Challenge "Interpret a Self-Portrait". Can we embed his thoughts in his image!

[James Newman]

Challenge "Interpret a Self-Portrait". Can we embed his thoughts in his image!

Here's an editor's note! Well, this thread started out just as a sharing of a self-portrait. I saw the colored eyes and wondered but it was something I put aside for the moment. Then Cem drew attention to it and I asked about other versions. When I see the different images and realize the evoke different spreads of response, it seemed worthwhile to have other brave souls have a go too. James agreed, so now we are repurposing the thread as an editing and artistic challenge. Reread James' ideas that he aims to express. We have his intent. Now can we help engrave this in a 2 dimensional image. Be brave and give this a good try! Asher

I remember when I was very young, perhaps 5 or 6 years old, and I just could not wait until I turned 10. I wanted a double digit age. I was tired of being little. It seemed like forever and I thought that day would never come. Time basically stood still in my mind. But alas, that day did come. Now every time I blink it seems like another year has come and gone. That awful birthday is coming up again now next month and I am not excited.

This is one image that I came up with tonight while messing about with my new lighting stuff, that pretty much sums up my feelings about growing older. I am not very happy about it. I look weathered and tired because I am weathered and tired. I can see a lot of pain and misery in my own old eyes. I think about all of the happy and wonderful events in my life too. I think how I unfortunately, did not relish, enjoy, and appreciate them enough while they were happening. I am sad because I can not go back and make the most of them now. I missed my chance with them. Now I just have to figure out how to make the most of what's left.
Man will I be glad when my wife gets home.

 

[Asher Kelman]

James,

I printed out your post. My wife wanted to know why it had to use up paper on our brother Laser Printer. I am insisting this is a must reading for the family and friends. Someone, an elderly lady who was a renter for some years in our home in London, shared with me an aphorism that "Youth is wasted on the young!"

Your picture and comments says the same but in a personal way that is perhaps more powerful. Yes I wonder, would I appreciate what you have shown and shared if I had not already pondered this for so long now?

Asher

 

[Asher Kelman]

Another issue, James!

The style and execution. I do like the pose and what is presented. The dark hair versus the grey finely shown well groomed but inherently wild beard is in itself a metaphor for how humans ritually camouflage their inner self from others and even ourselves.

I wonder whether you might be willing to share with us the previous versions, starting with color and then all B&W to see how the presentation might alter the underlying ideas and feeling transmitted and evoked.

Asher

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

I remember when I was very young, perhaps 5 or 6 years old, and I just could not wait until I turned 10. I wanted a double digit age. I was tired of being little. It seemed like forever and I thought that day would never come. Time basically stood still in my mind. But alas, that day did come. Now every time I blink it seems like another year has come and gone. That awful birthday is coming up again now next month and I am not excited.

This is one image that I came up with tonight while messing about with my new lighting stuff, that pretty much sums up my feelings about growing older. I am not very happy about it. I look weathered and tired because I am weathered and tired. I can see a lot of pain and misery in my own old eyes. I think about all of the happy and wonderful events in my life too. I think how I unfortunately, did not relish, enjoy, and appreciate them enough while they were happening. I am sad because I can not go back and make the most of them now. I missed my chance with them. Now I just have to figure out how to make the most of what's left.
Man will I be glad when my wife gets home.

Hi James.

These are some serious musings, unfortunately very recognisable to me.
If all that wisdom in the world is right, then you should stop worrying about the missed chances from the past and also about whether you'll make the most of tomorrow or not. Because you won't unless you only live the moment and enjoy it while at it. Mind you: despite my advice I suck at it, too ;-).

BTW, has your wife been away for long or something?

Cheers,

Cem

PS: I like the portrait, dump the color trick though.

 

[Asher Kelman]

H I like the portrait, dump the color trick though.

Cem,

I wondered about the colored eyes too and that's why I was thinking about other versions. It's like Rachel's recent portrait, (were the framing and almost dirty extra space upsets me) but then does that in itself add to the general "unease" of the portrait and might that in fact make a useful even valuable contribution?

Asher

 

[janet Smith]

These are some serious musings, unfortunately very recognisable to me.
If all that wisdom in the world is right, then you should stop worrying about the missed chances from the past and also about whether you'll make the most of tomorrow or not. Because you won't unless you only live the moment and enjoy it while at it.

Just a couple of quotes from my dear old dad who I miss terribly.

