Things can only get better.

Is it me or what?
When I look at my photos they seem to get better.
Seriously. I've been going through my files of late. I open up some shot I have never processed and lo and behold, a seemingly interesting perspective on life I ignored first time around.




Then I might venture into the already processed files and once again I see things I missed and the shot looks more interesting.



Then there are those shots that I really ranked as a reasonable effort for an old bloke and the longer I look the better I get. Before I know it I'm feeling pretty bloody good about being a photographer.





Now I'm at the point where I don't want to throw anything out for fear of discarding a priceless piece of art. There has to be at least one shot in there that would even come under the scrutiny of OPF and pass muster.

I wonder if there are others out there who have experienced this phenomenon of .... What should I call it? ..... Self satisfaction, delayed as it may. Or am I just more tolerant of my own inadequacies?

Hi, Tom,

Lovely dark (!) work.

Tom dinning said:

Is it me or what?
When I look at my photos they seem to get better.
Seriously. I've been going through my files of late. I open up some shot I have never processed and lo and behold, a seemingly interesting perspective on life I ignored first time around.

...I wonder if there are others out there who have experienced this phenomenon of .... What should I call it? ..... Self satisfaction, delayed as it may. Or am I just more tolerant of my own inadequacies?

Click to expand...

Don't take such a dark view of this development. Those of us who are actually alive often, heuristically, refine our criteria based on what we learn in life.

Those who are able to avert this character weakness can have fine careers in religion or right-wing politics.

Best regards,

Doug

Doug Kerr said:

Hi, Tom,

Lovely dark (!) work.

Don't take such a dark view of this development. Those of us who are actually alive often, heuristically, refine our criteria based on what we learn in life.

Those who are able to avert this character weakness can have fine careers in religion or right-wing politics.

Click to expand...

Tom and Doug,

It's all about openness, the essential ingredient of both being an artist and adding to the collective wisdom. Humanity needs such insight to live amongst other equally fragile creatures in this exquisite, (vanishingly unimportant), blue marble, in an ever-expanding universe of mostly emptiness.

What if people opened their eyes to Socratic thought and learning? We all have thought barriers that have to be pierced to access knowledge. Such openness allows understanding not merely what surrounds us but also what's within us. The crosses we bear are in the form of delusions we each carry in our heads as "treasures" and with accompanying dismissive thoughts of ourselves and others!

We've had one such brilliant fellow leave us! He's still beautifully locked into 19th century photographic esthetics and I love that. He's instilled with Evangelical Biblical messages, and doomsday expectations that are imminent. There's a fear and dismissal of the present. The scholar, (instead of working in a patent office), diligently collects ancient prize lenses and, (for his day job), repeats test sequences to assure that our missiles will launch and our bombs will detonate as ordained from an authority from above!

What if all his brainpower was focused on openness to the present and the future on earth?

So Tom, your discovering worth in your pictures is the essence that our erstwhile OPFr did not stumble upon before he walked away, (convinced that we sinners could not be redeemed and were going down Dante's shoot to the "Inferno", after all his efforts)!

Asher

I'm not against believers, just folk who want to crack open heads to infuse their own versions of salvation. Belief is a precious quality of privacy, societal and family communion.

Hi, Asher,

Well said. Thanks.

Asher Kelman said:

He's instilled with Evangelical Biblical messages . . .

Click to expand...

Sad how that term has today been perverted to mean almost the opposite of its original (and etymological) meaning.

I have often written to "vocal" religious spokesmen who self-identify as "evangelical", asking them to explain what that means in their context (and why). I do not receive replies.

Best regards,

Doug

Tom dinning said:

Is it me or what?
When I look at my photos they seem to get better.
Seriously. I've been going through my files of late. I open up some shot I have never processed and lo and behold, a seemingly interesting perspective on life I ignored first time around.

Click to expand...

We take pictures best when our hands work fluidly obey our private inner passion for shapes and associations. It takes reflection to realize and grasp all the "accidents" we seem to have taken by chance. So as you've done here, we all have to catch up on our inner minds. Bravo for not junking the lost as many of us or else presenting the gems surrounded by all the garbage and seeing the "collection" as a revelation to the world! Part of realizing one's worth is to dare to discover one's best work and discard the rest.



Well Tom,

I like your recognition of the insularity of each of our little bubbles of existence. The images you share carry common construction in use of light to reveal within pervasive darkness a privacy of existence and purpose that is exquisitely imperfect and so realistic.

I hope you will find more with such a commanding motif.

