Photography by Chance?

If you’ve been following me on Twitter, then you may know that I’m taking an art history course.  If you haven’t, well now you know!

We recently covered the 1900-1945 period.  You know; Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Dadaism, etc.  (Or maybe you don’t know.)

One particular area caught my eye, Dada.  Dadaists believed reason and logic had been responsible for the disasters of world war.  It was a reaction to the insane spectacle of collective homicide.  How nice, right?

Well, one artist, the Zurich-based Jean (Hans) Arp, had me a bit puzzled.

He pioneered the use of chance in composing his images.  One of his pieces of “art” was made by torn sheets of paper that were dropped haphazardly onto another sheet of paper on the floor.  This piece is title “Collage Arranged to the Laws of Chance.”

What??

(By the way, I have never been able to get paper to fall like this…ever!  Fraud??)

Ok, we could get into a very long debate on what art is.  Everyone has their own opinions on what constitutes art.  But that’s not the purpose of this article.

It actually got me thinking; could there be “photography by chance?”

I’m not going to give you my beliefs on the matter.  I’d rather you come to a conclusion on your own.

The first question that came to my mind was, “How do I create a photograph purely by chance?”

I could take my camera, close my eyes, and hit the shutter.  Or I could just hold the camera, away from my face, and hit the shutter.

But is that really “chance”?  Am I aiming the camera in a direction that I want before I snap a shot?

Well, on the way home from a trip to Colorado, I decided to find out.

While driving, I would hold my camera with one hand, point it out the window, and “Click!”

Now, I was aiming at something, but I believe that it’s pure chance that I would actually get a decent photo.  After all, I wasn’t looking through the viewfinder.  (Something I wouldn’t recommend while driving!)

What were the results?

Below are the best of what I came up with.  All of the images were taken while driving at 80mph down the interstate.  I didn’t stop and get out to take any of them.  And a couple of them couldn’t have been better had I taken my time to compose them.

*Note: The images were edited; cropping and color correction. “Electricity” was the only photo taken into Photoshop and “played” with.

Please enjoy!

Beauty and the Beast

Overpass

Electricity

Tower of Power

Long Haul

Do Not Cross

The Smell of Money

What do you think?  I’d love to hear your comments on this.

Thanks for reading!