosmos. It is real, and our efforts can make it art. That’s my thesis. I invite you to weigh in and express your position. As I stated when launching this group, fine art astrophotography is very new and there are no “best practices.” Your perspective is important. |
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Personally, when I attempt "art" I attempt to go beyond portraying reality, or even fruther, beyond portraying the subject in a way similar to what others do as standard practice. In astro-imaging this means to me not just changing the mapping from the Hubble Palette to the ESO Palette, but reaching out markedly beyond the common image-rendering bounds and creating something unlike what has been seen before. That may mean different emphases in tones and hues, different emphasis on image edges and flat expanses, or assembling multiple images into a new compound scene...not necessarily one recognizably devolved from an astro-image. I certainly agree that, before you make it public, at least you should fined it pleasing! (I hope Jack-the-dripper liked his own stuff, at least.) My favorite artist is Edward Weston--an early modern, B&W photographer. For a long time he, and other photographers, were shunned by painter and other "real" artist...after all, photographers just record things; they don't creating things. But really look at Weston's works. See a dead seagull in tones and shades that make it look like a stunning creation of nature--but Weston is the creator here. His images are evocative on every level, at least for me. (And for others...just price an original E.W. print!) Weston rendered his common surroundings with innovative visual insights that others just did not see. That's art to me. |
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Good synapsis of your approach Alex. It was also good to learn that you are an Edward Weston fan. As it turns out, Weston, Ansel Adam, Brett Weston, Imogen Cunningham, and the others in the Group f/64, were self-proclaimed "Straight Photographers," emphasizing precise exposures and depth of field. The fine art photographic world of the late 19th and early 20th century were called "Pictorialist" and they actually altered realism in favor of tonality and flow using lenses that made soft images. Alfred Stieglitz was the leader of the Pictorialist and he criticized the straight photographer as non-artistic documentarians. Eventually Ansel Adams broke through with Stieglitz and the rest is history. The Weston family is still very active in photography here on the Monterey Peninsula. The Weston Gallery is on 6th street (between Delores and Lincoln) in Carmel, right across the street from Gallery Sur, which represents my work. Kim Weston (son of Cole Weston, Edward's son) and Cara Weston (grand daughter of Edward) are very accomplished photographers and active in our local photography group, Image Makers. If you find yourself in Monterey you have got to check out Weston Gallery. Original Westons, Adams, and more are hanging. There are some new prints made by Kim Weston from Edward's negative that are a lot more affordable! |
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I can't say i know what the definition of Art is - But I sure do know what it isn't! In my day to day professional photography world, I see a lot of bad photography passed off as Art. When I say bad photography, I'm referring to basic craftsmanship being ignored (or unattainable by the photographer due to their lack of experience). Defining craftsmanship includes impact, emotion, composition, rule of thirds, golden mean, colour palette and technique being used well with thought and intent. Bottom line - "You cannot be an Artist without first being a craftsman". or - "Know the rules first then bend them as you will!" Same applies to AP - it truly does my head in when people merely plonk the subject in the middle of the frame or crop out important bits of nebs with no thought for composition or the context of the object in space. Spending all that time on getting just the right gear, mastering a processing app, perfect sky conditions etc. then creating a technically correct but really boring image. Lack of design or consideration to composition basics ignores the simple fact that after all that expense, research and technique, it's still a photograph - and should be aesthetically pleasing! |
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Very happy to see this discussion. When we wonder if the colors we are seeing are true, how do I know what you see is anything like what I see? I think there is room for a lot of flexibility... BTW, just take a look at what the French Impressionists did to Art and you will see there is room for a lot of flexibility... Anyway, good to chat on the subject. |
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Andy 01: Great analysis, Andy. Your perspective as a professional photographer is very valuable. I had never considered your point, ""You cannot be an Artist without first being a craftsman". It reminded me of seeing the very early work of many of the impressionist painters and learning that nearly all were very accomplished, classical painters before they explored impressionistic interpretation. As you said, for us STEP 1. Work to become a solid astrophotographer. |
