Matthew Petro

Image #12: What is it?

Tweet

After living with Image #12 for over a month now, and watching Tyson Crosbie’s vlog “Lying to Tell the Truth“, I’ve come to a deeper understanding of photographic art, and Tyson’s art in particular.

A photograph is more than just the objects in the picture. A photograph involves many more elements of composition, such as color, framing, focus, lighting, etc. The artist used all of these to create the single image which the viewer sees. Regardless of whether the object being photographed is recognizable, a photograph is not that thing. A photograph is art which expresses whatever the artist wants it to.

The beauty of Image #12 is that it isn’t recognizable as an object. It’s abstract. It forces the viewer to consider the image and composition that Tyson created, rather than the object he found.

So Image #12 isn’t whatever Tyson pointed his camera at when he took the photograph. It’s art, created by Tyson. That’s what I tell people who ask what it is.

blog comments powered by Disqus