Down the rabbit hole of conceptual art…

A few weeks ago I watched a video on the OCA website of an interview with one of the tutors, Jim Unsworth, about his practice. One of his comments was ‘I’m not a conceptual artist…’ This made me think – ‘do I really understand what conceptual art is?’. So off I went to Wikipedia for some education…

I guess the title is quite explanatory really… In conceptual art, the idea is more important than the resultant piece of artwork ‘The idea becomes a machine that makes the art’ (Sol LeWitt). Wikipedia notes that it is important not to confuse intent with concept in defining a work of art. Duchamp is considered to have paved the way for conceptualists, with his exhibiting of ‘readymade’ artworks, most famously ‘Fountain’ in 1917. It only appeared as a real art movement in the 1960s (Wikipedia) and fits in well with the 60’s attitude of breaking away from the mainstream in life and art. Interestingly, Wikipedia says that ‘Conceptual art also reacted against the commodification of art’, which goes against the modern phenomenon of artists such as Damien Hirst who are playing right into the hands of the art market currently. In line with this thinking, conceptual art was often recorded through documentation – for example by photographing it. This is perhaps the start of conceptual photography, though not in the same sense as it is thought of today. I find it interesting to note that for conceptual art to be successful, it didn’t matter if it was not executed properly – that is, the ‘artist’ didn’t need to have any specific ‘artistic’ skills! I admit to having walked around many modern art exhibitions and commented with my husband that ‘I could have done that!’ – I knew enough at that time to also comment ‘but they had the idea to do it’, which was my basic understanding of conceptual art at that time!

Wikipedia has a great section on ‘Notable examples of conceptual art’ which is quite an amusing read and shows the large variety of ideas and concepts that have been executed as art in the last few decades. There were also some links at the bottom of the page – I have included a couple below that I found interesting, particularly Sol Lewitt’s “Paragraphs onConceptual Art” and the Stanford Encyclopaedia entry. So after doing some reading, I feel like I’ve got a somewhat better grasp of what conceptual art is, however, how this relates to photography I’m less sure. Many of the examples of photographs mentioned in the articles are _of_ the art, not the art themselves. So I chanced upon Source magazine online, which happened to have three short videos entitled ‘What is Conceptual Photography?’. Perfect. Notes below:

Part 1:

John Hilliard, taken from http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/john-hilliard for personal study purposes

 

John Hilliard, taken from http://www.artfacts.net/en/artist/john-hilliard-1453/artwork/large-study-for-scare-cat-14936.html for personal study purposes

• Not a commonly used term in art (conceptual) – not commonly applied to oneself.
• Most photographs have a subject matter.
• John Hilliard – video of him and fellow videographer spinning and filming each other and the background and shown together.
• ‘Idea art’ another early name for conceptual art.
• Less ‘critical’ industry around art in the 1960s – not like there is now. The artists had to do the thinking and writing for themselves – nobody else was doing it.
• The ‘documents’ were the important part – e.g. the photographs.
• John Hilliard – interested in the technical apparatus. Exposure, speed – how to incorporate means of production into image itself. The subject is the object. E.g, 60 seconds of light. Reducing the question of ‘what exposure do I use’ to different prints.
•  Hilliard – drafts up his ideas first (very prescriptive) – he draws it first, and thus is very conceptualised
• ‘Camera recording its own condition’ – the same image 70 times
• Point of view – e.g. the cat with dog/woman – two images overlain and flipped (i.e. looking at the cat from two sides) – i.e., why make this picture from this place or that place?

Part 2:

Suzanne Moody, taken from http://www.trajectorartfair.org/archive2010/gallery/Michelle_Deignan.htm for personal study purposes

• Suzanne Moody ‘Make love to the camera’
• ‘Dialogue around photography obsessed with representation rather than the mechanism’
• Sean O’Hagen (Guardian)
• Lucy Soutter – content can be recognised, but the ideas and historical references are not always recognised by the viewer
• Conceptual photography term can be a bit derogatory to other forms of photography – suggests that there is no thought involved in ‘other’ kinds of photography
• Paul Graham ‘the unreasonable apple’
• What was the driving force of art before concept? Response of the eye, poetic, tactile, emotional – these things are ‘out’ now!
• The idea may be obvious, but it may be held back
• One way of looking (photography) – given one point of view, and sometimes it’s deceptive. (Suzanne Moody) – ambiguity is interesting. You can never work it out.

