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Should shape be sacred?

This forum and other sources tend to focus on three main customs to improve one’s photography. They include ways to compose better photos, to improve the color or texture of an image, to delete unwanted content through cropping or cloning. Missing from most discussions are ways to change or add to the form of retained content. It’s as though shape is sacred and alteration is transgression. But if photography is an art, shouldn’t photographers make pictures that transcend the photograph? The montage below tests these waters and invites comments on fictive photography as a more dominating form of art as this millennium unfolds.
montage.jpg

montage.html
 
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Will_Perlis

New member
I'll bite. Haven't painters and photographers used relative sizes forever to indicate power or significance relationships? I'm thinking of small people in huge landscapes, or large adults and small children, for example.

I'm not sure what showing a straight wall as curved might indicate. Behemoth Battling Beavers (Those are beavers, right?) are certainly a nice change, tho'.

(I'm thinking "otters" now. However, I'll stick with "beavers" 'cause I like the alliteration.)

All factiousness aside, I'm not sure what you're getting at. Near as I can tell, shape hasn't been sacred for quite some time except for specific purposes.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Michael,

I don't think that anything should be sacred except your humanity and artistic vision.

Asher
 

Erik DeBill

New member
Michael,

I don't think that anything should be sacred except your humanity and artistic vision.


An art purist!

Life's all about compromises. If someone ends up happier overall because they were willing to compromise their vision, I'm fine with that. We've all got to find our own path to happiness.
 
Perfect Will! They’re supposed to be beavers. The ‘Behemoth Battling Beavers’ are on the roof of the Canadian Houses of Parliament that is toppling under their weight. The beaver is a national emblem of Canada. The USA’s emblem is a bald eagle, the UK has a lion, and we have a rodent. Oh Canada, eh!  The critters are not really beavers though but prairie dogs, the closest relative I could find to photo this winter. I doubt whether beavers take on that kind of fighting pose. These fake beavers are bringing down our country from the top, as politicians are wont to do, rather than beavering at the bottom like the rest of us.
The image is playful, as was the title of the thread. Like Will, I find alliteration hard to resist. But my meagre vision isn’t sacred, Asher, my humanity maybe, and a sense of humour helps it along.
The issue addressed in this thread is that although many famous photographers manipulated form through addition or montaging (e.g., Stern, Uelsmann, and Wojnarowiezto, to name a few), I don’t find much discussion of such on this forum. A notable exception is a thread on faking in photojournalism where the intent was to deceive rather than create art. Similarly, the vast preponderance of photos shown on this site and others has a ‘realistic’ rather than fictive form. So why this neglect of fictive photography in an era when digital manipulation can augment expertise? Have form and shape become ‘sacred’ (ok, the word’s used rhetorically) because of the ease of manipulation or are there other reasons?
Alain Brillion has an article on OPF in which he wrote: “To rely mainly on composition is to create an image that is contrived. We have tried so many compositions, and so many variations on compositions … that we have come close to having exhausted the subject. One now needs to rely on tone and color to bring uniqueness that enchants the viewer. One cannot simply rely on shape and arrangements.” I can buy into many details of what Alain said, but not the overall drift. It’s like saying that the romance, spy, or crime novels are exhausted or expired. Then known writers get a new angle and new ones bring a fresh outlook. Surely, imagination coupled with technical and cultural change can bring new life to old forms in photography as in other arts. So who wants to discuss this on OPF?
Mike
 

Kevin Bjorke

New member
(quoting) “To rely mainly on composition is to create an image that is contrived. We have tried so many compositions, and so many variations on compositions … that we have come close to having exhausted the subject. One now needs to rely on tone and color to bring uniqueness that enchants the viewer. One cannot simply rely on shape and arrangements.”
This was written seriously?

The assertion is that one void-content connection to formal concerns can be replaced by a different one and that somehow compelling work (okay, "enchanting" work) will result?

I hope there is some crucially-missing context that originally wrapped that statement, because frankly it's grotesque when left naked by itself.
 

Will_Perlis

New member
"because of the ease of manipulation" I'll object to "ease" if for no other reason than I don't find it at all easy, even in Photoshop. When I start doing more than removing some dust specks or the like the results almost always look silly to me.
 

