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.
-
LINKS TO OTHER EXAMPLES