"Remember, it's a good day if you wake up breathing on a morning"

and "look for the good, the bad's too easy to see"

These thoughts of his often play through my mind, he was such a lovely man......

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

"Remember, it's a good day if you wake up breathing on a morning"

Janet this phrase so good, I can't resist having some fun with if you don't mind me doing so

Logic follows: If you wake up not breathing on a morning, then it is a bad day.
Further: Monday's are bad days.
Therefore: We are zombies on Mondays.

LOL!

Cheers,

Cem

 

[janet Smith]

Yeah Cem, my Dad would have loved your logic, he had a wicked sense of humour, you play with it all you like!!

 

[James Newman]

First of all, I want to say thank you to all of you that bothered looking and saw enough or felt enough of something to even respond. That was very nice of you. I could write volumes, and shall someday, that would give you a much better understanding of how I ended up where I currently am today. Everyone has problems. Everyone has demons. Mine happen to be the kind that will go years and years without showing themselves but when they do, they reek havoc. I have spent so much of my life and so much valuable energy just trying to keep them at bay that I finally reach a point where I can't do it anymore and things just pour out all around and over me all at once. I have always been very good at doing whatever it took not to feel and not to even think. It has been a survival tool that enabled me to get where I am now. Without that ability I would have been a goner long ago. Now however, I find myself needing to feel and needing to think and sometimes it gets a bit overwhelming. Trying to change habits that took years and years to form is very difficult indeed.

My entry into the world of photography has really helped me think and feel again. It's good usually but sometimes it's very painful at the same time. Growing can be painful. I spent a day recently taking photographs of a friend's young children. It was a great and wonderfully fun day for me. Being around them brought back a lot of memories of my own children when they were that age. It hurt though too because it also reminded me how I have not seen my own children in over 20 years. I have a grandaughter that I have never been able to see and probably never will. My children are 33 and 35 now and I still see them as 13 and 15 because the only thing I have are the old photographs of them that I came away with.They have been angry at me since me and their mom got divorced and I really don't see that ever changing. I spend a lot of energy trying not to think about it.

I also did an engagement shoot recently of a beautiful young couple just starting out on their journey through life together. It was so refreshing to see the joy and wonder and love in their eyes. I saw myself in him. I remembered feeling that way and thinking I knew it all and had the world on a string. It's not until now, when I'm getting old and grey, that I realize I didn't really know anything or have anything, but that was one of the happiest times I can remember.

Now I have a wonderful new wife, Jennie, who is my rock and my strength. No Cem, she has not been away a long time. She was only out on a business dinner. I had seen her that morning before we both set out to work. It's just that I need her so badly when I get home, just to see her smile, hear her say hello, or just give me a big hug, that when she is not there to do that, even for only a few hours, it sometimes feels like years. I am so lucky to have found this woman. I have to remind myself that it's really happening to me. I never ever thought that it would happen for me again. Before I met her I was wandering through life like a zombie. My motto was I didn't want to live one more day than was absolutely necessary. Thanks to her, my motto has changed. But I still get blue at times. Yesterday was really one of those days.

OK I have gone on enough. If you actually read all of that I congratulate you. I actually feel better myself having just written it. It's funny how that works sometimes. As for the portrait, I will post the color version and the black and white without the eye color. I like the eye color though because to me it portrays they idea that no matter how dark things seem or how low I might feel, I can still see color in the world if I look hard enough and in the right places. To each his own. That is another thing I find so wonderful about creating things. You can make it however you want. The color version I was not too happy with. I am not quite sure why that is. I just didn't like it. That is why I did the black and white conversion in the first place. Give me your thoughts and ideas. I know they could be much better. I don't like the shiney places on my face but I am not proficient enough in PS yet to get rid of them. I will keep working on that.
Thank you
James

 

[Asher Kelman]

James,

This experience of not being able to rewind the clock and set thing right or do things different or even appreciate what it was then is a common feeling we all share. For this reason, your descriptions of your own experience resonates with all of us. "Could have, would have should have!" is something that goes through out heads but we can do nothing about it like we cannot ask a cloud to pause over our house and linger.

Asher

 

[Asher Kelman]

OK, here's a challenge, let's see how these original files can be processed and re-interpreted.
The idea is to reread James' thought on this picture and his current idea on how we have to live with what was decided way back.

Download the original file here .

Show your interpretations with no limits except.......... Good luck!

Asher

 

[Georg R. Baumann]

Asher,

I can not access/download from you link.

James,

I think, the internet is insufficient to transport a truly personal and meaningful in depth response to your writing, I'll try nevertheless.