Very enjoyable. Those caravaners racing towards the beaches have no idea what treasures folks in the 'burbs" of Darwin are creating.

Asher

I knew you'd squeeze religion into the conversation some how, Asher.
Anyway, we need such vigor to alert us of the conspiracy theories and digressions into irreverence. Some days I crave for guidance. The corridors of veil are dark and foreboding. Each door opens into a room of sins. I am tempted at every turn. Then the hand of the Maker strikes me from behind. "Keep out of there or I'll castrate you". Sorry, it was just Christine.
Who needs a god when I have her.

Seriously. though, I seem to be more willing to accept pretty much anything I shoot bar the odd shot I take of my own feet and the multiples when I forget to disengage the rapid fire. I worry less about technical issues (not that I ever worried about them much anyway) and am just happy plodding along recording the peculiarities of everyday life. I don't even have the urge to make it look pretty.
Did I really have to go through all that learning stuff to get here? Couldn't I have taken a short cut? I could have spent the last 50 years in photographic heaven if I had.

I mean to say, look at this. I don't even like cats. Back in the old days I'd have run over the pair of them and not blinked an eye. Maybe its because I can't move that fast any more. Nothing special here, just a very typical scene in the suburbs. Yet it interests me on a number of levels, the first of which is why does it interest me so much?
What worries me even more is What Next? If this is Enlightenment, what comes after that? Is it like the old martial arts adage that when you know it all you start again? A faded black belt in photography is what I have. Back to my Sensai, so it seems

Tom,

The reason you like your own stuff and look at your old stuff and say "****, that ain't too bad" is because you are Fark!^& good.
You're a bloody legend.
Maybe if you were 25 or even 35 you'd have some existential angsty sh!t going on and be tortured by your imminent success and simultaneous lack of it.
At your age you crusty old coot (you're 87 aren't you?) you are perfectly entitled to look at your own stuff and see exactly what it is that drew you to the image in the first place and appreciate it.

Seriously Tom, you're images are top shelf. And you know it.
Not too much more to say.

Tom dinning said:

I knew you'd squeeze religion into the conversation some how, Asher.
Anyway, we need such vigor to alert us of the conspiracy theories and digressions into irreverence. Some days I crave for guidance.

Click to expand...

Religion, at its best can serve as a robust repository of guidance that transcends each individuals immediate views and ideas of modernity. However, with each generation, it needs to be challenged, perturbed and shed of ideas that no longer can be defended with our enlightened ideas of of logic, science and compassion. So religion for a child, can help provide a scaffold for building a sense of goals for leading a life with consideration for others. But that set of ideas, when ossified, can become a scaffold for hanging folk who dissent.

Artists have to look for guidance in an inner voice. Discerning whether or not that speaks in tongues or is enlightened is the insight we need to translate inner thoughts to works that move us and society to both appreciate and challenge all the givens of everything within and around us.

Your window on life is guided by a good sense of insight into your own dark forces and talents. That is a special balance seen in your humor and photography.

As I told you previously, Tom, your body of work represents an important contribution to photography that should be conserved in spite of you being a cantankerous coot!

Asher

Tom dinning said:

...............I mean to say, look at this. I don't even like cats. Back in the old days I'd have run over the pair of them and not blinked an eye. Maybe its because I can't move that fast any more. Nothing special here, just a very typical scene in the suburbs. Yet it interests me on a number of levels, the first of which is why does it interest me so much?

Click to expand...

Tom,

The reason why this is so compelling is that we take an anthropomorphic view of everything around us. It's as if these cats have attitudes we expect from humans, so they become metaphors for a view at our own behaviors. So, we think we understand the sorts of attitudes and mental processing going on, in two cats, presumably a black male sizing up a tabby female. It's something the human male attempts each day of his active adult life - figuring out his odds and at getting to a desirable woman he accidentally meets.

You have done this from a height that would have required a tall ladder to be accomplished with actual humans. Now you didn't say at the time, "That guy wants to bed that young lady?", rather it just all seemed to demand a picture instantly. So, look at how efficient your picture here is. You needed no chaperon, there's no possible misinterpretation of your motives or objection to invasion of their privacy. Most convenient of all, you for sure, don't need a bright yellow 16 foot fiberglass ladder, to get that "God's view" perspective, as I do!



Asher

Hi, Asher,

Asher Kelman said:

Religion, at its best can serve as a robust repository of guidance that transcends each individuals immediate views and ideas of modernity. However, with each generation, it needs to be challenged, perturbed and shed of ideas that no longer can be defended with our enlightened ideas of of logic, science and compassion. So religion for a child, can help provide a scaffold for building a sense of goals for leading a life with consideration for others. But that set of ideas, when ossified, can become a scaffold for hanging folk who dissent.