Alain Briot

pro member
"To rely mainly on composition is to create an image that is contrived. We have tried so many compositions, and so many variations on compositions, as a culture that we have come close to having exhausted the subject. One now needs to rely on tone and color to bring in this uniqueness that enchants the viewer. One cannot simply rely on shapes and arrangements."

I am the one who wrote this. Briot, not "Brillion" as someone mispelled my name previously.

The context is the essay on the home page of this forum: "Seeing like a Master".

Composition isn't plot or style. The comparison with literature is in this respect inaccurate. Composition is the structure of the image. In that sense it is closer to the structure of a novel, the number of chapters, the way the story is laid out, etc.

My point is simple: composition alone is not enough to make a photograph interesting. Never was and never will. Composition is just one element of an image. Used alone, without mastery of the other elements, it results in images that are trite.

Show me a photograph made in the last few years that relies on just composition for interest and which is interesting. You need more. In landscape photography light is primordial, so is tone, color, texture, personal style, ambiance, weather, vision, etc. So is the re-creation of time and depth, two of the several elements that a camera cannot capture directly in a 2 dimmentional image.

The way some readers (see comments above) are defending composition as if it was their lover while treating my comments as if they were sacrilegious, I suggest we rename this thread "Is composition sacred".

Note that nothing in my comments asks you to stop placing composition on a pedestal. I simply suggest that the sole reliance on composition won't result in masterful work.
 

Klaus Esser

pro member
"To rely mainly on composition is to create an image that is contrived. We have tried so many compositions, and so many variations on compositions, as a culture that we have come close to having exhausted the subject. One now needs to rely on tone and color to bring in this uniqueness that enchants the viewer. One cannot simply rely on shapes and arrangements."

I am the one who wrote this. Briot, not "Brillion" as someone mispelled my name previously.

The context is the essay on the home page of this forum: "Seeing like a Master".

Composition isn't plot or style. The comparison with literature is in this respect inaccurate. Composition is the structure of the image. In that sense it is closer to the structure of a novel, the number of chapters, the way the story is laid out, etc.

My point is simple: composition alone is not enough to make a photograph interesting. Never was and never will. Composition is just one element of an image. Used alone, without mastery of the other elements, it results in images that are trite.

Show me a photograph made in the last few years that relies on just composition for interest and which is interesting. You need more. In landscape photography light is primordial, so is tone, color, texture, personal style, ambiance, weather, vision, etc. So is the re-creation of time and depth, two of the several elements that a camera cannot capture directly in a 2 dimmentional image.

The way some readers (see comments above) are defending composition as if it was their lover while treating my comments as if they were sacrilegious, I suggest we rename this thread "Is composition sacred".

Note that nothing in my comments asks you to stop placing composition on a pedestal. I simply suggest that the sole reliance on composition won't result in masterful work.

Hi Alain!

I´m with you in the most points. But there´s one trap which i see: the word "master". What could describe a "master"?
In my eyes it´s in a way obsolete to use the word "master" as it is with "rules of composition" on which many people relay still.

To "see like a master" . . you would have to be a master to judge wether somebody does "see like a master" or not. Who could dare to be this master-judge?
. . And what´s then? Does he get a certificate to stick on the wall behind his desk? With golden letters saying "Master of photographic seeing"? :)

I mean: it´s time to get rid of such things like "master" or "rules of composition".

A good photograph will always be recognized as a good photograph. And a mediocre photograph isn´t better if it was done by a "master of photography" . . .
Too much "masters" are spoiling our time with average photographs . . . .

best, Klaus
 
we all perceive different

I think Klaus has a point there and I would emphasize this for another reason.

We are all individuals, nothing exists twice, and not two persons will perceive the same picture in the exact same way.

Form and structure in art certainly brings a valid methodology along that allows us a certain amount of development and in my humble view ist best to be understood as guidelines only.

Then again, it is only an attempt to describe certain aspects of art in a particular order and may be most important of all it is a reflection of the social-economical and political aspects of it's time, a mirror of it's time so to speak.

There is a dangerous downside to all this in my view. If we accept blindfold given parameters of art and create towards this set of accepted standards, we cut ourselves in the foot and limit our freedom, and it is this freedom that is mot important in art, I am bold enough to say that without freedom of expression there is no art.