It is often a good thing to change the circumstances for a while and see something new. I guess what I am suggesting, if this is possible for you to do, is to make a little journey for a while, I would suggest to chose some place where you have never been before and always wanted to be.

Of course, I can only speak of my own experience, anything else would be unethical, so I will say this, the first step towards getting rid of this pain and to send those bloody ****ing useless demons a dismissal without notice is to forgive yourself, only then you can forgive others, and subconsequently let go of the past and live in the now again.

Hence, when the burden of the past bogs you down, a journey is a useful thing in deed, to allow you to be exposed to something new, it helps.

A selfportrait of the more unusual kind you shared, not only a picture, but so much more. Thank you for that!

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

...I can not access/download from you link.

Yup, the URL is wrong. Look at the address bar in your browser. It goes like this:
link:%20http://download.yousendit.com/70CA88ED482838E7, it should have started from http...

The correct link is HERE.

Cheers,

Cem

 

[janet Smith]

Hi James

I just wanted to say that I hope you're feeling better today, and that your difficult days are few, it's good that you've found new friends and a new interest here at OPF......

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

Here's how I see James right now...

James, what do you think? I got rid of your looking implements anyway .

Cheers,

Cem

 

[Asher Kelman]

Cem,

Your version already clarifies the matter, since now James comes from where he is now and the hard past, the previously too well defined b.g. is more vague and that is better. Good job.

Asher

Georg,

On the power of this here what we are doing:

James,

I think, the internet is insufficient to transport a truly personal and meaningful in depth response to your writing, I'll try nevertheless..........

It may in fact be up to the task. We are already moved and the combination of the picture and writing as self-portrait does and can carry the feelings and thoughts that motivate the exchange because it is so common to all of us. The contact and offering evokes in us what we all have faced one way or another, the one-way march of time, wherein one can only use tokens of what was to reall what could have been.

Of course, I can only speak of my own experience, anything else would be unethical, so I will say this, the first step towards getting rid of this pain and to send those bloody ****ing useless demons a dismissal without notice is to forgive yourself, only then you can forgive others, and subconsequently let go of the past and live in the now again.

The demons cannot be dismissed but only devalued and diminished. To do more denies the very road one has travelled on.

What is required now, however, is for our eyes to see what other things one can do now to make up, in part for what one has left behind.

Hence, when the burden of the past bogs you down, a journey is a useful thing in deed, to allow you to be exposed to something new, it helps.

I say we are already on this new journey, here, in this thread. This is a private public meeting among friends.

A selfportrait of the more unusual kind you shared, not only a picture, but so much more. Thank you for that!

I agree, Georg, we have all been made to recapitulate the missed moments. I know for myself, I cannot undo what I did wrong. The ghost stand back when we do better things with our current challenges and opportunities.

Asher

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

First of all, I want to say thank you to all of you that bothered looking and saw enough or felt enough of something to even respond. That was very nice of you. I could write volumes, and shall someday, that would give you a much better understanding of how I ended up where I currently am today. Everyone has problems. Everyone has demons. Mine happen to be the kind that will go years and years without showing themselves but when they do, they reek havoc. I have spent so much of my life and so much valuable energy just trying to keep them at bay that I finally reach a point where I can't do it anymore and things just pour out all around and over me all at once. I have always been very good at doing whatever it took not to feel and not to even think. It has been a survival tool that enabled me to get where I am now. Without that ability I would have been a goner long ago. Now however, I find myself needing to feel and needing to think and sometimes it gets a bit overwhelming. Trying to change habits that took years and years to form is very difficult indeed.

This is pretty serious James, I am feeling with you. Try not to take your constraints to their limits so when you cross the treshold, you explode. Maybe it is better to vent frustrations bit by bit before they get a chance to build up. I know that it is cheap advice, but I believe in it.

....
My entry into the world of photography has really helped me think and feel again. It's good usually but sometimes it's very painful at the same time. Growing can be painful. I spent a day recently taking photographs of a friend's young children. It was a great and wonderfully fun day for me. Being around them brought back a lot of memories of my own children when they were that age. It hurt though too because it also reminded me how I have not seen my own children in over 20 years. I have a grandaughter that I have never been able to see and probably never will. My children are 33 and 35 now and I still see them as 13 and 15 because the only thing I have are the old photographs of them that I came away with.They have been angry at me since me and their mom got divorced and I really don't see that ever changing. I spend a lot of energy trying not to think about it.

