Photography M A blog

Three trees Yeovil 2016

I love monochrome pictures.
That is pictures with a very limited palette. Not always Black and White either. 
Photography as art may be controversial sometimes-look at the work of Man Ray or the pictures of northern slums and thier tenants taken by Bill Brandt in the 1930's , which having been taken as documentary are now seen as art and collected as such. 

Northumbrian miner eating his evening meal Bill Brandt  1937

 

 At what point does the image above stop being documentary and become art? The miner represents a way of life which exists no longer. His dwelling is of a type we will only ever see in films or photographs. So this piece of documentary becomes social history, just like those pictures of Great Grandma in her cloche hat sitting staring at the camera out of the window of the Charabanc. But is it art?

About me

This image, entitled Rain Steam and Speed, was painted by one of Britains most reverred artists, JMW Turner. He had cataracts. You can see a disturbance to his vision on the left side of this painting.

I am attempting an MA in Photography. I am registered blind after a stroke 3 years ago.
The stroke has made me have to look at what I see more closely. This  has resulted in my becoming more analytical of the world around me. It might sound like a cliche, but every image is precious simply because I can see it.

My aim is to prove in some way that a lack of optical acuity does not have to mean a lack of visual creativity.