civilized ku # 3085 / diptych # 213 ~ black and white and red all over
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red coat ~ Manhattan, NYC, NY • click to embiggen
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reds and neutrals ~ Manhattan, NYC, NY / Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
And conversely, when my pictures are viewed, the highest compliment / comment that I like to hear is, I don't know why I like this picture, but I do. Most often that statement is made by a viewer who is puzzled by his/her appreciation of a why'd-you-make-a-picture-of-that? picture. And that statement is often followed by another - I would never have taken a picture of that. Hence, the confusion. I believe I know the appropriate reply to both statements although I always hesitate to provide such information to a bewildered viewer of my pictures for fear of the explanation being perceived as an insult .... ... iMo (and experience), I feel confident in writing that the appreciation / "like" of a I-would-never-have-taken-a-picture-of-that picture is rooted more in the subconscious mind, rather than in the conscious mind, of the viewer. What they are responding to on a subconscious level is the rhyme and rhythm (concordant or discordant / pleasing or unsettling) of the relationships of shapes, tones, color (most prominent amongst other picture qualities) and their framing as presented on the 2-dimension surface of the print. Because this is a non conscious thought on the viewer's radar, the puzzlement is the result of liking a picture of what they would consider to be a non picture-worthy referent. Therein lies the dilemma for most picture makers who attempt, in many cases unsuccessfully, to make pictures of I-would-never-have-taken-a-picture-of-that referents. What they lack in the attempt is a sense - the more refined the better - of the relationships of shapes, tones, color (most prominent amongst other picture qualities) and their framing as seen by the camera's eye and subsequently presented on the 2-dimension surface of the print.
Reader Comments (2)
Timely, Mark and greetings. I sometimes get, "I never would have thought to photograph it that way", or similar.
"like"