BACH FLOWER REMEDIES TRAINING

John McLaughlin / Jimmy Herring Band / Wayne Krantz / Lenny White and more: Abstract Logix Live 2010 (2-DVD Set)

(2-DVD set) On November 20 and 21, 2010, maverick record label Abstract Logix hosted a series of spectacular performances, featuring an array of artists who handily defy genre categorization in favor of unbridled expression. The first New Universe Festival was a die-hard music lover's dream, defined by artists who seamlessly mingle compositional ingenuity and improvisational grace and fervor. Among the featured musicians were pioneering guitarist John McLaughlin and his current band the 4th Dimension with special guest, tabla legend Zakir Hussain; Widespread Panic guitar hero Jimmy Herring with his electric band; Return To Forever Drummer Lenny White; the all-star quartet Human Element (keyboardist Scott Kinsey, bassist Matt Garrison, percussionist Arto Tuncboyaciyan; fearless guitarist and improviser Wayne Krantz appearing with the amazing Anthony Jackson on bass; visionary Indian composer and drummer Ranjit Barot; and emerging guitar visionary Alex Machacek.
A 2-CD Set of the festival featuring 131 minutes of music was released in July of 2011 to rave reviews. This 2-DVD Set features the music released on the CD, as well as an additional 60 minutes of the grand finale Jam tribute to John McLaughlin featuring all the artists of the festival - along with behind the scenes footage and extensive interviews. 2-DVD, NTSC, all region.

What is abstract photography?

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your attitude about ambiguity (a point to which we'll return later), no two people will agree on the exact same definition. That’s because the topic is so … well … abstract!

So let’s do what I always like to do when I run into problems with definitions. Let’s look it up in the dictionary and dig into the etymological roots of the word. Mine says that the Latin roots of “abstract” mean “to draw away from.”

Now that’s a pretty good start, because many discussions of abstract photography focus on how its an image that emphasizes that which is generalized or universal, as opposed to something that is concrete, specific, tangible, or representational. An abstract photograph draws away from that which is realistic or literal. It draws away from natural appearances and recognizable subjects in the actual world. Some people even say it departs from true meaning, existence, and reality itself. It stands apart from the concrete whole with its purpose instead depending on conceptual meaning and intrinsic form.

Huh? … See what I mean? It gets real abstract!

As with pornography, we may have a very hard time defining it, but we know abstract photography when we see it. Here’s the acid test: If you look at a photo and there’s a voice inside you that says “What is it?”…. Well, there you go. It’s an abstract photograph.

There are a variety of ways to create an abstract image. As in macro-photography, if you shoot extreme close-ups of anything – such as part of an animal, person, plant, flower, building, machine, or any commonplace object, the result is often abstract. You reduce the otherwise familiar thing to patterns, textures, and colors that are no longer recognizable as that thing. You draw away from the familiar world and enter the more primordial realm of the purely visual. The same effect could be achieved if you zoom in and crop to some small portion of an otherwise ordinary photograph, which is rather easy to do in digital photography. By doing so, you abstract the part from the whole. You abstract the basic visual elements of the scene from the scene itself.

Abstracts can be created by taking shots of areas or surfaces containing interesting patterns, colors, and textures without including the larger context which identifies the location of that area or surface. For example, shots of walls, roads, clouds, fabrics, flowing water, a bed of tightly packed flowers, or a bucket of nails. Even shots of large scale areas, as in aerial photography, can become abstract when the patterns, colors, and textures supercede the identification of a specific place. Wherever we go we are surrounded by all sorts of interesting patterns, colors, and textures. Nature is constantly creating them for us, if we just open our eyes to see.

Using slow shutter speeds, spinning or waving the camera, and taking shots of anything that is moving at a fast speed can result in interesting blurry images that qualify as abstracts. The same type of blurring effects can be created in image editing programs, such as Photoshop. In fact, such programs contain a wide variety of tools for transforming any photograph into an abstract image of textures, colors, and patterns.

Empty or "negative" space may also play a important role in a abstracts, especially when the space isn't really empty at all, but is activated in such a way that it acquires form and conveys sensation.

It may sound like anyone could create an abstract image, that it isn’t so hard to do. Just take a close-up of a cracked sidewalk, for example. Indeed it’s true that abstract images are easy to create. However, producing great abstract images can be quite difficult.

Part of the appeal of a really good abstract photograph is how it entices people to figure out what it is. They may not have the same curiosity about an abstract painting, when people sometimes say that they just don’t get it. Even if people are told what an abstract photograph is, they often still enjoy the challenge of trying to wrap their minds around the bigger picture from which it was abstracted.

However, people who truly love abstract images will often tell you that figuring it out is not the objective. In fact, they may not even try or want to know. They take delight in its ambiguity. They immerse themselves into the purely perceptual experience of the colors, textures, and patterns. They like to immerse themselves into the visceral sensations, moods, and primeval ideas aroused by the image. They don’t “think” about the image per se, but rather use intuition to sense its meaning and impact. Does it create sensations of power, mystery, love, loneliness, grief, pain, joy? Is it the essence of sharp, hard, smooth, brittle, hot, cold. sweet, bitter, loud, or soft? It touches them and moves them on a purely intuitive level that includes what they taste, touch, smell and feel, as well as see. It’s not about a particular person, sce

Eighty years, an old lady now, sitting on the front porch
Watching the clouds roll by
They remind her of her lover, how he loved her, and of times long ago,
When she used color carelessly, painted his portrait
A thousand times - or maybe just his smile -
And she and her canvas would follow him wherever he would go

'Cause they were painters and they were painting themselves
A lovely world

Oil streaked daisies covered the living room walls
He put water colored roses in her hair
He said, "Love, I love you, I want to give you the mountains, the sunshine, the sunset too
I just want to give you a world as beautiful as you are to me"

Cause i'm a painter and I want to paint you a lovely world

So they sat down and made a drawing of their love, they made it an art to live by
They painted every passion, every home, created every beautiful child
in the winter they were weavers of warmth,
in the summer they were carpenters of love
They thought bluebirds were too sad so they made them yellow

And they were painters, and they had painted themselves
A lovely world

Until one day the rain fell as thick as black oil
And in her heart she knew something was wrong
She went running through the orchard screaming,
'No God, don't take him from me!'
But by the time she got there, she feared he already had gone
She got to where he lay, water colored roses in his hands for her
She threw them down screaming, 'Damn you man, don't leave me
with nothing left behind but these cold paintings, these cold portraits
to remind me!'

He said, 'Love I only leave a little, try to understand
I put my soul in this life we've created with these four hands
Love, I leave, but only a little, this world holds me still
My body may die now, but these paintings are real'

So many seasons came and so many seasons went
and many times she saw her lover's face watering the flowers,
talking to the trees and singing to his children,
And when the wind blew, she knew he was listening,
and how he seemed to laugh along, and how he seemed to hold her
when she was crying

'Cause they were painters, and had painted themselves
A lovely world

Eighty years, an old lady now, sitting on the front porch
Watching the clouds roll by
They remind her of her lover, how he left her, and of times long ago,
When she used color carelessly, painted his portrait
A thousand times - or maybe just his smile -
And her and her canvas would follow him wherever they would go
Yes, her and her canvas still follow

Because they are painters and they are painting themselves
A lovely world
~ Lyrics by Jewel