Chief Pontiac 3a 6945 after Mixing photorealism and abstraction, using only the scene's elements, is very exciting to me.  I can juxtapose the image to itself.  It allows me to express new interpretations of the scene's meaning.  It helps expand the meaning of a scene into something more significant than what is contained in a mere photorealism perception of the scene.

Literal & Metaphorical
Borrowing from Minor White, the scene can convey what it is and what else it is: what it is literally, and what it is metaphorically.  It can be what it is and its metaphor all in the same time and space.

Half-century old & the modern eye
In Pontiac Hood Ornament I'm using abstraction to convey the sense of modernness, motion, speed, action, and attractiveness.  I think that those characteristics are what a hood ornament was intended to convey by its designer (circa 1950).  I have to abstract-in a look that communicates those half-century old hood ornament design goals to a modern eye.  But I'm keeping enough photorealism so that the viewer knows its a real hood ornament.

Start the before & after slide show to see the changes:

Pontiac Hood Ornament is part of the gallery The Drama of Car Culture.
Click here to jump there.

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LINKS TO OTHER EXAMPLES

Glow In The Park 1	Glow In The Park triptych
	Grass Hopper book project