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Interpreting the Found Abstract

What else they are..

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Keith Beven

Keith Beven is Emeritus Professor of Hydrology at Lancaster University where he has worked for over 30 years. He has published many academic papers and books on the study and computer modelling of hydrological processes. Since the 1990s he has used mostly 120 film cameras, from 6x6 to 6x17, and more recently Fuji X cameras when travelling light.

He has recently produced a second book of images of water called “Panta Rhei – Everything Flows” in support of the charity WaterAid that can be ordered from his website.

mallerstangmagic.co.uk



So I believe, that beauty can be found by all, but like truth, each individual finds that truth in different places. As long as you find it and it moves you for the better, does it really matter where you sourced it?1~Joe Rainbow

There are many ways of making landscape images into abstract compositions. We can construct photograms using traditional or scanner methods; choose to focus on intimate details; we can take to the air and look down eliminating any horizon; we can choose to use intentional camera movements; we can defocus all, or all but a small part, of an image. Examples of abstract images have been a feature of On Landscape since its very early days, for example, the article in Issue 3 on David Ward’s book Beyond Landscape, or the interview with Chris Friel in Issue 42. This contribution was instigated by reading the End Frame piece by Marc Hermans and his commentary on Submergence by Joe Cornish3 and also at around the same time by the images of Swiss photographer André Piguet who was featured on an edition of Passe-moi les Jumelles on Swiss television. Those images took me back to the book of abstract images by Graham Cook called Innervisible4 and his aim of “giving seemingly irrelevant and ignored details renewed meaning”. So what is it about those abstracts as landscapes that are so appealing, and how might that meaning be interpreted?

Piguet La Recette De Tante Alice

André Piguet: La recette de tante Alice ou La rebellion des amibes

Those images took me back to the book of abstract images by Graham Cook called Innervisible4 and his aim of “giving seemingly irrelevant and ignored details renewed meaning”.

Graham Cook Lizards Path

Graham Cook: Portfolio 2.L1

Early Abstraction in Art and Photography

There have been a number of previous articles in On Landscape that have dealt with the history of abstract images in art and photography5.



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