Part 3:

Broomberg and Chanarin, Taken from http://universes-in-universe.org/eng/nafas/articles/2011/seeing_is_believing/img/broomberg_chanarin for personal study purposes

• ‘All photography is conceptual, and all photography is not conceptual – all photography is an abstraction of reality’ Oliver Chanarin
• Artist v Photographer
• A separate genre – closer to the art world than most other photography is
• All contemporary photography is conceptual to some degree (Lucy Souter)
• Difficult, obscure and meaningless work – and something happens and meaning is found
• What do you expect to see? What do you want to see? … a document in its true sense (Chanarin and Adam Broomberg)
• ‘photojournalism is being controlled, censored’ (Broomberg)

The videos gave lots of thought to the various aspects of conceptual art and conceptual photography, and I shall continue to look more into this as an interesting genre.

References:

Broomberg, A & Chanarin O (2011) Universes-in-universe Website [online], Available from: http://universes-in-universe.org/eng/nafas/articles/2011/seeing_is_believing/img/broomberg_chanarin [accessed 14 July 2013]

Hilliard, J (2012), Tumbler Feed John Hilliard [online], Available from: http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/john-hilliard [accessed 14 July 2013]

Hilliard, J (2008), Artfacts [online], Available from:  http://www.artfacts.net/en/artist/john-hilliard-1453/artwork/large-study-for-scare-cat-14936.html [accessed 14 July 2013]

Lewitt, S (1967), Paragraphs on Conceptual Art [online], Available from http://www.ddooss.org/articulos/idiomas/Sol_Lewitt.htm [Accessed 27 October 2012]

Moody, S (2004), Suzanne Moody [online], Available from http://www.trajectorartfair.org/archive2010/gallery/Michelle_Deignan.htm  [accessed 14 July 2013]

Tate Museum (2012), John Hilliard Artworks [online], Available from http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/john-hilliard-1287 [Accessed 28 October 2012]

Source Photographic Review (2012), What is Conceptual Photography? [online], Available from www.source.ie/feature/what_is_conceptual.html [Accessed 27 October 2012]

Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (2007), Conceptual Art [online], Available from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/conceptual-art/ [Accessed 27 October 2012]

We are OCA (2012), Open College of the Arts’ blog [online], Available from: http://www.weareoca.com/fine_art/meet-oca-tutor-jim-unsworth/ [Accessed 27 October 12]

Wikipedia (2012), Conceptual Art [online], Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_art [Accessed 27 October 12]

Wikipedia (2012), John Hilliard (artist) [online], Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hilliard_%28artist%29 [Accessed 28 October 2012]

Exercise: Managing Colour

Aim:

To judge colour cast and correct using software. Both JPEG and RAW files can be corrected for colour cast, but the options for JPEG are more limited, and in effect it is ‘post-processing’, whereas the WB is not set for the RAW file and can be chosen from the drop-down list in Lightroom.

Procedure:

For this exercise I have chosen three images from my archive with noticeable colour cast.

The first one (IMG_1171) (which has a large area of known ‘grey’, but is only a JPEG) was taken during a photography course of a light-table with products on it. The test at the time was to compare WB, so this is a good example to use. I think the WB was ‘daylight’ and the colour cast is quite clear. It appears yellow. I select the ‘grey-dropper’ next to the WB selection pane and simply select a point where I know it is grey (the foreground in this case). The image immediately corrects to the right colour and no further adjustments are needed, though it is possible to use the WB sliders if further refinements are felt necessary.

Before and after images are displayed below.

The second image (IMG_0437) was taken at last year’s BOGI fair and was photographed under a blue tent. This has given an obvious blue cast to the image. I used the WB dropper again and clicked on the back wall of the tent which looks to be grey to me. This does a good job – now the grass looks green and the jam jars look to be correct. Once again the dropper has done a good job and no more adjustment is needed.

Before and after images are displayed below.

The third image (IMG_0763) was also taken at the BOGI fair, inside the hall, the walls of which are yellow. This has resulted in a yellow colour cast on the image. I selected the floor this time, and the colour cast has disappeared. Skin tones look much more natural and the hat in the foreground (for example) looks white! The difference is great! I chose to slightly increase the green (decrease magenta) to make the skin tones and vegetation in the background more accurate.

Before and after images are displayed below.

Conclusion:

Whilst it is better to shoot RAW and avoid problems with colour cast, it is still essential to know how to remove casts such as those shown above, which are not caused by just choosing the wrong WB (but instead by coloured light from walls/tent etc.). Using the dropper is effective and generally accurate, though as the course notes point out, sometimes it’s necessary to search hard for a grey point! This is the first time I have used the dropper in LR, so it was certainly a worthwhile exercise for me!