Allow me an example to illustrate my point,

Two years after it's completition, it was April 7th in the year 1805 when Ludwig van Beethoven's 3rd Symphony "EROICA" was publicly performed the very first time in Vienna. It was performed early in private at Count Lobkowitz's castle to be correct.

Ludwig's great admiration of the french revolution led him to dedicate this, most important of all symphonies ever written I might add, to Napoleon Bonaparte as he saw in him the personification of the french revolution, but after he heard about this whackjob's consecration where Bonaparte crowned himself Eporer of the French in 1804 he scratched that and called his work Sinfonia eroica, composta per festeggiare il sovvenire d'un grand'uomo, a heroic symphony composed to celebrate the memory of a great man, not Napoleon anymore, but the Ambassador of the French Republic to the Austrian Court, at that time General Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, who later became King Charles XIV of Sweden.

Eroica was longer than any symphony heard up to that time and having it at the end of a long program was too much for one concert goer to endure who yelled out, "I'll give another Kreutzer if the thing will just stop."

The "Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung" wrote on may 1st: " Now every fugal movement pleases inasmuch as it brings order out of apparent confusion. But if, as now, its coherence escapes even the most attentive ear after repeated hearings, it must appear peculiar even to the unprejudiced listener. "

Beethoven and his audience were antagonistic to eachother and he did not do well in his own town as a result, Eroica had to travel to Leipzig Gewandhausorchestra to be fully recognized as the breakthrough it was in deed.

It is a bit diffult to write about this for me without going into musical analysis, but I think I can make the following points, Ludwig broke with many traditions of established compositional rules.

He enhanced the form, introduced new harmonics never heard before in a symphony, enhanced rhythmic structures, enhanced the "coda", he went so far to compose in a way that was perceived as wrong!

I shall leave this example here, but I wish to point out that it was the audience and the very reflection of it's time that caused the negative reaction.

Beethoven thought outside of the box and in deed it is accepted by the most today that the EROICA is the most important symponical work ever created, bold, daring, challenging, breaking with tradition, it is all this and more.

More, much more, because he opened the door for following composers to explore new and undiscovered musical ground.

As aritst, it is our duty to constantly challenge the paradigmas of our given art and time, to think outside the box, and it is here that I applaude Michael for his question
But if photography is an art, shouldn’t photographers make pictures that transcend the photograph?

I would like to point out that it is the artist in the photographer who transcends the picture. His artistic and personal freedom that allows him to break with rules and traditions to discover new aspects and throw established paramters and rule over board, and to do this as a daily exercise in the very best case.

A "master" of photography may be one who mastered the technicalities of this craft, for what it's worth in craftsmenship, but it is the artist who makes this craft become more, a piece of art in it's best case.

But there is more to that usage of the word master as it is the inheritance of a structure that brings the word apprentice along.

Well, do we really need the apprentice-master structure in photgraphy/art? If one defines, thinks and lives himself as an artist he certainly has no use for this structure, it is totally superfluous.

Seeing like a master implies a wrong foundation to my humble understanding, I even think this to be inherently wrong, as we all are individuals and perceive things differently, and what is art and what is not, well, this is up to the judgement of centuries and not the audience or art critics of the time we live in.

And last but not least, to define quality of art I do not need to make use of this somewhat quaint apprentice-master structure at all, in opposite, it's purpose is a straight jacket and nothing else in my personal views as an artist.

There is no need for masters as there are only students, and sometimes teachers, being students at the same time if they are really good teachers.

I shall leave you with two quotes from Theodore Wiesengrund von Adorno that comes to mind:

Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth.... The task of art today is to bring chaos into order.

Just my 0,02 kreutzer <smiles>
 
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One last thought, a Guru, the word comes from sanskrit and refers to the spiritual master, one that mastered yoga to perfection, then again, I always had my problems with Guru's <grins> for the very reason that perfection is not a concept in this universe at all.

There is no such thing as perfection in the universe, hence there are no Masters!
 

Ray West

New member
There is no such thing as perfection in the universe, hence there are no Masters!

But everything in this universe is perfect. It is exactly as it should be, no more, no less.

Best wishes,

Ray
 

Kevin Bjorke

New member
"One now needs to rely on tone and color to bring in this uniqueness that enchants the viewer. "
My assertion is that this statement simply replaces one set of arbitrary formulas with another.

