I'm looking forward to hearing what people have to say. I've been thinking about this lately. Searching Google and Youtube I've found that a lot of so called conceptual pictures people do seem to have a specific washed-out, soft, or desaturated look. I'm starting to think that this look and feel is what a lot of people associate with the word "conceptual", rather than expressing an idea. So many of the examples of conceptual photography seem to be based on ideas that require a Photoshop-intensive workflow that you might even call this particular genre CGI or special effects photography. Furthermore, people seem to be recreating a few very specific ideas a lot, such as floating mirrors around a subject in a field, or invisible heads.
And then you pick up Heisler's 50 portraits. You find that the portraits are in fact constructed from very developed ideas. The way the subjects are shot, the locations and the lighting all tell a story. And you read what the idea behind each portrait is, and it fits what you got out of the portrait. That has to fall under conceptual photography, even though I don't think Heisler uses that term. And pretty much without Extended Editing. Heisler doesn't do symbolism or abstract all that much. I don't find that to be a requirement for something to count as conceptual, although successful implementation of symbolism is always great.
My point is, I think conceptual photography is a bigger field than the use of that word on the Internet lets you understand. Writing an exact definition would be very difficult, if not impossible. |