Exercise: Managing Tone (Continued)

I processed a couple of other images while I was working on this exercise. The results are below, with both before (essentially straight out of the camera) and after images displayed. The results show how essential this work is for getting good images ready for further editing.

Exercise: Managing Tone

Aim:

The aim of this exercise is to optimise the tone and colour of an image as the first (vital) step in post-processing. The question is simply – is the image as technically good as it can be?

Procedure:

1. Set Black and White Points by adjusting exposure

Lightroom is the chosen vehicle for this exercise, and I have selected an image from my archive, taken at Womadelaide in 2011. I like the slightly dark feel to this image, and want to retain that feel whilst optimizing the image technically.

The image unadjusted (exported straight from the RAW file in LR) is below, accompanied by the histogram. The image looks a bit dark and lacking in ‘oomph’ (must learn a technical term for that…)

RAW File without any processing

RAW File histogram without any processing

I went on to first adjust the exposure, using the slider (increased by about a stop) and tweaked the histogram by squeezing up the whites and highlights a little. The image is displayed below:

Exposure increased

2. Adjust the brightness of the midtones

Next I looked at the brightness of midtones, first I tried adjusting the exposure… I pulled down the shadows and pulled up the highlights but wasn’t sure how else to adjust the brightness of the midtones using exposure (image below):

Midtones adjusted using exposure

I removed these adjustments and then used the vibrance slider which targets the midtones… I pumped it up which certainly increased the brightness of the colours in the background.

Using vibrance to adjust midtones

Then I removed that effect and used the tone curve (medium contrast) with similar effect.

Midtones adjusted using tone curve

I liked the tone curve, so then decided to add a little vibrance (less dramatic than before), combining the two effects to brighten the midtones. This is my go-forward point for the midtones.

Final midtones adjustment

3. Adjust contrast

Next we are instructed to look at contrast. I thought that I’d done that by editing the tone curve in the previous step, so I will try adding the contrast slider, though I think that boosts the contrast of the whole image. The image certainly has more ‘punch’ now (particularly that bright red hat!)

Contrast slider adjusted

4. Make corrections to localised areas

Finally, any choice of local corrections. I’m not sure any are needed. My main subject stands out nicely (white against dark background), even her hat stands out pretty well. The rest of the image is good for ‘scene-setting’ and the colour adds to the festival feeling. I think I will leave it at that and call this image ‘optimized’.

The final image histogram is displayed below:

It shows only one aspect of the optimization - but the dynamic range of the image is important, and this final image has a better range than the starting point.

Conclusion:

This has been another useful exercise for me to further develop my understanding both theoretically and practically of what can be done in Lightroom. In addition to reading of various magazines over the last few months, I’ve been watching some Adobe TV ‘how-to’ guides for Lightroom. This has been quite useful for me to learn ‘hands-on’ via the videos what can be done with the basics of LR. I will continue to watch more examples and also check out YouTube to see more examples of workflows and processing techniques.

References:

Adobe (2012), Adobe Lightroom TV [online], Available from: http://tv.adobe.com/product/lightroom/  [Accessed 15/10/12]

Exercise: RAW

Aim:

The aim of this exercise is to compare and contrast RAW and JPEG files of the same scene. I chose to take some photos on a family outing, shooting highest quality RAW and JPEG files possible by my camera. 

Artificial Light:

RAW Processing in Lightroom:

RAW processed file

RAW histogram showing image exposure settings 

Taken on a bus in a tunnel – the lighting is mixed – from inside the bus and also from lights in the tunnel. I have used ‘Fluro WB’ on the RAW file. The exposure looks good; the histogram fills the centre of the range, and there is some clipping of highlights. I used the highlight slider to recover some of the highlights and the blacks slider to pull out some blacks in the image. I increased clarity slightly (this is a kind of a sharpener for the image), and increased vibrance slightly. I used a ‘medium contrast’ tone curve to give the colours a slight boost in the image. I used quite a high ISO in this image (actually I used ‘auto ISO’ which resulted in a high ISO) so I have applied noise reduction in the luminance channel to this image also. Sharpening (with mask) was applied to this image also.