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Andy 01: Exactly ! This is a central point. Art stands on the shoulders of technology in our case. And I would say that some astrophotographers manage to produce beautiful photos and artistic interpretations with cheap gear because they exploited their gear right, used an original composition and fine processing. Even if the quality is not the same as that obtained with high-end products, their work is more valuable. On the other hand, I sometimes see people using big scopes with high resolving power, only to lose the details obtained by that diameter ( that costs a lot) with aggressive noise reduction or exaggerated curves transformation. I was wondering how do you see our artistic possibilities as astrophotographers when compared to Earth-oriented photography : ). All the celestial objects look the same to all of us, the perspective is fixed (no one is going to change position to image M51 edge-on), we cannot play with the lighting of the scene (except for Lunar landscapes). We didn't talk about the Milky Way, that can clearly can belong to fine-art photography (we have some nice examples on astrobin). Are we mainly limited to nebulae? |
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Bogdan Borz: Hey Bogdan, well said. In my opinion composition is key here, first & foremost. If you want to produce an original, striking & eye catching image of a well known target say M42 or the horsehead, then look outside the box , ignore the 40,000 versions that have EXACTLY the same composition - and come up with something new! Check this example out - https://astrob.in/isno11/0/ Sure, the viewpoint cannot change, but the colour palette & composition, FOV, choice of FL etc sure can. Same applies to TWAN style astro landscapes. |
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Yesterday Gary kindly asked me to join this group. Don't wish for it, Gary--you may get it! ;-) So I've joined and now I'll pen a few thoughts on this topic, although I'm quite late to the party... I think to actually define "art" as some kind of 'process' or 'thing' is fairly easy to do. Gary's initial post does this quite nicely. After defining a thing, we might even come to some agreement about it. However, when you ask a question like "Is this [insert thing] art?" the answer is not so straightforward. After all, are you willing to say that a toilet can be art? A blank canvas? A mountain? Is a star art? Now you are really getting into the weeds and you'll probably never get out! People simply will never agree. This is when the famous "beauty is in the eye..." quote is thrown around... or the Latin version, 'De Gustibus non est disputandum’, if you prefer... The problem here is that this 'subjectivist' position means that art is personal (or group) preference, and little else. 'Art', to me, is much, much more. Andy's comment above moves away from this subjectivist position and adopts what appears to be a more objectivist position when he says: Andy 01: Implicit in this is that there are rules and some training (craftsmanship) that is requisite. (I hope I haven't mischaracterized Andy's position.) However, how many of us have had any formal training to 'know the rules' so deeply and naturally that we can 'bend' and 'break' them? Very few, I suspect. And if we have had that training, then when we see someone's photo, how do we distinguish between an untrained accident and a purposeful departure from the rules? And does it even matter (the creator's intent)? Andy concludes by saying that [the photograph]: . Andy 01: I don't mean to single Andy out (but he has some obvious expertise), so forgive me one and all for using his comments as a point of departure. At this point I'd say that I don't agree with Andy about a work of art needing to be aesthetically pleasing, but, I do think the question here should not be "What is Art?" or "Is this Art?", but rather that we explore the ideas of "aesthetic experience" and "aesthetic judgement". These are completely different things to my mind. I don't propose to start that discussion now, but I would ask you to think for a bit about this: Why is it that we presume to have any expertise at all about art? Are we willing to ask completely untrained (artistically) individuals to 'judge' a work as to its worthiness? Would you ask a completely untrained person to comment on a medical procedure, a scientific theory, an engineering solution, an historical analysis? I don't think you would. Why do we allow it with art? (BTW, I don't.) Art, to me, is so much more than the rules (and the masterful breaking of them). It is about an experience. The subject (person who experiences) and the object (work of art) are tied together by a context. I'll leave it there for now. I'm new to this group, new to modern AP, too. I just uploaded two of my photos to this group (here and here). They are, to my mind, the only two photos I've done that I'd consider as relevant to this discussion. The question I'd ask you is NOT "do you like this picture?" or "is it art?" but what is your (aesthetic) experience when looking at these images (with or without the context of my descriptions)? If you're not sure what 'aesthetic experiene' is, that's where I think we can start to have some discussions about 'art'. Respectfully Submitted, Daniel |
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Art does not need to be aesthetically pleasing whatever that amorphous terminology means. I prefer a Monet or Turner to a Jeff Koons chrome Mickey Mouse or a black square by Malevich but all four are art. Aesthetics in eye of beholder no? One man's art is another man's trash. To me art makes you think, or question, or wonder why or how. -Sigga |
