No art here

I have huge issues with this place.
I can never find an appropriate place to post my photos.
I took up art once. Even called myself an artist. It only lasted a week. I look silly in a kafkan.
I can't go anywhere near the technical stuff. Doug keeps throwing logarithms at me.
Nude is out. I keep looking for a nude on a rock. I live in hope.
So, I keep shifting around like a browser in a book shop, hoping to find a category I can relate to. Religion is a no go zone. Ethnic minorities are interesting. Unfortunately my political correctness needs sharpening.
Meanwhile, I'll just post away.

Very Japanesy, don't you think.


This one is more your Art Deco sort of thing.


A touch of Minimalism, maybe.

Tom dinning said:

…………………..
Nude is out. I keep looking for a nude on a rock. I live in hope.

Click to expand...

I like all three. The center image we say as part of one of the street scenes recently. Looks like you found your nude, Tom and she smokes!

Asher

Tom dinning said:

I have huge issues with this place.
I can never find an appropriate place to post my photos.

Click to expand...

Hi Tom,

It's part of the experience, having to think about what it is you are trying to convey ...

This forum seems just fine for your high quality of work, I like them a lot (even in Black and White, which helps with the abstraction from reality and reduces to shapes, light, and shadow).

Cheers,
Bart

Tom,

Naming oneself as an artist is separate from the value of the work one makes. I happen to believe you work is indeed art and worth collecting if you set yourself up for that.

Your work could sell itself! It's a matter of selecting collections that work together. But you know that better than I do!

Asher

Tom dinning said:

I took up art once. Even called myself an artist. It only lasted a week. I look silly in a kafkan.

Click to expand...

Maybe you should move to Munich. I went to an art fair last week-end and it appeared that all what is needed to disguise oneself as an artist is to wear some kind of "alternative" hat. Maybe you could to that.

There was also a conference on art collecting from the point of view of the seller. It was interesting and I could write a summary, but I would not know in which section to post it either.

Jerome Marot said:

Maybe you should move to Munich. I went to an art fair last week-end and it appeared that all what is needed to disguise oneself as an artist is to wear some kind of "alternative" hat. Maybe you could to that.

Click to expand...

I hope you managed to get some snaps of the denizens!

Jerome Marot said:

There was also a conference on art collecting from the point of view of the seller. It was interesting and I could write a summary, but I would not know in which section to post it either.

Click to expand...

Just post it, LOL! I'd love to know. Your summary would be most helpful.

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

I hope you managed to get some snaps of the denizens!

Click to expand...

I am sorry I did not.

Just post it, LOL! I'd love to know. Your summary would be most helpful.

Click to expand...

I am not sure you will like it. Are you an art collector? The description of their "market", i.e. art collectors, was not exactly flattering.

Bart_van_der_Wolf said:

Hi Tom,

It's part of the experience, having to think about what it is you are trying to convey ...

This forum seems just fine for your high quality of work, I like them a lot (even in Black and White, which helps with the abstraction from reality and reduces to shapes, light, and shadow).

Cheers,
Bart

Click to expand...

"..... even in black and white ..." Bart, what are you trying to tell me?
I need all the help I can get to assure my abstraction from reality. It's not safe out there.
I'm thinking at the moment that each photo is a piece of a jigsaw. Each piece is from a different puzzle and all I have is one piece from each puzzle. All I am left to do is fill in the blanks until I get to the edge. It also means each piece has a greater value than the whole, since I have no idea what the whole looks like. Then I can see what I want in the bit in my hand. The photo has its own feel of reality but not beyond the physical dimensions and its ability to reflect light (or transmit it, in the case of my computer). It can be, to anyone, anything they want it to be. Whether it is "reduced" or not is contemplative in itself. Seeing shapes, light and shadow or dreaming of another time is the same. It adds another dimension to the physical. The photo is the same for everyone. What we see is not. Everyone ADDS to the photo they look at; if they choose to.

Grace in form is everywhere. Don't ignore it.

When forms are transient, when is the right moment?

Tom dinning said:

It adds another dimension to the physical. The photo is the same for everyone. What we see is not. Everyone ADDS to the photo they look at; if they choose to.

Click to expand...

