No, it’s Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA

I apologize for the delay… I was sick for a while and now on the mend.

‘Astronomatopoeia’ is a made up portmanteau combining ‘astronomy’ and ‘onomatopoeia’. It’s also a catch-all name for the random (semi) daily black and white photos I take.

When walking around my neighborhood, I often look up at the clouds and tree tops and I like the way that bare tree branches look against the sky. It’s as if there are cracks forming at the base of the atmosphere.

I also imagine the windshield of my car is a camera’s view finder with the edges of the car composing a shot. With these parameters I have to further compose the image and choose the most interesting part.

Taking all this into account, sound plays a huge role in my attitude, thought process, and approach to photography or art making. Whether it’s music, silence, or the ambient environmental sounds, it affects the way I think, which in turn, affects what I make.

Observation + sound = random photo named Astronomatopoeia

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You rock

Ahhh yes! I know exactly what you mean. You can see “artistic” talent right away. I think it comes from a lack of art education or inexperience or you’ve encountered a marketing rep. But then again, we’ve all put out art because that’s what we thought art is supposed to be.

Here’s a question I ask my artist friends from time to time: can you instinctively see or notice high art / low art, more talent / less talent regardless of finished work? And, considering your answer, do you think there’s a universal aesthetic in which everyone can agree that there is definitely good art and bad art?

I’d love to find a small digital rangefinder with a larger lens to carry everywhere with me. 25 years ago I always carried Grandpa’s Yashica Lynx 14e and 4 rolls of Tri-X with me “just in case”. It was fun.

I like how the approach to black and white photography is different from color. For B&W I concentrate on contrast and form as well as the subject but with color my focus is on saturation and the ‘shape’ of color. I don’t think information is thrown away. I think it’s about working with the strengths and parameters of the medium.

Or sometimes it’s just play. Astronomatopoeia is play.

Thanks for the comment! My only intent with Astronomatopoeia is that it’s a series of scenes or objects, taken with black and white phone apps, that I find interesting when I’m out of the house. The photos are unplanned, spontaneous, and at the will of limited app functions.

I rarely adjust these photos in post as the real challenge to myself is to take and post a picture a day (or close to that). I tend to compose asymmetrical shots, binary objects, or lone hero subjects. I think Astronomatopoeia falls somewhere between the spontaneous action of street photography and methodical composure of fine art.

So, yes, ‘I never meant to take this shot’ but I like it when I take it like this.

Right?! #burnitwithfire

Close

Thanks! This is an image from late last year when I was experimenting with different pixel sorting, glitch, and tilt shift apps. Before then, I was “glitching” images manually using layers in Photoshop, Krita, and Glimpse. If you want to see more, Strictly Arbitrary is on my Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/joshuawmurray/

Thanks!

Thanks!

No worries! I appreciate the explanation. It’s a monochrome digital image with a light sepia toned filter applied at the time I took the photo. It’s not a true black and white photograph and there aren’t any tags for sepia, monochrome, Van Dyke, etc. so I tagged it black and white. I suppose I could start #monochrome .

Would you prefer monochrome?

Would you prefer monochrome?

It’s just like how it sounds.