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Sigga: Agreed! It's important to remember, though, that while they might be considered 'art' now, at one time or another the work of three of these artists was rejected by the mainstream (Monet, Koons and Malevich). Even today Koons isn't completely accepted...of course, who wants to be "mainstream?" :-) Turner's works are actually a very interesting case. As a Romantic there is much emotion in his work; but some of that emotion is anchored in contemporary (to Turner) events. The emotion comes from understanding the context of an individual work. Without that knowledge, what level of appreciation can you actually have of Turner? You can appreciate his genius and talent, but what of the aesthetic experience itself? Part of it would be missing. Does it matter though? I would be interested in what and how Turner might paint now. Scenes from Syrian Civil War or a Covid ward, perhaps...but would he even be a Romantic? Too many questions. Sigga: This gets to what is important about how I personally view the aesthetic experience. "Art", to me as an observer, isn't as simple as a "like" or "thumbs up". It takes work. It is a way of knowing the world through my experience. It doesn't tell me what or how to think or feel, it doesn't explain. It's up to me, the observer to do that. The observer, of course, is not just me as audience, but me as creator of the art, as well. Enough said for today. There's work to be done! Respectfully Submitted, Daniel |
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Reading an NPR article on JWT today I want to remember this quote: From: https://www.npr.org/2021/09/16/1036600340/nasa-is-launching-a-new-telescope-that-could-offer-some-cosmic-eye-candy Part science, part artistryDeciding how to assign colors that our eyes can see to the various wavelengths of infrared light, she says, involves a little bit of artistic license.But then there's always been a certain amount of artistry in Hubble images, too. Hubble's cameras send back black-and-white images. Vivid colors are added later — sometimes to mimic what our eyes can see and sometimes to highlight key scientific features such as the presence of oxygen or other elements.And even though Hubble looks at the visible light spectrum, that doesn't mean its view equals what people would see. If you could ride in a spaceship out to a nebula, a cloud of dust and gas, and then look out the window, it wouldn't look like a glorious Hubble image."You would see the slightest faint haze in the sky," Hurt says. "It would be very dark. Because the total amount of light that these nebulas emit isn't very much, and our eyes are very small." When talking to people about NB images. Note that "artistry" links here: https://hubblesite.org/contents/articles/the-meaning-of-light-and-color |
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Glenn C Newell: This is great, Glenn. Thank you for sharing. Now when the "artistic interpretation" I take with my images is criticized, I can state that I am simply following the lead of the NASA scientists that create the Hubble images. Of course, their artist expression is made from the standpoint of an astrophysics and mine from a marine biologist, but whatever. |
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| Well, for me...art is anything I feel beautiful, provoking, clever, humble, passionate... i.e. something that gives a meaning at my inner conscience and varies with my mood and with determined epoch/ moment/ decade - but again personally... nobody needs to agree if my art its your art...😊 its very personal, and AP speaking, nobody could define art as more saturation, HDR, whatsoever... another point: when art could be translated and correlated with loads of money, it leaves all the significance of the word...(of the world maybe) |
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I've been reading this thread with great interest ... What is Art ? This is certainly a thought-provoking question - akin to the question 'what is life' ? We all feel we know the answers, but struggle when it comes to their definitions - and where the definitions begin and end. The dictionary takes us part of the way there ... "Art : the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power". For me, the key words here are 'skill', 'creative' and 'emotional'. No form of expression can be considered creative if it is what one might call 'ordinary', or lacks some 'extraordinary' element, either in its conception or execution. It's not sufficient to reproduce something that already exists - that is to recreate something. This is like comparing Mozart playing his Requiem in person, to pressing the 'play' button on an iPhone. I know that some of my astro-images might be considered by others to be 'ordinary', but to me they are amazing, because I made them, making them was difficult, I discovered something new, and to me they are unique. Whether or not they are 'good' is of course up to others to judge. There is a very subjective and personal element to this question ... Whether or not something is 'creative' depends on your personal experience and perspective, considered in your own time and place. Perhaps whether others judge something as 'good' or 'bad' doesn't even matter at all, if the creator considers their piece to be 'art-worthy'. Neither is something art if it fails to evoke some sort of emotion. The response might be pleasing, or it might be shocking, as Kevin Carter's Pultzer Prize winning image of 'The Vulture and the Little Girl' demonstrates. When you look at this image, you cannot help but extrapolate from the image to the circumstances, and experience an 'oh - no' moment. The photographer did not create the scene, or the circumstances within which this moment was captured, but did capture it with immense power, and used it to convey a disturbing message to the world about poverty and suffering. Is the image pleasing ? No. Is it powerful ? Yes. Is it thought-provoking ? Definitely. In my opinion, art must also be thought-provoking, whether for its beauty, or its power, or something else. When I look at the images here on Astrobin, I see one person's