Photography was originally a medium for recording concrete objects, but in the modern era, it has become increasingly abstract. This is an attempt to express abstract ideas beyond concrete appearances, exploring new possibilities of the photographic medium.
Photography was once characterized by its recordability. It was considered to be the raison d’être of photography, distinguishing it from other artistic mediums. Photography’s inherent archival nature is due to its destiny to never escape its subject. In the early days of photography, this documentary nature made it possible to capture historical events, people, and everyday moments of life, making photography an important form of evidence. War and documentary photography, in particular, became an important medium for recording and remembering history. Over time, however, this documentary nature demanded new changes in the medium.
However, modern photography is moving away from documentation and becoming increasingly abstract. The fact that photography is becoming more abstract is a contradiction in terms of the nature of the medium. While all other arts do not require concrete objects because they can be created from the imagination, photography presupposes concrete objects. Despite this characteristic of photography, modern photographers have gradually sought ways of expression that go beyond the simple recording of objects, leading to attempts to capture abstract subjects. Photography is a medium that captures concrete objects, but the subject matter, the thoughts and feelings of the photographer, is an abstract concept. It’s only natural that photography, which is supposed to capture abstract subjects, should become more abstract. This change means that photography is no longer just a tool for documentation, but is expanding into an artistic medium that expresses emotions and thoughts.
However, ‘abstracting photography’ is not an easy task. Abstraction is about overcoming concreteness, but photography has no way of escaping concreteness. The object photographed is a subjective image interpreted by the artist, but its form is so realistic that it is perceived as the object itself, which has not yet been interpreted. In the case of the woman in the photo, the artist wanted to express the woman’s mind, but people only see the woman’s form before they feel the woman’s mind. This concrete form is a great obstacle to abstraction in photography. For example, if a photographer wants to express the loneliness of human existence through the contrast of light and shadow, but the viewer only sees the shadowy figure, the intention may not be properly conveyed.
However, some people mistakenly equate abstraction in photography with abstraction in painting. Painting is a flexible medium that is not bound by the shape of the object, while photography is a rigid medium that cannot exist outside of the shape of the object. These are two different art forms, so painterly abstraction can’t be an example of photographic abstraction. Nevertheless, many people apply painterly abstraction to photography and call it abstract photography. When they label a photo as abstract, the image is shaky, out of focus, or distorted to mimic abstract forms. But while they may be stylized imitations of abstract paintings, they are not abstract photographs. An “abstract” must be a form that “extracts” some property or characteristic from an object. A photograph that is out of focus or blurry cannot be an abstract photograph because the image is distorted by mechanical manipulation, not an image that has been “extracted” and filtered from the appearance of the object. Unlike painting, photographic abstraction is a unique challenge because it requires you to reduce a subject or emotion to its visual elements.
In order for a photograph to be truly abstract, the only way it can be truly abstract is by letting go of the appearance and going beyond the appearance. To do so, you have to strip the object of its original meaning and recreate it as a second meaning. The object recreated with a second meaning retains the form of a real object, but it is not a real object as an image interpreted by the artist; it is a symbol that visualizes the artist’s subjective notion. Let’s say there is an abstract photograph that tries to reveal the ‘loneliness of a woman’ through the ‘figure of a woman’. In this case, the ‘figure of a woman’ in the photograph is a symbol and an image to visualize the artist’s idea of ‘the loneliness of a woman’. In abstract photography, the artist combines disparate objects that exist in reality but cannot be put together in order to visualize their subjective ideas, giving them a sense of strangeness and mystery. Through this process, formless photography is able to overcome form and become abstract. This approach reconciles the tension between the concrete documentation of photography and subjective interpretation, while inviting the viewer to explore the meaning behind the photograph.
In the end, abstract photography reveals subject consciousness through the creation of meaning that transcends appearances. This shows that photography is more than just a visual representation, it functions as an artistic medium that can convey deep inner messages. These abstract photographs provide a new visual experience for the viewer and further expand the possibilities of the photographic medium.
