Defining Fine Art Photography – Stieglitz, an Early Pioneer

Posted on April 12, 2010 by

For the last several blogs, I’ve taken a long-ball swing at defining Fine Art Photography.  I recognize it is quite easy to get deep in the academic weeds when one explores this subject, which is something I try to avoid.  After all, if we have Fine Art, does that mean that we also have rough art, or intermediate smooth art?

This is not an easy subject.  It is a comparative exercise, and one’s head can throb as it searches for words to define the differences between ‘what is’ and ‘what is not.’  In past blogs, I’ve roughly defined Fine Art as when the viewer and creator can collectively synthesize a shared relationship and a vision that is beyond documentation or record.  I might add, this occurs when the artist reaches a level of creative mastery that allows him to expand and stir the emotional range of the viewer.  See, even in this tiny blog I am beginning to synthesize a finer definition of the subject definition.  Talk about weeds! Continue reading →

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Defining Fine Art Photography – Challenging the Viewer

Posted on March 29, 2010 by

"Defining Fine Art Photography - Part Two"In my last blog, we looked at some of the more esoteric and academic approaches to defining Fine Art Photography.  I concluded with my view that, “the best definition of Fine Art Photography surfaces when the viewer and creator can collectively synthesize ‘what is’ and ‘what is not’ “Fine Art Photography.”

The simple fact is, a definition for ‘Fine Art’ is not something we can easily pin down.  One thing that helps our understanding is to review photography before ‘Fine Art Photography’ was a genre.

In the beginning, the terms ‘Art,’ and ‘Fine Art’ were not associated with photography.  Photography was considered to be merely a selection process, while the other arts, such as painting, sculpture, and music, stemmed from the process of human synthesis.  This is an important but simple distinction.  In photography’s early days, the arts community believed that real artists created paintings and photographers took pictures.

Fear also relegated photography to the creative backwaters.  Painters and illustrators saw photography as a threat to their livelihood.  Charles Baudelaire, an 1860s poet and essayist, argued in several French publications that, “Photography is the mortal enemy of art.”  If we translate that into modern terms I think it means, “Holy crap, we’re out of a job!” Continue reading →

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Defining Fine Art Photography— Part One

Posted on March 20, 2010 by

This post is Part One of a series of blog posts I will upload over the next couple of weeks concerning the definition of “Fine Art Photography.”  Please feel free to contribute your own feedback and perspectives by leaving a comment on this post.

"Defining Fine Art Photography - Part I"I am frequently asked, “What is Fine Art Photography?”  The questions take various forms, such as, “Just what is Fine Art Photography, exactly?” or, “How can a photograph be Fine Art?”  My favorite, and the most honest form of the question is, “What’s the difference between Fine Art and pretty pictures?”

The truth is, I’ve often asked the same question of myself.  In attempting to answer this query, I have considered many bright-line definitions saying, “On this side of the stripe we have photo images, and on that side we have Fine Art, and here is the difference between the two.”  However, I’ve learned that no such bright line exists, and there is no ‘exactly’ for defining Fine Art Photography.  The answer to the question fills books on photographic critical theory, art academic journals, and thesis presentations.

In simple terms, Wikipedia tells us that Fine Art Photographs are photographs created in accordance with the creative vision of the photographer as an artist.  Conversely, photojournalism provides visual support for stories, and commercial photography supports the sale of products or services.  This may be true as a loose baseline definition, one that separates Fine Art work from commercial illustration and documentation, but it fails to tell us the difference between great pictures, and Fine Art photographs.

If the baseline description is inadequate, where do we turn for a definition that will be universally understood? Continue reading →

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Frictionsmooth at the Calumet Gallery – 1135 North Highland Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90038

Posted on March 19, 2010 by


Opening on June 19, 2010 / 2:00-5:00 p.m.


Calumet Photographic of Los Angeles is pleased to present the photographs of Bob Killen’s Frictionsmooth, a thematic collection from his Back to Loneliness program, which explores the vast and varied visual communities of the Mojave National Preserve.  Killen is an Artist in Residence with the US National Park Service, a Fine Art Photography instructor, and an affiliated Park Service artist whose work reflects a long-term commitment to interpreting and preserving this unique land and eco system.  At the request of Calumet, Killen has included select images from his Ivanpahs collection, the first theme that explored the Preserve’s vast mining region.  Both bodies of work reveal the desert’s beauty in a manner that challenges conventional wasteland definitions with an intensely personal visual language.