Show me a photograph made in the last few years that relies on just composition for interest and which is interesting.
Gee, I see them all the time, if I trade "relies on just" with "emphasize" -- to say "just" is a straw man, almost no photos are just a jumble of shapes (even these). How about:

33007-2552-crop-600px.jpg

Todd Deutsch just last week

theeyes03.jpg
theeyes04.jpg

two by Rinko Kawauchi

italy-arts-simon-norfolk-330x230.jpg

one of many by Simon Norfolk

I'd add works by Jeff Wall, Andrew Moore, many others (but OPF doesn't let me link more than four pics in a post!) -- even Nikki Lee, whose most recently-shown work is based upon a compositional conceit. And what about Lee Friedlander, anyway?

I have a personal theory which you can fee free to ignore, but it's this: the brain processes shape FIRST, then evaluates color/texture. They follow different neural pathways, they have different speeds and effects. Composition will always win overall, as long as the viewers are recognizably human.
 
But everything in this universe is perfect. It is exactly as it should be, no more, no less.

In the 11th century and the scholastic tradition of theological cosmology, Aquinas, may be.... but we have come a long way since haven't we?

A perfect fluid is one that is incompressible and nonviscous, this would be the ideal fluid but such does not exist in this universe.

A perfect gas would be described as a gas whose molecules do not come into interaction with each other and most of all which has no volume of their own. Non existant!

Perfectio?

Nothing is finished in Infinity.
 

Ray West

New member
Hi George,

It is a lack of understanding of the complexity or simplicity of reality that leads to convenient rules or theories, etc. As progress is made in the understanding of the nature of things, so the theories change and adapt to reflect the new understanding. So far, we are not even scratching the surface of any of this stuff.

I can think of many fluids, say, both perfect, and imperfect, according to any description of perfection that I may wish to apply. What is surprising about that? Rules and theories do not change the reality of things that exist at present, or future ones that may be created. However, they can limit and restrict the search and development of superior, but entirely different concepts. (often difficult to 'think out of the box')

The natural world exists in a mainly analogue domain. We tend to want to contain it, invent almost binary, relatively simple rules for testing compliance with our perception of reality.


Best wishes,

Ray (trying not to 'go off on one')
 
I can think of many fluids, say, both perfect, and imperfect, according to any description of perfection that I may wish to apply.

Hi Ray,

of course, you can in deed, as it is your personal perception, experience, well the whole that made you what you are today and leads you to certain views and concepts, isn't it?

However, in terms of common understanding, it would make it difficult to have any conversation, as so often happens in reality, without a common ground on certain things.

When I say there is no perfection in the universe, I do come from scientific point of view, which I tried to explain on the matter of gas and fluids, rather than my own personal perceived levels of perfection, which in deed have variants and grades.

The quest for perfection is a very human thing, there is nothing wrong with setting high standards, as long as one is aware that perfection is a human concept and is not found in nature at all, I stand to be corrected.
 

Klaus Esser

pro member
Hi George,

It is a lack of understanding of the complexity or simplicity of reality that leads to convenient rules or theories, etc. As progress is made in the understanding of the nature of things, so the theories change and adapt to reflect the new understanding. So far, we are not even scratching the surface of any of this stuff.

I can think of many fluids, say, both perfect, and imperfect, according to any description of perfection that I may wish to apply. What is surprising about that? Rules and theories do not change the reality of things that exist at present, or future ones that may be created. However, they can limit and restrict the search and development of superior, but entirely different concepts. (often difficult to 'think out of the box')

The natural world exists in a mainly analogue domain. We tend to want to contain it, invent almost binary, relatively simple rules for testing compliance with our perception of reality.


Best wishes,

Ray (trying not to 'go off on one')


Hi!

As a former Zen-adept i tend to say there is no complexity. It´s just what you make of it.
On the other hand everything is as it is and is perfect, because it is.

We project values into "perfectnes" or "mastership". Values are variable. And therefore have no meaning at all.

A good photograph is "constructed", "composed" or not. You can build up a good picture by composing it - and you can shoot a good picture be catching "the" moment. And you can make a good picture by having a good idea and if you´re able to realize this idea visually by using photography . . it maybe others realizes what you mean - or not.

The main thing is (in my view) that YOU see it as a good picture! That´s all that counts. :)

"Mastership" in photography? Or "seeing like a master"? WHAT the hell could that be? Besides of commercial interests, i mean?

best, Klaus
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Hi!