Well maybe you should think about it but you have to come to terms with the situation first and foremost. Easy for me to say, I know.

....
I also did an engagement shoot recently of a beautiful young couple just starting out on their journey through life together. It was so refreshing to see the joy and wonder and love in their eyes. I saw myself in him. I remembered feeling that way and thinking I knew it all and had the world on a string. It's not until now, when I'm getting old and grey, that I realize I didn't really know anything or have anything, but that was one of the happiest times I can remember.

Now I have a wonderful new wife, Jennie, who is my rock and my strength. No Cem, she has not been away a long time. She was only out on a business dinner. I had seen her that morning before we both set out to work. It's just that I need her so badly when I get home, just to see her smile, hear her say hello, or just give me a big hug, that when she is not there to do that, even for only a few hours, it sometimes feels like years. I am so lucky to have found this woman. I have to remind myself that it's really happening to me. I never ever thought that it would happen for me again. Before I met her I was wandering through life like a zombie. My motto was I didn't want to live one more day than was absolutely necessary. Thanks to her, my motto has changed. But I still get blue at times. Yesterday was really one of those days.

OK, this is very good news. You've got to build your strength using her invaluable support. A fall back every now and then is to be expected. Just don't blame yourself and keep on trying.

.....
OK I have gone on enough. If you actually read all of that I congratulate you. I actually feel better myself having just written it. It's funny how that works sometimes. As for the portrait, I will post the color version and the black and white without the eye color. I like the eye color though because to me it portrays they idea that no matter how dark things seem or how low I might feel, I can still see color in the world if I look hard enough and in the right places. To each his own. That is another thing I find so wonderful about creating things. You can make it however you want. The color version I was not too happy with. I am not quite sure why that is. I just didn't like it. That is why I did the black and white conversion in the first place. Give me your thoughts and ideas. I know they could be much better. I don't like the shiney places on my face but I am not proficient enough in PS yet to get rid of them. I will keep working on that.
Thank you
James

Well, I have already answered this bit with my Photoshopped piece. Thanks for sticking your neck out and sharing some issues with totally strangers. It takes guts to do that, lots of it .

Cheers,

Cem

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

..and this is how I'd like to see him

Regards,

Cem

 

[Georg R. Baumann]

Asher was curious to know what my "landscape protocol" would do to a portrait and asked me to post it here.

I really should say that I do not shoot or edit portraits normally, but I found that a funny idea to try and gave it my 2 minutes quick fix, for what it's worth, I work in LAB mode and afterwards apply b&W filters and others to selected areas in RGB mode before finally sharpening selected areas.




P.S. Don't ask me such too often please, I am on a dial up and it took ages to DL the NEF.... LOL

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

Hi Georg,

I don't know which method you use to embed your images but they always fail to show properly and take ages when they do. Did a quick examination of the page source.

When I embed my image using image tags, it looks like this:
<img src="http://www.usakligil.com/photo/fora/opf/challenge-james-selfportrait-2.jpg" border="0" alt="" />

When you do yours, it looks like this:
<a href="http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=yxxjomzl1gj&thumb=4" target="_blank"><img src="http://www1.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1ab648580d85c91b3ee299e72cbb27306g.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>

It looks as if you are trying to show the image and make it a clickable link to the web site at the same time, right? Well, your web host just doesn't play ball I'm afraid. If I were you, I'd just stick to posting a good old link to an image without the clicky.

Cheers,

Cem

 

[Asher Kelman]

Georg,

I saw your image 3 hours ago approx. Now it's not there and your url itself does not work.

you should be able to put that url for the image on any browser to open the image on that page! Your code is way complicated.

1. URL for image that is simple and works

http://bauman.com/2008/OPF/portrait_JN001.jpg


2. Place that url between and IMG]

That's it!

 

[Georg R. Baumann]

Right, it looks this file hoster has become unreliable and I need to look for a more solid solution.

Sorry, I do not understand what Ashers means.

Cem, I am a bit pressed for time right now. I send you a PM.

 

[Asher Kelman]

George,

here's the text to insert Kathy's Image IMG]http://www.flashfrozenphotography.com/photos/259735985_TomiH-S.jpg[/IMG]

notice I left out the open bracket[ I did that or else the image will appear.


