As you will see throughout this post, my visual taste is largely a very common, very sentimental one. True, I like strange camera angles and startling juxtapositions and such, but I have to admit that for the most part my tastes are similar to others in that I like "pretty" images. You will see what I mean.
Above is a still from Ghost Dog. As clichéd as it may sound, one of the things that draws me to Jim Jarmusch is his ability to find beauty in the ordinary. There's something about shots like this (which often run rather long in Jarmusch's work, though this one is comparatively short) that gives you a feeling of having your eyes wide open. Even though you see images like this every day, when you see it on film it somehow makes it more significant. The basic concept is not all that different from Duchamp's Fountain. There's something hypnotizing about Jarmusch's work, and that's definitely something to which I aspire.
The above shot is from Jurassic Park, a film that I love and have loved ever since I saw it when I was 5. It has a few characteristics which I greatly admire, though I have seldom if ever been able to reproduce them in my own work. First of all, the lighting is beautiful - the way the light covers only the edges of Muldoon's face and leaves the rest barely visible, and the way the light is broken up (presumably by the leaves within the diegesis, though I'm not sure if that's how the effect was actually achieved). It also uses shallow focus to bring attention to Muldoon, simultaneously having the effect of looking very pretty (to me, at least). It also has a nice composition; the focal points generally fall along rule of thirds lines, and it also has a cool asymmetrical thing going which seems to lend some force to the image.
One thing I admire about Spielberg's work in general - though maybe it's more his cinematographers who deserve the credit - is the way objects in his film give the viewer an instant, powerful sense of 3D space. That's another thing that I've never been able to do in my own work.
This image is from Michael Clayton. Some context is needed to explain why I like this image. Just prior to this shot is a long stretch of time that is dominated by yelling and screaming and legal issues being discussed. This image is in very stark contrast to that - it's extremely peaceful and simple. It's like a breath of fresh air after the nastiness of the previous 30 minutes or so. Another way in which it is a strange juxtaposition is that the earlier shots are dominated by manmade objects - buildings, cars, expensive suits, sharp corners everywhere. An image of nature after all of that sort of brings it into perspective.
That's one of the things I like about juxtaposition; it sometimes allows you to see things in a different way than if you saw each of them alone. Sometimes this allows you to realize something that, although it was staring you right in the face already, you wouldn't have noticed otherwise. Besides all that, it's also just a very aesthetically pleasing image to anyone who finds nature beautiful.
This is a picture I took in Fort Walton Beach, Florida a while ago (before the oil spill). I was trying to get a closeup picture of this bird (an egret or something like that?) but it kept flying away every time I got close to it. One of the times it flew away I just happened to take this picture as it was flying, and I kind of liked it. For a while now I've been interested in the idea of images that capture things in mid-action. Its surprising to see things that way because we are used to seeing things happen all the way through, especially in films. It's also interesting because it gives you a different sort of view of motion. When you see something that is already in motion, you start to wonder about what motion itself is and what it means. Again, besides all that it's just an image that pulls at my heartstrings. The sunset making the waves look almost golden in parts, the gracefulness of the bird - these are things that I like but cannot really explain why.
This is another picture I shot myself, probably some time around 2005. It was taken in Madison, Alabama just outside of a Japanese restaurant called Edo. I've altered the colors a bit in Photoshop, but I didn't add or take anything away from it. Anyone who has ever seen my drawings or paintings knows that explosions and explosion-like images are a very strong theme in my art. It isn't hard to imagine that this image is of some huge explosion in the sky, though it's really just the sunset filtering through the clouds.
Someone suggested to me once that explosions are one of those kinds of images that are inherent to the human psyche. It certainly seems to me that whenever I start drawing an abstract image it almost inevitably becomes an explosion, though maybe that's just me. In any case, it isn't hard to see why an explosion in art can be construed as some sort of emotional outpouring. I believe that emotion is the core of all art. Even art that is seemingly emotionless is usually notable for its lack of emotion, so in a way it's referencing it. I think everyone wants to explode sometimes, and everyone (even pacifists) secretly thinks explosions are cool. An explosion is the epitome of energy, and art needs to have energy.
At this point I've already said a lot about what my personal aesthetic is, but I'll summarize it here. I like images that are full of emotion or that produce a strong emotional response; it doesn't really matter what the emotion is, only that it is strong. A lot of this has to do with what the human eye is naturally drawn to, although culture certainly plays a role in this as well. I also like images that are startling or strange in a way that causes you (if you're thinking) to reexamine the way you view things and maybe even the way you think about the world. I like to subvert people's expectations - to use them against those people in many cases.
Although, as I said in the beginning of this post, I am not that different from most people in that I like sentimental images, I don't believe that art should be about pleasing people. I believe that art should be about the new. By new I mean things that have never been experienced before. Sometimes that means introducing people to new pleasures they have never known before, but it also involves challenging them. Newness is what makes life worth living, even if it isn't easy. Newness can be painful at first, but ultimately it is rewarding.
I realize that I've written well beyond 250 words, but once I got started I found it difficult to stop. I apologize for that.
