Pure Design Photography by Jeff Farr
OK, exactly WHAT IS Pure Design Photography???...
Well, it’s mostly a matter of perspective.
While most photographs call attention to people places, and things, Pure Design Photography is all about the the compost ion itself.
It’s the difference between a picture of a train...
Illinois Railway Museum, 2004
and a design found on the train...
Aberdeen, NC 2006
A matter of perspective — some people look at the world and see people, places, and things. I see the planet as a giant work of art from which you can pull an endless variety of interesting compositions.
In some ways, you could call this type of work “abstract,” but that doesn’t really describe it or the idea behind it.
For example, if I take a photograph of a building, you can tell it’s a building. But the idea of the photo isn’t to show the building, it’s to show the strong graphic composition — colors, lines, and shapes — that are created by the building and its surroundings...
Chicago Illinois 2006 — Carthage, NC 2006
It all started in a steamy Florida swamp...
When I began doing “Pure Design” photography in the early 1970s, it was sort of a “weird” thing to do. But I wasn’t the first person to engage in this type of photography, and I didn’t invent the style.
My first exposure to it was from my father, Bill Farr.
Even though I was very young, I still remember the “incident” well. We were touring the Everglades in Florida on a boat called the Jungle Queen.
Along the way, we passed what, to me, was a junk yard. My Dad, however, got very excited about it.
The next day, we went back and my Dad took a bunch of photos.
I didn’t “get it” at the time — why we were going back to a “junk yard” to take pictures — but when I saw the prints, it started to make sense and I started so see what my Dad (a full time professional artist and graphic designer) saw... the pure design and beauty that was contained in, and hidden in, what most people would call a heap of junk (my Dad informed me later that the “junk yard” was a salvage area and they were dismantling Liberty ships from World War 2).
That day changed the way I see, and my 30+ years of photographing in this way has further refined the vision.
Out of the swamp and into the fields!
When I got my first camera in the early 1970s, I was in college at Grinnell Iowa.
Grinnell is a dinky town out in farm country, so I spent a lot of time photographing the “pure design” of old farm equipment and sleepy country towns...
Somewhere in Iowa, mid 1970s
I call this type of photography Pure Design “Original,” because it’s what I originally did with the pure design idea (as you’ll see, I’ve add a few “twists” to the original idea — hey I didn’t want to get stuck in the 1970s for too long!!!).
And when you whack out the color (I actually began photography by shooting mostly black and white), you have Pure Design “Elemental”...
Denton, NC 2003
I also got into photographing “faces”...
Illinois Railway Museum, mid 1970s
And other objects that mimic living things. I actually have an entire series of these, and I call this type of photography Pure Design “Mimical.”
A break
The work I did in those early years was exciting, ground breaking, and still stands up today. But there were some problems. One was that I couldn’t get prints I was completely happy with... the technology at the time simply wasn't up to the task — didn’t produce the results I had in mind — and eventually, I got tired of the whole process and ended up not taking many photos for quite a few years.
Digital changed everything
As a teacher and consultant to hundreds of professional photographers, I am finding that I am not alone when I say that digital has caused me to be “reborn” as a photographer. Digital technology has removed a lot of creative restrictions we have had in the past. It allows us to faithfully produce the images we see in our minds, and then properly reproduce them on paper.
It also allows us to go way beyond simply reproducing what we see.
The good news about bad light
A few years ago, along with this new found excitement and my new digital camera, I went off on a little photo safari and found myself taking pictures on an old ship.
Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t very cooperative (on and off drizzle), but the worst of it was, the light wasn’t very good.
So the entire batch of photos — good compositions in bad light — were a little disappointing. That’s why I turned to the computer for help, and with some rather heavy-handed manipulation turned some “lemons” into “lemonade.”
I now call this type of work Pure Design “Chromatized” and I have developed a wide variety of techniques for this type of work. But digital manipulation is only a minor part of the story...
In the old days of film, and when outsourcing prints to photo labs was the only practical choice, your creative efforts ended when you composed the photo and took the picture. It was an “in the can” done deal. Today, however, I look at the photographic creative endeavor as a 3-part process, with each part having “equal weight”...
Taking the photo... this activity would be what we traditionally think of as photography — using a camera to freeze a point in time. While this used to be the “end point” of the creative process (at least for most photographers who were shooting in color), I no longer think of it that way. When I take pictures, I look at that process as gathering source material — computer data — that will be further processed later.
Making the photo... the raw computer data collected by the camera can be assembled with a computer in many ways. You can go for accuracy by trying to make the image look exactly like the original scene; you can enhance reality to make a point; you can create an idealized version of the original scene; or you can completely throw out the entire idea of portraying the world as we see it as I’ve done in the chromatized work.
Producing the photo... To me, this is one of the most exiting improvements in the world of photography. We now have an amazing amount of control over how the image is presented on paper and other media. With high-end photo printers, we can print on just about any media, and if you use the right inks and papers, the print will last for many generations.
Fine printing, by the way, is an art form all to itself and involves way more than simply sending a photo file to a printer. It’s taken me quite a few years of testing, experimenting, and refining my techniques (and a couple generations of technology advancements!) to get the results I produce now. Fine art photographic printing is a craft that follows in fine print making traditions such as etching and silk screening.
So, three important parts to producing an image, and each is critically important — mess up on one part, and you’re not going to get the best results!
I hope you will enjoy viewing the gallery if you haven’t done so already.
The online gallery, however, doesn’t do justice to the real thing, the print.
So if you see something you like, I hope you will acquire a print and see for yourself. Please keep in mind, all prints are offered on a trial basis, so your satisfaction is guaranteed... I think you will be pleased!
Artistically yours,
Jeff Farr