interpretation of an object in nature, taken from the same viewpoint as every similar image. Each image is in itself unique, but some represent the same object in a 'spectacular' way, which conveys a personal and therefore creative perspective on something that might otherwise be thought of as 'ordinary'. I frequently see images here that make me think 'WOW - that is amazing ! Many are taken using modest equipment, and many are in this Fine Art group, but each represents a unique perspective or interpretation of an object. Many are beautiful, thought-provoking, and humbling, particularly when you think of the scale of the thing being represented. Who would have thought that Carl Sagan's one-pixel image of the 'Pale Blue Dot' would be so powerful. It's not the image itself - which looks like a mistake - but the concept and context that make this an emotional and monumental work of art. To me, my 'Pale Red Dot' is also a work of art - not because it is a 'WOW' image, and not because it's in any way technically exceptional, but because I took it myself, it was something I'd never done before, I was experimenting and therefore being creative, and because it evokes an emotion in me 14 years later that reminds me of my life in that time and place, and because it reinforces our fragile place in the scheme of things. Some of my most prized works of art are precious simply because I understand the context, recognise the skills required for their execution, their creativity and uniqueness, and because they evoke strong emotions of time and place - but I know others would see them, and quite understandably so, as nothing more than scribbles on pieces of paper drawn by my children. |
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A closing thought on this topic, having pondered about it overnight ... Art in my opinion does not need to be technically excellent in its execution. The images of 'The Vulture and the Little Girl' and the 'Pale Blue Dot' are very ordinary images from a technical point of view, but they each evoke strong emotions, particularly when you understand their contexts. Anyone interested in exploring this further cold not fail to be moved by Kevin Carter's image, after reading about his life. This morning I asked my 18-year old son, who created one of the prized artworks I mentioned above ... 'What is art ?' He answered 'Something that has physical form that is appealing and makes you feel something'. Not a bad answer  'What about music then ?' I asked. 'Or poetry' ? 'Hmm - yes, it suppose it doesn't have to be physical as long as it means something to you. It's personal. As long as it means something to you, then it's art'. Another great answer. Then I showed this image of the 'Masked Seahorse', and asked him what it made him feel ... He said 'It makes me feel guilty'. 'Why ?' 'Because it evokes an emotion that makes me feel bad about all the things we've messed up on our planet'. 'Is it art' ? 'Yes it is'. I could not agree with him more. Why ? Because, although it's an interesting image, it's also thought-provoking, controversial, and somewhat disturbing. And finally, I suggest that the creator of this thread is being far too humble about his own work ... Of all the images I've ever seen on AstroBin, this one, with its technical craftsmanship, beauty and power, left me speechless. Gary |
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Gary JONES: Thank you very much, Gary. I am humbled by your generous statement. |
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Is this Art ? Sometimes, an object is 'art', not because of how it appears, but because of what it is, or how it came about. This requires an understanding of the artist's intention, and the context within which the art was conceived and executed. Van Gogh's 'The Starry Night' is interesting in its own right, but assumes greater significance when you understand the artist's life, and his time in the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum. So - is this art ? At first, it looks like simple gimmick - just a mirror reverse of a fairly nice image. But if you look closely, you can see they are actually completely different images, taken of the same object, exactly one year apart, from the same location, using the same equipment and the same settings, with this presentation in mind. Does that make it art ? What do you think ? It certainly made me laugh when it appeared on my iPhone like this Gary |
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I would posit that nearly everything that humans create or do could be viewed as art - even the highest science has a subjective beauty - just look at the results from a CERN experiment. In our practise even the hyperbola curve produced when successfully using an autofocus routine has an innate beauty and satisfaction to the viewer. My feel is that unless an image is just stacked and denoised, it has fleeting scientific value. There is no such thing as a realistic portrayal of a processed astrophotgraph. As soon as we separate a starless image from the starfield and stretch each image separately, we are making artistic and aesthetic judgements. Each post processing step we make increases the level of abstraction in the image. The level of abstraction that is applied to an image is up to the creator's taste and skill. There has to be a judgement made in composition, palette and if appropriate colour balance, dynamic range - all the factors that contribute to the subjective quality of a photograph. Our actions in acquiring data and manipulating it is a form of performance art. Whilst amongst our peers we can appreciate the technical skill used to obtain an image, ultimatelyits success or failure to communicate to the wider world relies on the creator's artistic ability. |
