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This blog is intended to showcase my pictures or those of other photographers who have moved beyond the pretty picture and for whom photography is more than entertainment - photography that aims at being true, not at being beautiful because what is true is most often beautiful..

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Entries in intimate/personal space (3)

Saturday
Jan242009

intimate/personal space #3 - where I sometimes sit and ponder

1044757-2412077-thumbnail.jpg
Bathroom #1click to embiggen
While making my list and checking it twice, it occurred to me that I had better get this one done PDQ. The purple toilet is about to go the way of the dodo bird - maybe even today.

With this picture fast on the heels of purple couch, green throw, and a remote and in order to maintain and enhance my public image of savoir faire and good taste, I feel it necessary to point out that we are not purple people. While it is true that we did pick the purple couch, the complete suite of purple bathroom fixtures - toilet, sink, tub - came with the house. We replaced the tub a number of years ago, the toilet is next with the sink soon to follow.

FYI, this is a 100% found picture.

Friday
Jan232009

intimate/personal space #2 ~ it's a process

1044757-2407724-thumbnail.jpg
Purple couch, green throw, and a remoteclick to embiggen
Unlike yesterday's intimate/personal space picture, purple couch is a constructed picture.

bed #1 was an untouched found picture - no artificial favors added. purple couch was a result of thinking about what might constitute an intimate/personal space as opposed to looking for one. At this point in the proceedings, I suspect that the series will be comprised of a mixture of found and constructed scenes as well as a few that are found with a little bit of constructed added.

To that end I have begun to make a list of potential intimate/personal spaces. The list will serve 2 purposes; 1) a simple reminder of scenes for which to be on the lookout, and, 2) not finding same, constructing them.

As mentioned, one of the primary driving forces behind this activity is the desire to make more person-oriented pictures. IMO, making these pictures without a person in them leaves the viewers of the pictures with many more options and possibilities available to them in reading the pictures - much more open to interpretation and added meaning(s), much more ground for emotional and intellectual movement.

In addition to the aforementioned desire, another strong motivator is the desire to make constructed pictures. The bulk of my professional picture-making life was spent constructing pictures. Constructing scenes - small to large, simple to elaborate, still-life to people - for the purpose of creating a specific impression of one kind or another in the viewer's mind and emotions.

To state it simply, I really liked doing it and I really miss doing it. So, one way or another, I'm going to keep doing it.

Question: I know that I have asked before but I'll ask again - have any of you constructed any pictures? If not, any desire to do so?

PS yesterday's diptych was 500×1000 pixels, today's is 600×1200 pixels. I prefer the larger presentation but that said, it fits nicely on my screen. Any problems with anyone with the bigger size?

Thursday
Jan222009

intimate/personal space #1 ~ messy intimacy

1044757-2404463-thumbnail.jpg
Bed #1click to embiggen
A few days ago I was visually attracted to my bed. There was something about the disorder that made me think of quite a number of things - comfort, warmth, intimacy, rest, rejuvenation, just to name a few of the sensations that suggested themselves to me by way of the rumpled bed. I can't say that all of those feelings / sensations were apparent to me at the time but they are now, now that I have pictured the scene and looked at the pictures.

Looking at the pictures and letting myself get sucked into the sensations caused me to think that a series might be possible - hence, intimate/personal spaces.

So, I started wandering around the house looking for the kind of spaces that seemed at first glance to arouse visual and intuitive experiences that were similar to the rumbled bed picture. I made a fair number of pictures and they all turned out to be total failures except for one. I'll present that one in tomorrow's entry.

What that second successful picture made clear to me was that I was confusing "messy" with "intimate". In the bed picture, the bed was messy and I realized that it was the "mess" that suggested a human presence which led to thoughts of intimacy and warmth - unlike my unsuccessful pictures of the total train-wreck mess in the teenage girl's room.

That mess seemed like it would be ripe for the picking but all it/I produced was pictures of a mess. There was no intimacy, no warmth, no comfort, no nothing like any of that. It was just a mess. One could certainly assume human activity of some kind was associated with the mess but that was not the kind of human presence I am after.

In any event, one of the prime motivators driving this series is the desire to get a lttle more person oriented, a little more intimate and little less distant with my subject than I have been with most of my previous stuff (with which I will continue).

FYI - I see this as a series of diptychs.