Tom,

That's how we evaluate and judge people we come across. We assign to them values that come from inside our universe and paste on them a bunch of stick'ems which we then rarely take off. That's why the "first impression" lasts. However, likely as not it's mostly a projection of our own expediencies, and we bering that sort of imperfect judgment to the photograph. So if we hear that Annie Liebovitz or Robert Capa made the picture, we work out why everything that we didn't "get" is really valid for us, as we want to belong to the strata of folk that admire important photographers. It doesn't matter that your collection of views from your "peephole" or "window" to the world neatly fit into one coherent body. I'm too busy enjoying pictures, one at a time and that idea of "jigsaw puzzles" works for your work.

The commonality may well be that each is one isolated lone piece of yet another jigsaw puzzle and that isolation and questioning of connections in every direction, is your voice, almost the voice of an orphan. "What is this and what is it related to? Better put, "Who am I and what is my own significance to anything?"

I put that in red as is this my current lens through which I'll view and enjoy your work and not expect things to fit into neat series or collections, at least not for the near future. Of course, I must also be projecting my ideas on to you and also your photography and I take that into account to be prepared to have to rethink this all as more pictures get before us.

Thanks for sharing and challenging us all!

Asher

Hi, Tom,

Tom dinning said:

_DSC7833 by thedingo0099, on Flickr​

Click to expand...

These markings are great - saved my life the first time I went to Oz.

And after two weeks there, when I got back to Dallas, the first time I went downtown I almost got killed! Bloody bus came at me from the left!

Thanks for the great shots.

Best regards,

Doug

Doug Kerr said:

Hi, Tom,


These markings are great - saved my life the first time I went to Oz.

And after two weeks there, when I got back to Dallas, the first time I went downtown I almost got killed! Bloody bus came at me from the left!

Thanks for the great shots.

Best regards,

Doug

Click to expand...

I hadn't thought of that, Doug. I didn't know we were saving the lives of tourists. I do remember hiring a car in the UK and pulling out of the garage right in front of an on-coming truck. I believe we both shat ourselves simultaneously.
I hope people were nice to you while you were here.
Tom

Please, Asher, not that "who am I" bullshit. I'm eating. Bloody philosophers have a lot to answer for. All those self help books for a start. Probably religion as well. And the greeks. Look where it got them.
Whenever I go anywhere near that stuff, Christine places me firmly on the ground
"You're the bloke who's about to vacuum the floor. Now get on with it before some coroner is looking over your corpse asking the same question of you. Except in past tense".
No time for philosophy here. A woman is firmly in charge.

Tom

Asher Kelman said:

Tom,

That's how we evaluate and judge people we come across. We assign to them values that come from inside our universe and paste on them a bunch of stick'ems which we then rarely take off. That's why the "first impression" lasts. However, likely as not it's mostly a projection of our own expediencies, and we bering that sort of imperfect judgment to the photograph. So if we hear that Annie Liebovitz or Robert Capa made the picture, we work out why everything that we didn't "get" is really valid for us, as we want to belong to the strata of folk that admire important photographers. It doesn't matter that your collection of views from your "peephole" or "window" to the world neatly fit into one coherent body. I'm too busy enjoying pictures, one at a time and that idea of "jigsaw puzzles" works for your work.

The commonality may well be that each is one isolated lone piece of yet another jigsaw puzzle and that isolation and questioning of connections in every direction, is your voice, almost the voice of an orphan. "What is this and what is it related to? Better put, "Who am I and what is my own significance to anything?"

I put that in red as is this my current lens through which I'll view and enjoy your work and not expect things to fit into neat series or collections, at least not for the near future. Of course, I must also be projecting my ideas on to you and also your photography and I take that into account to be prepared to have to rethink this all as more pictures get before us.

Thanks for sharing and challenging us all!

Asher

Click to expand...

Hi, Tom,

Tom dinning said:

I hadn't thought of that, Doug. I didn't know we were saving the lives of tourists. I do remember hiring a car in the UK and pulling out of the garage right in front of an on-coming truck. I believe we both shat ourselves simultaneously.
I hope people were nice to you while you were here.

Click to expand...

Yes, very nice.

It was in Melbourne, in 1986. I was doing a seminar on satellite communications for the telecom authority (whatever it was called then). It was held in some university.

I very much enjoyed the visit.

I would ride the tram home each evening after the session to the motel (wherever that was). It seemed that the tram run I caught always had the same crew, and the conductor asked me every evening how class went that day.

