Pure Abstract Photography ⁀ Abstract Photography Which Way Is Up? Tom Reaume 2020 1 Tom Reaume Pure Abstract Photography ⁀ Abstract Photography Which Way Is Up? 2nd Edition 2020 Portrait Of The Artist Crossing Over To The Dark Side. 2011. – TR 2 Tom Reaume Pure Abstract Photography ⁀ © 2020 (2nd Edition) by Mr. Tom Reaume (b 1944) London, Canada Research, text, layout, and design by Tom Reaume Software – InDesign & Photoshop Elements Typeface – Helvetica Neue 14 | 20 | 80 Front Cover – Just For You (2006) by Tom Reaume Back Cover – We Can Choose # 1–3 (2007) by Tom Reaume [email protected] A 7-minute Youtube video on my art www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDmHTWOJZh0 ISBN 978-0-9680082-9-4 Any and all of my pure abstract (anti-still) photographs in this book may be used freely in other online publications without asking for my permission. Just give me credit. Dedicated to my brother Franklin. Uncommon Photographs for the uncommon collector. Any single photograph (up to 20 inches) in this book may be bought for $800 CAD. 3 Tom Reaume Pure Abstract Photography ⁀ INSIDE Collections 5 Inside / Outside 6 A Camera Moves 7 Why Pure Abstraction? 8 Method 9 History 13 3 Articles 15 Artificial Lights 17 A Pretense of Abstraction 23 Dark Is Outside 25 Evolution of Portraiture 38 Homage 43 Jeff Wall, Milk 53 too museums 57 MoMA, NY Tate Modern, UK Nature Movement 63 Extinction 70 Peter Galassi 85 Drawing 93 Seeing 106 Similar 113 Pixels 118 Street Lights 130 Index 164 4 Tom Reaume Pure Abstract Photography ⁀ Collections — 11,000 Images █ Photographs (over 750 prints) █ Achievements UNITED STATES Born – Windsor, ON, Canada, 1944 1. Univ. of the Arts, Philadelphia (15 prints) Grants – $300,000.00 2. Eastern New Mexico University (15) Education – BSc Wildlife Biology 3. Kent State University, OH (45) Exhibitions – 30 4. The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Initiated – The annual Speed River cleanup Michigan State University (15) in Guelph, Ontario; now in its 40th year 5. University of Maryland (45) Wild Plants of Winnipeg – 35 online 6. SUNY, Gibson Gallery, Potsdam, NY (45) Published – The first journal article on the natural history of the Nodding Trillium 7. Univ. of Michigan Museum of Art (15) 8. Montclair State University, NJ (45) EBOOKS – all are available from Tom as 9. Six private collections (192) PDFs Abstract Photography, Which Way Is Up? CANADA Photography Traditions 10. University of Manitoba (45) Gadwall, A Natural History 11. Health Sciences Centre, Winnipeg (9) The American Crow, Naturally 12. St. Joseph’s Health Care, London (8) The Chipping Sparrow, Its Natural History 13. Four private collections (177) PAPER BOOKS HUNGARY 620 Wild Plants of North America Pure Abstract Photography; The Creative 14. Hungarian Museum of Photography (30) Moment, out in print, get by ILL Abstract Photography, Which Way Is Up? JAPAN 15. Private collection (45) ENGLAND 16. Private collection (46 prints) █ Botanical Drawings CANADA Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa (10,000 images) UNITED STATES Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Pittsburgh, PA (500 images) For Many Reasons, 1982. I gain more inspiration and courage from abstract painters than from any still photographer, alive or dead. This pure abstract photograph is a straight print from one 35 mm negative. – TR 5 Tom Reaume Pure Abstract Photography ⁀ Inside / Outside his is a book on lens-based, important to me, in a way I can’t really explain. pure abstract photography. The Using a camera (like a pencil) as a tool for title may suggest photographs drawing was a natural progression in my T taken inside buildings versus in a personal ecology and evolution. FIRST—A still landscape. This is one possibility. camera was replaced by a moving camera. A hand-held camera is an extension of my arms, The correct interpretation, however, involves less so my eyes. SECOND—I began taking the BOX, you know the one we usually think photographs at night using photons emanating inside of, or rarely outside of. In fact, this from colored, stationary lights along the book presents how innovative, outside-the-box boulevard. The sacred 3 – Lights, Darkness, thinking in photography looks. and Movements were woven into challenging pictorial fabrics. Let’s begin by defining what a photograph is. A still photograph (usually richly-detailed) shows This fundamental shift in how a lens-based a variety of flora, fauna, and things captured photograph looks (abstract) and acts (always by holding a camera very still and letting the as art), is the expected result from someone lenses absorb reflected light (daylight or studio) who changes the still habit. The question (what to make an image. It is the industry’s standard does a photograph represent?) remains intact; (habit). Everybody takes still photographs, the answer, however, has changed. including me. If you watch