Frictionsmooth explores two environmental communities – Soda Lake near Baker, California, and the Cinder Cones National Monument 15 miles east of Baker.  “These are unique land masses,” Killen explains, “one borne from ancient volcanic friction, the other surface smoothed by unique drought and the endless winds of Mariah. These areas are 14 miles apart, yet they possess similar tones and colors, while maintaining counterpoints in texture.”

Photographed under various sunlight and post-sunlight conditions, Frictionsmooth highlights a fervent and primal vision of saturated blues and reds within the color palette. “Those who know the Mojave know these hues, saturation, and the incredible luminosity that is unique to the Mojave sky,” Killen points out.  “Those who don’t, often experience a visual shock and awe, at first, followed by a peaceful appreciation.”

Composites are an element in Frictionsmooth, where Killen combines exquisite elements of rugged ground, smooth skies, and multiple moons. This ‘Vision beyond Documentation’ approach reveals his aesthetic sense of desert landscape.  In the selected Ivanpah images, we see the human detritus of abandoned mining claims and the trashed dreams of man’s intervention into the land all uniquely expressed in the Technicolor that drove those hopes.

Bob Killen resides in La Mirada, CA and is a working Fine Art Photographer, Fine Art Workshop Instructor, and commercial photographer.  He has exhibited in US Park Service and other desert galleries.  Collectors in 20 countries own his limited edition prints.

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Calumet Workshops – A Five-Part Series

Posted on March 15, 2010 by

Fine Art Photography

I’m teaching a series of Fine Art Photography Workshops at the Calumet Photographic Santa Ana and Los Angeles (Hollywood) stores, a series that first launched in November, 2009.  A new series begins at the Santa Ana Calumet store on April 3, 2010, and at the Los Angeles store on June 26, 2010.

Unlike photojournalism and commercial photography, Fine Art Photography is typically thematic, exploring social issues, graphic dislocation, subliminal thought, duality, reality, surrealism and impressionism.  Fine Art Photography is a genre I refer to as “Vision Beyond Record.”

In this five-workshop series, you will learn that Fine Art Photography is not a mystery requiring great native talent.  In fact, it is an intimate, human activity, filled with all the dangers, recognition, remuneration, successes, and failures accompanying all creative efforts.  As with any artistic endeavor, Fine Art Photography stirs the universal fears of all art forms, as we move beyond the image itself to the soul of that image.  It is a journey of self-discovery.

In this series, we discuss how to overcome those universal fears, and tap into our artistic senses and themes.  We delve into the emotional range of our work, and methods to expand that range.  As a workshop participant, you will learn how to see the image in your mind and heart first, then through the lens of the camera, and then within a Photoshop space, to create the ultimate Fine Art print.

Each of the workshops in this series builds upon the prior session.  Although you are welcome to choose individual workshops, I encourage you to participate in all five, for a complete understanding of this process.

Registration for these workshops is underway now.  Check my website for additional information and registration, or visit the Calumet Photographic site, click on the workshop that interests you (look for the blue dot), and you’ll be taken to a registration page.

Please feel free to forward this information to whomever you feel might benefit from this series.

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The Screw Factory

Posted on March 5, 2010 by

The assignment called for the photographer (me) to capture a library of images.  These images were to be used by the web designer on the company’s new site, for the creation of a flash presentation, and in printed materials.  There was no art director or ad agency.  Management directed the shoot, emphasizing the company’s position as a top-of-the-line screw manufacturer with an ISO 9001 rating.  The company is an aerospace component producer, nationally recognized for their quality.  Their internet presence consists of a 13-year-old website; so, this undertaking was essentially a “first” for them.

I immediately felt at home with this assignment, and set about to tour the plant.  I quickly learned that making custom screws for the aerospace industry is a tightly-defined process supported by numerous quality checks.  Given that the company’s customers are military and commercial aircraft, as well as space vehicles, I expected to find myself in a clean room, surrounded by hi-tech lab-coated employees. Instead, I found 40-year-old machines that clanged, clicked, clacked, and groaned.  Some of them emanated a deeply disturbing boom-da-boom.  Between the machines and behind various workbenches was a mature, highly-skilled labor force, all of whom were wearing earplugs. 

I began the image capture with a coil of wire, and ended with the screw products in shipping.  In between are all the steps of stamping, trimming, filling, threading, and the aforementioned myriad quality checks.  Initially, I captured the process as the client saw itself; efficient, precise, rigorous; as if it were part of the machines, absent human transparency. Continue reading →

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Frictionsmooth at the Calumet Gallery – 1430 S. Village Way, Santa Ana, CA

Posted on March 3, 2010 by

March 2nd through March 31st
Reception for the Artist, Friday, March 5th,  5-8 p.m.

