Friday, November 9

Lucky Blunders? Lucky Blunderers?

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Yesterday's posting attracted a bunch of email. No, not posted comments, but email. I don't know why so often my postings provoke many of you to send stuff to my mail box instead of making open posts, but hey, who cares? It's all nice to get. The general theme of the messages I got are summed up in this statement from a very nice lady who wrote, "Photographers take life out of context, Ted. We commit reality in the second degree by creating a duplicate of the world, or maybe even a duplicate world which (and you are very good at this) might be a world that may only exists in our images at first - but soon exist for every visitor to those images. And it is made so much larger and powerful when it is a world that is presented in parts which vistors or viewers of our work have to sew together in their imaginations - or their exploration of ours."

Wow! Why didn't I say that?

Look at this statue I found in a courtyard of the Papal Museum in Rome. It is a part of a great space. It is obviously ancient and created in the Greek tradition. It is set off not by the reality of the lighting or the surroundings, but by the way I imagine they should set it off. Was it a lucky blunder that I came across this thing in my lens? Are art photographers serial blunderers? Or have I, as I hope, conveyed a message I see here from times past? Have I turned a reality into a relic, or maybe vice versa. No... no... like most art photographers, I am impatient with reality. Someone plucked this statue from wherever its creator intended it to be. I plucked it from its present reality giving you only a hint about the details of its foster home.

Sometimes I think that we are only miners in a vast quarry. If that's so, look what I unstuck from its mooring - again.

5 comments:

Chad Oneil Myers said...

Great composition, Ted.

I like what you said about me experimenting a lot. I know you do all the time ;)

Debra Trean said...

I get emails too rather than an open comments often too but it is all good. I suppose some folks just feel more comfortable with emails. :)

I am sure you stir others minds as much as you do mine.

Eric said...

I may be enjoying your trip as much as you did! The quote from the nice lady made me smile tonight.

mcmurma said...

I really like this image. Partly because it makes such a strong presentation on form alone... I mean look at the ways in which the curves and straight lines all play together to make the most of this composition! But I also like the subtle color and the way it doesn't get in the way of the forms. It accents them, but it doesn't get in the way.

Andreas said...

Yes, this is pretty perfect.

Quarries. Yes, Italy very literally more so than most countries, and Rome more so than other places in Italy. It's absolutely amazing how parts of old palaces were used in middle age fortresses, renaissance houses, baroque churches, and how this goes on and on.

On the minus side, that's the reason why Rome still has only two Underground lines. Digging tunnels in such a city is an archeologist's dream and an engineer's nightmare :)