photographers at work, they are aways standing still and Some members of the still community have to looking through a still viewfinder to compose start developing this new habit. Gallery walls a picture before pressing the button. Stills showing abstract photographs among abstract are collected and shown in art museums paintings have to become widespread. When it and commercial galleries. Online, watch the comes to practical imagery, the documentary 12-minute Ted Talks by Paul Rulkens on why majority remains obligatory, but not quite so the majority is usually unexceptional when forceful in the fine art category. it comes to high-performance photography (ie fine art) https://www.youtube.com/ till photography has hit a wall. It is watch?v=VNGFep6rncY&t=221s repetitive, and the largest form of visual pollution on the planet. Viewfinder vision If you take photographs outside-the-box, then Sis rampant throughout the medium. Cultural your images must be experimental. This too is and economic boundaries, and daily habits worn out, in-the-box thinking. I don’t regard my prevent curators from showing anything truly pure abstractions as experimental. For 40 years outside the box. And the box they think and I have considered them to be FINE ART. operate in is quite small, about the size of a camera. Curators are copycats. They, along Drawing with a camera quickly became my new with institutional standards, control the habits habit in the early 1980s. So how did I manage of a still photographic community with millions to break the old-fashioned, still photographic of participants. ♣ habit. In my 30s, I realized movement was 6 Tom Reaume Pure Abstract Photography ⁀ s A Camera M o v e his is a 16 x 12 inch free ebook on my Pure Abstract Photography (PAP). In 1981 I began T this alternative style to still photography while maintaining the basic framework of using light and a camera to create images. Through the abandonment of reflected light, I was able to eliminate much of the visually repetitive information that burdens richly-detailed still photographs. The documentation style, in all its many flavors, was jettisoned in favor of Art. Is pure abstract photography the artistic limit of lens-based photography? Time and your consideration will tell. My style of image making is NOT experimental. It reveals my vision of nature and myself. Everything is moving, including my camera. ♣ Upper Left, 1985. – TR An early pure abstract photograph easily printed from one 35 mm negative. 7 Tom Reaume Pure Abstract Photography ⁀ Why Pure Abstraction? Human anticipation is quite powerful. We count on recognizing the content of a 2-D photograph A cheap, quick answer as to why I create pure as one of its essential characteristics. When abstraction is because Jeff Wall doesn’t. we don’t see items we recognize, we tend to label the work experimental and quickly move iberty and perceptual curiosity are on to the next book or photo. My goal has primary ingredients contributing to the always been to provide stylistic diversity to process – freedom of movement for a complete the medium. The next move is up to camera, the medium, and myself. By curators. They have to catch up to artists like Lreworking the camera I was able to answer one me creating new styles and languages. persistent question. What do pure abstract photographs look like? Answering that With a bit of historical comedy, camera- question with this book revealed another frame less images are accepted more than my pure of visual reference with more possibilities for abstractions created with a camera. http:// critics, curators, artists, collectors, and visitors www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/c/camera- to galleries. Would accepting my level and style less-photography-techniques/ of pure abstraction make the photographic community healthier and happier? I believe so. Everything comes from nature, including It certainly would add a new visual language all the images produced by artists. None and look, and that is always a dynamic, of the images in this book are new. Our welcomed addition to any house. evolution is evidence. ♣ New Leaves, 2002. A pure abstract photograph can be built of layers from different lights, much like a painting. There is a beginning and an end to this image. It is a drawing. – TR 8 Tom Reaume Pure Abstract Photography ⁀ Method horns, screeching tires, homeless drug users, prostitutes, curious people asking odd The camera moves (hand gestures) and the questions about my behavior, etc. People (one light is stationary. This is the how of pure a self-proclaimed gangster) wanted me to take abstract photography. Furthermore, the lights his picture. I declined. are artificial – colored neon and incandescent. Used mainly for advertisements along city suitable image rarely materializes during streets at night, I re-purposed their photons. In A the first 10 minutes on the street.