Calumet Photographic of Santa Ana is pleased to present the photographs of Bob Killen’s Frictionsmooth, a thematic collection from his Back to Loneliness program, which explores the vast and varied visual communities of the Mojave National Preserve.  Killen is an Artist in Residence with the US National Park Service, a Fine Art Photography instructor, and an affiliated Park Service artist whose work reflects a long-term commitment to interpreting and preserving this unique land and eco system.  At the request of Calumet, Killen has included select images from his Ivanpahs collection, the first theme that explored the Preserve’s vast mining region.  Both bodies of work reveal the desert’s beauty in a manner that challenges conventional wasteland definitions with an intensely personal visual language. Continue reading →

Posted in Shows / Exhibits | Tagged , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Open Call for Fine Art Photographers to become US National Park Service Artists in Residence

Posted on February 9, 2010 by

Linda Slater, Mojave National Preserve

In the Mojave Desert, thunderclaps are rare, lightning strikes even less, and hard rain is an episodic event creating gully-washing floods.  On the ground, you find dry lakebeds coated with salt dust, grand vistas of hard-packed sands covered with creosote plantations, black lava domes, and purple cinder cones that crunch under your feet.  Sand dunes around the dry lakebeds launch dust devils into the blue atmosphere.  The monster dunes at Kelso, where fine wind-driven sands from the Mojave River Sink collect, sing a shrill falsetto as wind-driven silica particles shift and shake.  At higher altitudes, snow sometimes falls, then sublimates, and the world’s largest Joshua tree forests grow, their gnarly branches casting fuzzy shadows under a sun of luminous bleach.  Rugged four-wheel drive trails provide access to played-out mines and abandoned homesteads wrought free of domestic dreams.  The endless drought reminds us of the early explorers’ true grit, as they trekked across an unforgiving desert to reach the cool breezes of the Pacific Ocean.

 This is the Mojave National Preserve – 1.6 million acres of protected desert just waiting for fine art photographers to explore.

 At this time, the National Park Service’s Mojave National Preserve has an open call for artists who want to apply for “Artist in Residence” status.  Successful artists will have an opportunity to hang and sell their work in the Desert Light Gallery, located in the historic Kelso Depot Visitor’s Center.  The NPS and the Mojave National Preserve Conservancy will recognize your work and assist you with outreach promotion.  This is a wonderful opportunity for emerging growth, as well as a worthy showcase for mature fine art photographers.

The program is open to all visual artists who can produce images portraying a deeper meaning of the desert and its magnificent light.  As for photographers, you must demonstrate more than the typical landscape or postcard look – we do not need any Kodak moments.  What we seek are those Fine Art Photographers who can produce a coherent theme that expands our visitors’ and online viewers’ emotional connection with the Mojave Desert.

 The opportunities for new voices are endless.  Please be aware, this not for the faint of heart.  The Preserve is a rugged land that requires solid planning and outdoor preparation.  But, as those artists who have gone before can tell you, the work is deeply rewarding. 

 If you wish to apply, contact Linda Slater, Chief of Resource Interpretation and Outreach at Linda_Slater@nps.gov.  For immediate online program information go to: http://www.nps.gov/moja/planyourvisit/kelso-art-exhibition.htm.

I am also here to serve as your Artist in Residence guide and will lead you through the process. Contact me bob@bobkillen.com.

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Down the Road to WordPress

Posted on February 7, 2010 by

Why?

We’re photographers, fine art photographers at that, and Word Press blogs have the visual features we need to produce blogs where the image is usually more important than the text. In my view, it is much easier to upload images in Word Press, to control their size and placement.  With scripts in Photoshop you can upload entire galleries in a flash, with built in Flash. The same is true from Lightroom. There are numerous widgets available such as Lightbox, which expands images against a black background and the ability to design the blog skin much as one does with a web site, seems endless.

I’m also changing my editorial policy. While I want to give voice to fine art photography issues, I am also able to write about and categorize other issues such as the Mojave National Preserve Conservancy, The Artist in Residence Program, Art Reviews, and display workshop examples for student work. More importantly, I can establish student folders and allow them to post work for review on the blog. This is a fantastic opportunity to establish a fine art photogrpahy community, wherein comments and suggestions can easily flow.

You can follow if you like, but I encourage you to participate as well with comments, images, and guest blogs.

Posted in Blog News | 2 Comments