COLORCAST VETERAN CLOSE YOUR EYES SERIES

To create a frame of reference, we should understand how we, as humans, “see” color, and the history of how color photography began to record and reproduce what colors we “see”. Is it appropriate to argue that whether the color is recorded and printed correctly is less important than the artistic result? Otherwise, might we ask ourselves how the color we see relates to the subject matter and our sense of that image? How do “hue”, “saturation” and “value” impact a viewer’s feelings about an image? Were these images taken in the morning, afternoon, dusk or late evening? Or whether the colors we capture in our eyes will change with the intensity of the light of day, or other atmospheric influences? Alternatively, was an artificial light source used? If artificial light was used, as it is in Bay’s images, how does that affect what we see, and should we care? Is there an undesirable color cast over the image that skews the pure colors intended, or is there a proper “white balance”? Bay’s images put these questions front and center because there are no tangible familiar images in these works to which we can relate and identify in our mind as to what something should look like and, there is no frame of reference for what color(s) these shapes should be or represent. How does a viewer of an image really appreciate what the photographer has done? With an exception for documentary or scientific images, some might argue that if you like an image, that is all that counts, implying that it is not necessary to be critical of the color and whether it is “true to life”. Viewing a photograph that is a color abstract forces questions that we should contemplate, whether documentary, scientific, vernacular or art.

COLORCAST VETERAN CLOSE YOUR EYES SERIES

Deborah Bay’s “Traveling Light” photography series is all about light and color. “The absence of wavelengths from the light spectrum is black, yet… black is not actually a color”. The blend of all colors in the visible light spectrum is what we “see” as white. We cannot capture these extremes without the aid of technology to “see”. At either end of the light spectrum there are infrared waves and on the other end, ultraviolet, x-rays and gamma rays. The human eye is sensitive to red, green and blue or “ RGB”. The visible light spectrum is a range of hues (or color) that transitions from red, yellow, green, blue to indigo or violet. Light in nature comes from the sun, which is wavelengths of the colors that make up what we call “ light”. Light weighs nothing, yet it defines shape, appearance and gives objects the sensation of mass. Most all visible things have some color which resonates from light. We cannot see it unless there is darkness around us.

Colorcast veteran close your eyes