As a former Zen-adept I tend to say there is no complexity. It’s just what you make of it.
On the other hand everything is as it is and is perfect, because it is.

We project values into "perfectnes" or "mastership". Values are variable. And therefore have no meaning at all.

Values are constructs derived from compounding basic emotions mixed with histories, mythologies and intellectual experience right now and for in the future.

So while values are indeed variable there are all siblings . Commonality of aspirations and basic sense of position sense, (up and down, front and back and so forth), overrides many cultural divides.

So values, while being variable are readily recognized by each of us. We know what's going on there.

A good photograph is "constructed", "composed" or not. You can build up a good picture by composing it - and you can shoot a good picture be catching "the" moment. And you can make a good picture by having a good idea and if you’re able to realize this idea visually by using photography. . It maybe others realizes what you mean - or not.

The main thing is (in my view) that YOU see it as a good picture! That's all that counts. :)

That's what I call an "Arc of Intent", completed when at least the artist confirms that the created image evokes his/her personal vision. Everyone else, as far as I'm concerned get it or don't. Art must allow for unpopularity and satisfaction within that artists square of private thought.

"Mastership" in photography? Or "seeing like a master"? WHAT the hell could that be? Besides of commercial interests, i mean?

best, Klaus

Alain has written what I find is a valuable essay introducing the novice to the practical matter of moving from one who owns a camera and can take a properly exposed picture to someone with his or her own unique perspective and signature.

His argument is that one can take advantage of the kind of photography one admires and try to emulate so one understands what is possible and what people have recognized.

Then he advises escape from this path to find one's own. This last point is most important and could be missed.

I myself find Alain's respect for acquisition of skills and knowledge as a perfectly workable, practical and laudable approach. If you are a betting person, then that approach for someone with inherent aptitude, could really help.

In some few, especially the rebellious, it might harm. That's why we have judgment to choose which road to travel.

What path do I choose? My path is meandering and opportunistic. I learn whenever I can. I consider myself an "Unguru"; I seek better things, look for doorways to graciousness and wonder. Every butterfly diverts me. I do not seek perfection but rather to have a lantern to see ouselves and this fragile worldwe dominate. Above all I am ambitious for us to be relevant. This, by being helpful. This, despite perpetually coming short in our own standards. So I cannot present myself as a master as I'm rowing an oar , chained in the slaves' galley like you.

Asher
.
 
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Klaus Esser

pro member
Hi Asher!

"That's what I call an "Arc of Intent", completed when at least the artist confirms the image evokes his/her personal vision. Everyone else, as far as I'm concerned get it or don't. Art must allow for unpopularity and satisfaction in a personal meter square of private thought. "

That´s a Point!

btw.: i didn´t mean Alain with what i said - it´s the commercializing of the label "master" in general you can find thesedays sticking at tons of average products.

best, Klaus
 

Klaus Esser

pro member
"two by Rinko Kawauchi"

I like this kind of photography very much - it´s fast and yet accurate visualizing a fragment of time and making it a picture, not just a photography.

best, Klaus
 

Kevin Bjorke

New member
Here's one I saw just this morning, probably made within the past 36 hours:


Diff'rent strokes perhaps, but imo this shot is LOADED with texture and tone yet it's the strong angular composition that reinforces everything so powerfully. Not surprisingly, perhaps, this is a B&W shot, where form dominates with particular power.

Excessive emphasis on color and texture, imo, just leads to a lot of Arizona Highways sameness. It mistakes the sauce for the steak.

--


For the tech-minded, this was made with an M8 and a Voigtlander 28 f/1.9. B&W also avoids the 'synthetic fabrics get weird' problem that plagues that camera (and others)....
 
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Kevin Bjorke wrote: "I have a personal theory which you can fee free to ignore, but it's this: the brain processes shape FIRST, then evaluates color/texture. They follow different neural pathways, they have different speeds and effects. Composition will always win overall, as long as the viewers are recognizably human."