JPEG Processing in Lightroom:

JPEG processed file

Now there are fewer options with the WB processing. I have used the slider to add a little more yellow (less blue) to the image as I felt it needed to be a little warmer for the skin tones. I did similar recovery of highlights and blacks as with the RAW file. Vibrance, clarity and medium contrast tone curve were all performed in an identical fashion to with the RAW file. Interestingly the noise didn’t seem as bad as in the RAW file, so less noise reduction was applied. Sharpening (with mask) was applied to this image also.

For this exercise there is not a noticible difference between the two images. If I had gotten the WB very wrong, then fixing that in post-processing may be a bit tricky if I only used JPEG. However this example shows that there is little difference in the workflow in Lightroom when processing JPEG or RAW. Even the highlights recovered to a similar degree, though I think they needed more pushing in the JPEG version. The resultant images are quite similar in quality (though admittedly I have not printed them yet).

Daylight:

RAW Processing in Lightroom:

RAW processed file

RAW histogram showing image exposure settings 

This photo was taken at Brisbane’s Southbank, in full sunshine (thus strong shadows). Daylight WB was used for this image. The exposure looks quite good, spread across the whole exposure range, with no clipping of highlights or shadows. I have actually slightly increased the overall exposure a little, and also increased the contrast slider a small amount. There was minimal adjustment to the highlights etc sliders. Medium contrast was applied on the tone curve to help bring attention to the bright colours of the child. No noise reduction was required as the image was taken with ISO 160.

Selective processing for this image included a lighter exposure on the face area which was in shade from the hat. I also decreased the exposure slightly on the palm of the hand and tops of the feet as these were a little too bright. I used the adjustment brush for these changes.

JPEG Processing in Lightroom:

JPEG processed file

The procedure was similar for the RAW file. The image doesn’t appear to have quite the same ‘pop’ as the RAW file, but I can’t pin down exactly why that is – perhaps it is less contrasty to start with so requires a bit more contrast added in the final image to give it the same feel. I added some vibrance to assist with this for the JPEG image. The resultant final images are very similar, with only a few minor differences.

High Dynamic Range:

RAW Processing in Lightroom:

RAW processed file

RAW histogram showing image exposure settings (note this is a processed RAW file so doesn't appear to have any clipping as these have been removed in processing). 

This image was taken at the pool with some bright sky and the hat is overexposed. I used Daylight WB again, and used the highlight, shadows, whites and blacks recovery sliders. This time I learnt that you can click and drag on the histogram to do this, which seems more intuitive to me (and hold down ‘alt’ key to see where the clipping is occurring. This program is very interactive! Next I applied a medium contrast tone curve and visited the ‘presence’ sliders. I slightly increased clarity and vibrance. There is little noise (ISO not too high), so I didn’t apply any noise reduction to this image.

I applied some local processing (using the adjustment brush) over the hat which was a little bright, and a gradient over the sky to darken it slightly.

JPEG Processing in Lightroom:

JPEG processed file

I kept the WB the same as was shot for this image (Daylight), and once again applied the recovery sliders. As with the ‘daylight’ image above, there is not quite the same ‘pop’ as with the RAW file. There is quite a noticeable difference in the colour of the sky in these two images!

Conclusion: 

It’s hard to judge the dynamic range of the two images, but the JPEG does seem slightly harder to get a ‘good’ image out of compared with the RAW file. The RAW file seemed more amenable to tweaking to produce successful images. There are slight differences in WB and colour in all three pairs of images, but not to the detriment of the JPEGS mostly – the main advantage in this case to shooting RAW is if you get it totally wrong then it’s easy to fix in post-processing, compared with the JPEG where it is a bit harder (sliders are needed, or layers in Photoshop). Local adjustments can be applied to both the JPEG and RAW files in Lightroom, and there is no discernible difference between the two at the scale I am looking at. Interestingly with the high ISO pair of images, the noise seemed different between the JPEG and RAW, which I would not have expected. Overall, the JPEGs are easy to process, but without quite the same degree of options for recovery or WB adjustment. For the HDR scene, the RAW file is quite a bit easier to process, though the resultant final images appear quite similar. I think there is probably more ‘depth’ of colours in the RAW file, particularly in the HDR file than in the JPEG.

Learnings: 

Well I will continue to always shoot the highest quality RAW, but am now going to stop shooting high quality JPEG, instead either turning it completely off, or just shooting a small file which I could use for quick emailing if required (not that I do any professional work at the moment!). The more I ‘play’ with Lightroom, the more I realise can be done with images, so I should take an opportunity soon to step back and review some older images and possibly print them for a portfolio or simply for my record. I realise that I’ll be using Photoshop for less day-to-day work now that I continue to learn more about Lightroom.