Click to expand...

Very well said.

Your window on life is guided by a good sense of insight into your own dark forces and talents. That is a special balance seen in your humor and photography.

As I told you previously, Tom, your body of work represents an important contribution to photography that should be conserved in spite of you being a cantankerous coot!

Click to expand...

Second!

Best regards,

Doug

Tom,

Seems that you found your equilibrum - the pictures seem to express this for me and I like the outcome.
More!

Best regards,
Michael

Hi Tom, I like all of them, I think all of them would stand in the presentation of ...three portfolios of yours (since the subject is different).
The first one, I think can be a leading picture in a street portfolio where one acts as his company is (temporarily) away... This is the one I like most...
The second one, I like the presentation of the decoration (full of square frames) of the cafe with respect to the people (which synthesise well with the small square portraits in the decoration photographs of the musicians- very well presented in your image) and all this to the different (but still on rhythm - perhaps the musicians rhythm) older architecture of the (again well presented) outside environment.
The third one is a good "supporting" shot (this one I like less than the others) that IMO cannot be a leading shot in an album (but still I think it won't turn the observer feelings from the leading ones), it is what I call "a bit politically/socially (same thing) empty" from the happening point of view.

Beautiful lighting and processing on all of them I think..., technically I find them all superb, especially the third one (the one I like less).

Andy brown said:

Tom,

The reason you like your own stuff and look at your old stuff and say "****, that ain't too bad" is because you are Fark!^& good.
You're a bloody legend.
Maybe if you were 25 or even 35 you'd have some existential angsty sh!t going on and be tortured by your imminent success and simultaneous lack of it.
At your age you crusty old coot (you're 87 aren't you?) you are perfectly entitled to look at your own stuff and see exactly what it is that drew you to the image in the first place and appreciate it.

Seriously Tom, you're images are top shelf. And you know it.
Not too much more to say.

Click to expand...

How nice of you to say, Andy. I was a top shelf whiskey drinker for many years (too many, probably) and certainly appreciated the difference. As for my own photos, I'm not sure, nor am I that confident even at this age and stubbornness. Conceit isn't one of my qualities. Christine ensures that doesn't happen. What it seems to be, though is a satisfaction in what I have achieved in terms of my own persona goals. I don't aim high. In anything. Just enough is always good enough. I'm proud to say it shows in everything i do. It got me this far. What more can I ask. There are enough high fliers to fill the top shelves.
I guess what I am trying to get at here is that there possibly needs to be appoint in ones life when they can look at what they have achieved and say to themselves "that's OK". Constantly striving is OK if you have the energy or gusto. Resting on ones laurels comes to mind but it doesn't quite fit. It just seems a bit weird if we continue through our lives and try to better ourselves we must have a time when we can sit back and say enough is enough. I'll just rest her end enjoy what I have done. If I don't enjoy it what a ****ing waste of time it has all been.
Thanks again for your kind comments and praise. I still wish I was 35 again and knew what I know now.

Theodoros Fotometria said:

Hi Tom, I like all of them, I think all of them would stand in the presentation of ...three portfolios of yours (since the subject is different).
The first one, I think can be a leading picture in a street portfolio where one acts as his company is (temporarily) away... This is the one I like most...
The second one, I like the presentation of the decoration (full of square frames) of the cafe with respect to the people (which synthesise well with the small square portraits in the decoration photographs of the musicians- very well presented in your image) and all this to the different (but still on rhythm - perhaps the musicians rhythm) older architecture of the (again well presented) outside environment.
The third one is a good "supporting" shot (this one I like less than the others) that IMO cannot be a leading shot in an album (but still I think it won't turn the observer feelings from the leading ones), it is what I call "a bit politically/socially (same thing) empty" from the happening point of view.

Beautiful lighting and processing on all of them I think..., technically I find them all superb, especially the third one (the one I like less).

Click to expand...

You're very kind, Theo. your praise is notes, although this wasn't why I posted them as it is with any of my photos. External praise has become irrelevant and unnecessary for my existence. It's unfortunate that I think that way because most of the time I think that no-one else needs praise either and that ain't true, is it?
I do note your examination of each photo and find that approach familiar but one that is difficult to grasp. It is as though I might have considered these things while viewing, framing and composing the shots. Yet I find myself as distant from this approach as I would find myself using Gestalt or Rule of Thirds. It may well be subliminal but I doubt it since I didn't know about any of that stuff until a few years back. My mentors in my younger days delivered their lessons with a longer stick. It was about finding my own language and editing my own world in a way that best suited my story telling. It was about being my own judge and jury as well.
How peaceful it is now to have found that. What delights me is that I managed to find it without needing to prove myself to anyone but myself. It won't earn me a living or bring me fame but I have more than that here right now.
And my greatest frustration is that I can't teach this to anyone. I don't mean how to photograph, I mean how to be satisfied with their own photographs. But I hope it comes to everyone eventually.