Sometime in the 90s my late first wife and I took a commercial tour in Oz, including visits to Sydney, Melbourne, and Cairns (among other things). We also went to a couple of places in NZ (including Christchurch).

I would like for Carla and I to visit Oz.

Best regards,

Doug

Its Telstra and it was probably Monash Uni or MIT.
You and Carla should come. If, for some strange reason that only you could fathom, you turn up in Darwin, it would be my pleasure to show you around. Just don't talk like you write in this place. I have standards to uphold with my friends.
Darwin doesn't have a lot to offer, unfortunately, for the world traveller. We have two sorts of weather: hot and ****ing hot. We have two sorts of precipitation: rain and pissing down. We have one sort of social etiquette: punch up. We have no public transport, a failing utility service, cowboys for politicians and women for cowboys. Every male owns a bit bull, a shot gun, a ute, a sheila. We have the highest rate of drinking in the country, the highest suicide among indigenous men, the highest wages for trades people, the smallest university, the highest speed limit and the greatest number of fatalities on the road per capita. It is 1/5th of the continent and has less than 300 000 people in it. Most of it is flat desert. The homesteads are mostly bigger than European countries. Everything is poisonous or bites or both.
I could go on but I don't want the picture to look too rosy.
I'm only here because Christine is. If she gets bitten by a King Brown snake tomorrow I'd be out of here before the sun set.
King Brown snakes are quite abundant, by the way. They are one of the more bite and poisonous ones.

Doug Kerr said:

Hi, Tom,


Yes, very nice.

It was in Melbourne, in 1986. I was doing a seminar on satellite communications for the telecom authority (whatever it was called then). It was held in some university.

I very much enjoyed the visit.

I would ride the tram home each evening after the session to the motel (wherever that was). It seemed that the tram run I caught always had the same crew, and the conductor asked me every evening how class went that day.

Sometime in the 90s my late first wife and I took a commercial tour in Oz, including visits to Sydney, Melbourne, and Cairns (among other things). We also went to a couple of places in NZ (including Christchurch).

I would like for Carla and I to visit Oz.

Best regards,

Doug

Click to expand...

Hi Tom,

great to see you back. We missed your seriousness and level headedness, everyone else around here is/are a bunch of loonies.

and Darwin is a frickin' awesome place to visit.
I was there in 84, loved every minute of it (but did run screaming to the hills after 3 months). Ran to North Queensland, equally beautiful and nearly as crazy.

Keep the shots coming, they're all good!

Andy brown said:

Hi Tom,

great to see you back. We missed your seriousness and level headedness, everyone else around here is/are a bunch of loonies.

and Darwin is a frickin' awesome place to visit.
I was there in 84, loved every minute of it (but did run screaming to the hills after 3 months). Ran to North Queensland, equally beautiful and nearly as crazy.

Keep the shots coming, they're all good!

Click to expand...

Hi Andy. You still here? Thought they might have shot you. Nice to hear from you. Whatcha doin?

Tom, I'm burning the midnight oil watching rage and tryin' to stay warm, had the fire going here for a month already.
By local standards, it's not that cold but it's a drafty wooden house and we're all tropical at heart so all winter long we dream of our escape to the pacific ( well further north and east in the Pacific anyway).
I'm either chopping wood, catching fish, working, cooking or playing online bloody scrabble and not really taking many photos.
Looking at your images I'm often reminded of (and I'm gonna spit this out whilst you're currently active on the forum just in case you get sin binned or go walkabout as you are prone to do)... where was I ?...yeah, reminded of some wonderful Aussie photographers, you know, Peter Jarver, not just 'cos you're in the territory but with the way you can convey the drama of a landscape, Max and Rex Dupain, even Rennie Ellis with your stark and punchy urban/cityscapes and the way you can expose parts of the culture that others can sort of feel but not quite pinpoint. You pinpoint it all so easily. Take your big pin and just go whack!
There ya go, bit of admiration now back the vacuuming.

Met some folk from Darwin a month or so ago, was instantly transported to my exploits at Nightcliffe, Lims, Larrakeya lodge etc, etc. from 30 years ago.

Did everyone visit Darwin in the 80s and never return?
Keep warm, Andy. Add some fine single malt to the recipe. You won't matter how cold it gets.