Kevin makes good points here. Because brains (like the rest of our bodies) are built from genes that conferred a neo-Darwinian survival advantage to those genes, it's unsurprising that perception affords primacy to shape or change in shape. Human infants smile back at a smiling face; just hatched chickens move toward a moving object (anyone remember the famous photo of goslings following Konrad Lorentz?); certain prey species become immobile upon perception of a hawk's shape; dogs stop fighting when one lies down and bares its neck. In species that change colour or texture to blend with their environment, the apparent purpose is to disguise shape from predators. It's shape that confers meaning, and creatures infer meaning to assist adaptation and survive.

Looking at a photo is similar. Viewers infer meaning mainly from form, structure, composition; call it what you will, but I like the simple term shape. An interesting photo is one with meaning, with the latter dependent on what's already inside the viewer's brain though disposition and prior learning. Except for photos with content specifically linked to colour (e.g., blood is red), colour and texture usually add more to the quality than the meaning of the photo.

Expanding on Kevin's quote, I suspect the photos that interest a viewer most are those that challenge or confirm beliefs/attitudes/feelings about the content photographed. The examples in Kevin's posts made me pause and search for meaning. What is happening or happened? Who is that lady in the last post? Georg Baumann's photos elsewhere on this site made me homesick for Newfoundland (my home for 20 years) even though I've never been to Ireland. I gave a talk recently that contained a Victorian era photo of an infant apparently asleep. The audience were only mildly interested in it until I explained the custom in some bereaved Victorian families to have a portrait taken of their deceased child; the photo shown was one of those. Several in the audience cried.

So my 2-cents worth is that interesting photos are those that stimulate a viewer to extract meaning and that novelty in shape/composition, whatever, is primary but not inclusive toward this end. Hence my interest in the (to my mind) unrealized potential of the fictive aspects of photography in art.
 
Hello Michael,

I hope I did not induce a dose too heavy of homesickness. My favorite dog breed originates from your home, but with a heavy heart I chose against a "Neufi" because of the inherent problems in the breed, they are not reaching a high age at all, none ofd the giant breeds do, and illness is very often striking in early years, hence I sticked with what I had all my life, shepherds.

Ops, sorry, here I am talking about dogs again. <grins>

Your points are very interesting and I'd sign that, and yes, but of course I do remember those K. Lorentz pictures and many others, just as if I saw them just yesterday! He was one of my favorite authors when I started to read more serious stuff as a teenager. I would like to think his probably most influencal and important work was achieved in his position as director of the Max Planck Institute for behaviour physiology and in the field of animal sociology in Seewiesen, germany.

Actuallt, thinking of shapes and structures and habits of visualization, you know what I wonder?

In my years of training AiKiDo and other martial arts, I was in somewhat close contact with the Japanese culture and lifestyle, and actually, thinking of it, they do "read" pictures differently. The chinese most likely as well.

I suspect the photos that interest a viewer most are those that challenge or confirm beliefs/attitudes/feelings about the content photographed.

The amount of picture sale of this latest bavarian pope Ratzinger, especially here in Ireland is on a level that I would be very happy if I make 2 % of that per annum. <grins> Then again, you are right, not all of them will be that successful, it depends.... Should shape be sacred?.... I don't know.... ahem.... <grins>

paparazti.jpg
 
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Thanks Ray, I hadn't seen those nicely done pictures before. Georg, culture and disposition affect perception of two-dimensional images in strange ways. Dogs, for example, fail to react to pictures of familiar people or objects, or even mirror images of themselves. For whatever inbuilt reason, they fail to translate a 2-dimensional representation into a 3-dimensional reality. I seem to remember reading of an anthropologist who reported something similar about the initial responses to a movie by members of an indian tribe without previous exposure to westerners and their art, but perhaps I'm mistaken about this. Anyway, I loved the Pope picture. The image below is a factual (not fictive) representation of our similar needs during snowed-in winters in northern Canada :) I've no idea who the photographer was.

Canadian_Distress_Signal.jpg
 

Alain Briot

pro member
Hi Asher!

"...the artist confirms the image evokes his/her personal vision. Everyone else, as far as I'm concerned get it or don't. Art must allow for unpopularity and satisfaction in a personal meter square of private thought. "

Exactly. My work, be it photographs or writings, is art. To some it brings satisfaction and learning. To others it is unpopular.

I welcome both praise and criticism. I am obviously not out to please everyone. Cutting edge work by definition involves polarization of the audience. What matters most is for my audience to takes a stance, to have an opinion about my work.

I think this is happening here :)
 
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