Asher Kelman said:

Tom,

The reason why this is so compelling is that we take an anthropomorphic view of everything around us. It's as if these cats have attitudes we expect from humans, so they become metaphors for a view at our own behaviors. So, we think we understand the sorts of attitudes and mental processing going on, in two cats, presumably a black male sizing up a tabby female. It's something the human male attempts each day of his active adult life - figuring out his odds and at getting to a desirable woman he accidentally meets.

You have done this from a height that would have required a tall ladder to be accomplished with actual humans. Now you didn't say at the time, "That guy wants to bed that young lady?", rather it just all seemed to demand a picture instantly. So, look at how efficient your picture here is. You needed no chaperon, there's no possible misinterpretation of your motives or objection to invasion of their privacy. Most convenient of all, you for sure, don't need a bright yellow 16 foot fiberglass ladder, to get that "God's view" perspective, as I do!



Asher

Click to expand...

Cantankerous coot is it now? Nice one. Good thing you're right or I'd be offended.
We must go out together one day, Asher, and shoot. You see stuff so differently from me it's like I can't see. Well, certainly not the way you do. I think we'd have a good laugh at each other's view of life.
How the **** did you get all that from my cat picture? No wonder I have to see a shrink on a regular basis. Next time I talk to her I'll say: "I'm really worried about my state of mind, Cindy. I take this shot of a couple of cats and Asher tells me it's to do with my anthropological view of life and that is a metaphor for **** knows what. Do I need therapy or does he?"
I wish my thinking was as complex as that. Unfortunately it never is. It just interested me.
But, truly, Asher, thanks. I'm learning. Slowly.

Tom dinning said:

You're very kind, Theo. your praise is notes, although this wasn't why I posted them as it is with any of my photos. External praise has become irrelevant and unnecessary for my existence. It's unfortunate that I think that way because most of the time I think that no-one else needs praise either and that ain't true, is it?
I do note your examination of each photo and find that approach familiar but one that is difficult to grasp. It is as though I might have considered these things while viewing, framing and composing the shots. Yet I find myself as distant from this approach as I would find myself using Gestalt or Rule of Thirds. It may well be subliminal but I doubt it since I didn't know about any of that stuff until a few years back. My mentors in my younger days delivered their lessons with a longer stick. It was about finding my own language and editing my own world in a way that best suited my story telling. It was about being my own judge and jury as well.
How peaceful it is now to have found that. What delights me is that I managed to find it without needing to prove myself to anyone but myself. It won't earn me a living or bring me fame but I have more than that here right now.
And my greatest frustration is that I can't teach this to anyone. I don't mean how to photograph, I mean how to be satisfied with their own photographs. But I hope it comes to everyone eventually.

Click to expand...

Learning how to be satisfied with one's own photographs, one's own language and own words, is certainly worth striving for, but I've been told that it is much easier to achieve when one has a following of crowds eager to watch the pictures and praise the artist for them. Such is the human heart, apparently.

I've been told. I do not know, of course.

What I find in my present state is that the world around me seems more relaxed, more at ease, gentler, quieter. It also has a humor I had not been aware of. I remember my first introduction to the great Doisneau and his photos of Paris. He had such an eye for its humor and I always thought it was more to do with living in a funny place ( until I visited Paris and found it far from funny). What it turned out to be, as I investigated the man himself, is his absolute understanding and love for his place. As a photographer he was content with the recording of the most mundane along with the majestic. I dare to mention Doisneau in the same paragraph as my own photographs but I do understand how it is that he could record such passionately beautiful photographs. I was probably 18 when I first came across his photos. When I die I want his books buried with me so I might have something to look at in the blackness that follows. For me they generate their own light.

Since you are citing Robert Doisneau, allow me to post a few of his pictures.

Anyone who doesn't laugh out old when they see the first three or fall in love with Madam Lulu's accordion player has no heart. Doisneau often suggested he was less concerned about compositional elements and would let the picture compose itself. He figured his love for the place and it's people would show through and that would be enough. Personally, I think he had it all over HCB.
Thanks, Jerome.