Here's the URL alone. If you put it on the command line of a browser and hit return/enter the image will appear or else click on the url. Either way you know the url works

http://www.flashfrozenphotography.com/photos/259735985_TomiH-S.jpg


The idea is to put the URL of your image between the code

[/COLOR]

Here's how your image embedding code would appear if your URL was from an image 2008_02_27_JN_GB_01.jpg in a .mac account in an OPF directory

IMG]http://www.mac.com/Baumann/publiic/OPF/2008_02_27_JN_GB_01.jpg[/IMG]

That is perfect and simple and will work every time.

Asher

 

[Georg R. Baumann]

I'll look into that Asher, I did not write any code, Hell I can't...LOL It is a free webhosting service that does that thing.

Anyhow, what were your thoughts on the processing?

 

[Asher Kelman]

George,

Since you you had no problems before, it must be that you hosts code or the host's server is unreliable. I'll delete all this part of the discussion later.

I'l go from memory since I studied your picture closely. These are just hoe I feel, not something to be used as "fact" but rather as fact of the feeling of what the version invoked in me.

The image as far as I recall in in B&W with your development from raw showed the texture of the skin in almost "beyond"- 3D appearance. The background, unlike Cem's version, is pretty defined. That may be a mistake, IMHO, as will be apparent below.

I find immediately that you have made the skin very much in the present. Its texture is well drawn and brings James forward to us whereas Cem image, has less image and puts him back a little on the page. Cem's post in #15 above shows little b.g. so he has no past.

When the b,g. is well defined, the image becomes very real to me and something straightforward, mundane and ordinary, that was perhaps taken today. However, your picture has drawn the skin texture so strongly that it still pulls us in to him and projects him off the page. He looks back but there is no empathy or happiness implied but rather a stoic challenge or even an aggressive almost stubborn sardonic look at us.

However, it is not a look at us at all. but i a look at himself! By rendering the skin as you have with a more dimensional textured and over-real sense to it, and knowing he is looking at himself, it implies self-criticism and, perhaps, stoicism too.

Good job for a landscape guy! Seriously, I do like the version!

Asher

 

[Georg R. Baumann]

However, your picture has drawn the skin texture so strongly that it still pulls us in to him and projects him off the page.

Yup, I cant wait to see how such attempt translates in a propper workflow on the HP Z3100. I shall send you a few examples once I am comfortable with the printer.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Meanwhile, George, what's with the image, LOL ?

Asher

 

[Georg R. Baumann]

LOLOLOL

I have to learn to FTP stuff to my webspace first, won't happen today!

 

[James Newman]

Thank you Cem not only for the kind and understanding words but also for putting your creative touch on Asher's challenge. I like the first one and the removed or at least lessened background clutter. It actually works for me with or without the blinds showing but your version without them leaves one to look more at me than anything else that might otherwise distract them. That's a scary proposition and strange to even think about. I am being studied by others and now I find I am studying myself as well, almost like I am looking at someone else. There was something in this image that just seemed very strange though and I could not figure out what it was. I even read in your post precisely what it was and it just didn't register for some reason. I finally caught it after reading your entry again. You removed my glasses. I have not seen my face without glasses in many years. Another testament to my aging. Sure I take my glasses off and stand at the mirror to wash my hands or face but when I look at myself, everything is a blur. That's how bad my eyes are now. I just thought it was strange that it took me so long to figure out what just didn't seem right. I wish it were that simple to get rid of them for good.

The second pic, the color one that looks like I may have looked ten years ago, is nice too but a bit unnerving. As everyone has said, you can't turn back the hands of time and that is what this one reminds me of. I don't want to disappoint you but I don't think I will ever look like that again. I wish I could but I can't. I only wish they had Photoshop in a bottle that you could just brush on in the mornings. I appreciate your work and the effort you put into this little experiment. It definitely has taken the heaviness off.

George I have not seen your photo yet but sure hope to soon. Just reading Asher's comments (from memory) about it makes me very interested to see it for myself. I do hope you get a chance to put it up so we can see it again.

I may have another go at this image myself soon. I want to see what I can come up with now that I am in a much better frame of mind and looking at things a bit differently. I thank you all for helping me get there. I really don't understand the mood change. Yesterday I spent the day getting a full physical, a heart scan, and a stroke scan. That was a gift to my wife. (her idea) I won't have any results for a couple of weeks and I would think I would be scared to death to hear what they will be. I'm not though. There is no use getting all worked up about it right now. In two weeks I may be singing a different song but for now I am in a good place. Thanks again.
James

 

[Georg R. Baumann]

I'd be most interested to learn whether you can see it now.... if that is the case, then it is a photoshop bug (most likely something in the header) in deed.