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Hi Paul, Yes, I agree. And I wonder whether the opposite is also true - that a thing is not art unless it is artificial - no matter how beautiful it is. I agree that the CERN images are beautiful - but are the results of the ATLAS experiment art ? Are clouds art - or an erupting volcano - or a flower ? They may be beautiful, but in may mind are not art, because they lack intent. On the other hand, any artificially created rendering of such a thing, I would suggest, is art. I emphasise the word 'created' in the sense of producing something new, as opposed to reproducing something old - such as a photocopy. If I hang a reproduction of La Gioconda on my wall, is that art ? Yes ... but I am not the artist. If I manipulate it in some way - as Andy Warhol might have done - I suppose that would be a child of two artists. Whether something like 'View from the Window at Le Gras' by French inventor Nicéphore Niépce is art probably falls somewhere in the middle, because it was the result of a scientific experiment, rather than an attempt to create an artwork, regardless of its historical significance. And I agree that there is no objective form of an astronomical image - largely because we lack the natural abilities to see most of what we photograph. The very act of capturing such an image implies intent - so any image, whether painted our photographed, unaltered or manipulated - is a form of art, because it is an artificial rendering of something, it embodies intent, and is by its very nature, a creation of something that did not exist before. Whether it is 'good' art is another matter - and, as my son says, in the eye of the beholder |
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As a classical musician I've often thought about why I'm moved (or not) moved by a particular musical work as there is not so much in the literature that withstands the test of time. Only a very few works make the cut when it comes down to it. Personally I do not appreciate works that are different just for the sake of being different. Take the notion of 12 tone form...an arbitrary made up scheme to allow only certain notes to appear in a certain order. Only a few composers succeeded (in my view) to overcome this self imposed limitation (Alban Berg for example). What matters to me, and makes music comprehensible to me, is structure and form plus some interesting content that somehow mysteriously "touches" deep emotions. It seems to be the interplay of form and content that generates this sense of "awe" that great compositions can evoke. I think awe is the key...we anthropomorphize what we hear (and see) to give us a human interpretation that can trigger emotion. Sonata Allegro form is a very successful form and one might ask why so? In my view it is the drama created by the two "competing" themes. We humans love battles and resolutions! The great composers manage to do this brilliantly. For me the tricky part is how to achieve this in an astronomical photo. Much has already been said that doesn't need repeating so I will stick to my "anthropomorphizing" idea. We name so many objects after earthly objects....horsehead nebula, cone nebula, etc, etc. Why? Because those names help us evoke a desired emotional connection to the object even when we know perfectly well that there is no tangible connection between the name and object. So, to conclude, I'm moved by a photo when there exists a tension or drama between the elements in the photo which is dramatically enhanced by the nature of the frame. Peter |
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Peter Rejto: I like your "anthropomorphizing" idea. I think that I would characterize the phenomenon as 'pattern finding,' something we humans do intuitively. I spend a lot of time in the art gallery that represents my photography talking to people that come in for a look around. In some images, such as my image of Christmas Tree Cluster (and other NB emission nebulae) people report seeing dragoons, dogs, fish, boats . . . and a lot of faces. I believe this behavior is called pareidolia. In addition to this, people report intense emotion when viewing an image for reasons they can not explain. They say that it is related to the shapes, movement, colors, composition, and textures. The emotions reported are anxiety, dread, wonder, and awe. My image of Flaming Star is the most often reported to illicit this response. I agree with you, Peter. When an image (or a musical composition) evokes a strong emotional response in the viewer, I believe we have created art. Gary |
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Thanks Gary! I admire your images for their artistic value to say nothing of your processing skills! Thanks for creating this forum! By the way, for about ten summers I performed at the Carmel Bach Festival. You reside in a very special part of the world! Peter |
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Peter Rejto: We probably have friends in common, Peter. My wife and I know a few musicians that perform regularly at the festival and Chamber Music Monterey Bay. Next time you are in Carmel I would enjoy getting together with you to geek out on astrophotography and art. My gallery, Gallery Sur, is steps away from The Little Swiss Cafe, an excellent place for a coffee. CS, Gary |
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That would be great! But, not too likely as I have lived in Australia since 2005! I do run a chamber music festival in Tucson every March but have not been to Carmel for perhaps 12 years or so. A pity, I love it there! It was my stomping ground in the 70-80s when Sandor Salgo was the director. P |
