Wednesday, November 14

Spoleto 3

<-Clck here
Have y'ever noticed how music, poetry, novels, films - and so many art forms have one thing in common. The author determines how the idea and feelings will unfold for the audience. You start at the beginning, and unless you leave, you end at the end. The entire work is made senseless if you skip about. But with still photography, it's the viewer who's in control. She can linger as long as he wants (see how I satisfied the political correctness police with that last sentence?).

But I digress.

In so many art forms the artist creates a time flow. But still photographers freeze an instant that happened so quickly that no one could be aware. The human mind does not process ideas as quickly as our cameras do. In fact I can sieze a group of moments each wrenched from different times and sites. And I can combine them all at once. In one place like I've done here. I can do it so that they compliment one another in communicating what I feel or think about a person, a fact, a place, or presence. And the viewer can take over from there, pulling out a meaning that he sees or she feels. Photographs empower not only the photographer, but the viewer. Cool, eh?

1 comment:

Andreas said...

I love the one down in the middle above "Spoleto Streets" :)

And then there is the upmost. I love it for a completely different reason, a reason that may be utterly meaningless to everyone bot me. I reminds me of a level in a computer game. The game is "Severance - Blade Of Darkness", a game developed by a Spanish studio called Rebel Act, a studio that produced one of the best Fantasy games ever, and that did not survive this success.

This game was unique. It had a very complicated and unusual control system, and without training it was impossible to complete the game. On the other hand, once you really dug into the game, it became addictive like no other.

True connaisseurs loved the game, but of course on the mass market it was a failure. Everything that's not instantly digestible fails. That's the sad truth. Commercial success is determined by how something pleases the masses. Call me elitist, but I don't believe in the masses.

Anyway, I have never known anything about Spoleto before your series of posts, and now I am interested to go there. Do you need any better indication of success?