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  • Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!

A life with others.

Tom dinning

Registrant*
20 years ago I married Christine.
Leaving one wife and finding another has its rewards and also it’s pitfalls.
One of the rewards was to find Christine didn’t come unaccompanied.
I was warned by a wise man that I wouldn’t ‘get on’ with everyone. This family I was becoming part of didn’t accept strangers willingly.
By the time I had worked my way down the family tree I was left with two individuals.
They have since become my dearest friends.

Dominic on the far left L’il Brother.
His wife, Christines sister, on the far right is, by far, the most generous person I know.

When we travel we do this thing with reflections.

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Tom dinning

Registrant*
As for the other 6 billion or so residents of this celestial body I get the impression I treat them as a source of amusement.

There are some exception but not many. Counting on one hand might leave me a finger short.

Strangers, and for the most part that’s what they are, perform like clowns in a circus pit.

“They look like dolls,” Christine informs me.

“It’s an attitude, not a technique,” I reply.

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Tom dinning

Registrant*
Im not interested in making contact.
There are too many to get to know.
I’m here as they are: to do stuff. Walk, watch, wait, wonder, walk some more. Stop, shop, sing, speak, start again.
Each person is different.
Each does what is necessary.
Perhaps it is necessary that I keep my distance.
I don’t want to interfere in the progress of the living.

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Tom dinning

Registrant*
Most times I’m unaware of my intentions.
Photographing people is more of a tick, an affliction I would prefer to keep to myself.
I’m content with glimpses, blurs, flashes of a face or a hand gesture, a body disappearing, a limb.
The interest is in the interaction with my visual field.

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Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
The images are impressive, Tom!

They show interest in people being people. The results have a lot of humanity for which one cannot but help being empathetic!

So, I don’t believe your claimed disdain!

Could be true, but I would still assign you far more “empathy-credits” than you are willing to admit.

You could indeed be “just a detached observer of people”, who’s feelings and lives don’t matter to you.

However, notwithstanding my inability to read your mind, viewing people as mere stick figures, rarely occurs except when looking down from a great height, like from high up on a New York Skyscraper!

I don’t accept you are “that extremely detached” as that doesn’t fit in with your social protection of those you admit you love! I can only use my experience and your claimed cold clinical eyesight doesn’t fit with even the little of yourself you have shared.

If these were native Australians and someone was stabbing them, I imagine you might care for their suffering. If one happened to be a friend of your granddaughter, by your side, you wouldn’t be indifferent, I bet!

Be that as it me, your description of your attitude still makes good reading, nonetheless!

Asher
 

Peter Dexter

Well-known member
The most interesting to me is the last displaying the special technique you've developed. I'm reminded of paintings by Francis Bacon.
 

Tom dinning

Registrant*
The most interesting to me is the last displaying the special technique you've developed. I'm reminded of paintings by Francis Bacon.

I like playing when I’m bored or Christine wants me to fix a dripping tap or some such inane task.
Who does she think I am? The hired help?

I’m not sure if I’ve ‘developed’ it or just come across it my mistake. All I can tell you is most processing takes place with ACR and the oil paint filter in PS. The shooting is at low speed hand held.

Variations along these lines give different effects to suit the subject matter.
 

Tom dinning

Registrant*
The images are impressive, Tom!

They show interest in people being people. The results have a lot of humanity for which one cannot but help being empathetic!

So, I don’t believe your claimed disdain!

Could be true, but I would still assign you far more “empathy-credits” than you are willing to admit.

You could indeed be “just a detached observer of people”, who’s feelings and lives don’t matter to you.

However, notwithstanding my inability to read your mind, viewing people as mere stick figures, rarely occurs except when looking down from a great height, like from high up on a New York Skyscraper!

I don’t accept you are “that extremely detached” as that doesn’t fit in with your social protection of those you admit you love! I can only use my experience and your claimed cold clinical eyesight doesn’t fit with even the little of yourself you have shared.

If these were native Australians and someone was stabbing them, I imagine you might care for their suffering. If one happened to be a friend of your granddaughter, by your side, you wouldn’t be indifferent, I bet!

Be that as it me, your description of your attitude still makes good reading, nonetheless!

Asher

You're reading into this more than is necessary, Ash.
Your perspective is not mine, and mine not yours.
This thread was to explain MY point of view while taking photographs.
I'm not asking you to accept my perspective as being valid under your ideals.
It's just the way I do things.
Isn't that enough? Do I have to be a 'nice Jewish boy' as well?
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
You're reading into this more than is necessary, Ash.
Your perspective is not mine, and mine not yours.
This thread was to explain MY point of view while taking photographs.
I'm not asking you to accept my perspective as being valid under your ideals.
It's just the way I do things.
Isn't that enough? Do I have to be a 'nice Jewish boy' as well?
Tom,

This answer is about my reading of your material, equivalent to your written observations and framing of folk that interest you, who you then choose to show here with your thoughts!

Here are two parts: your mind and my own reception!

When anyone dismisses the humanity of others or appears to trivialize their innate value, that is a force in itself, a strike that cause a reaction.

You have control of your pictures and what text you package with it.

But then we have our reception and what is evoked in this case may have little to do with what’s your purpose or what lies in the depths of your brain!

If you sing in the woods, the trees don’t disclose any feelings!

But we are not wood!

If you can look at people and see marionettes, stick-people and the like, we can look at your words and likewise have our interpretation.

You don’t ask permission and neither do we!

Asher
 

Tom dinning

Registrant*
Why would I disturb her presence?
Do I need to know
Who she is, what she needs?
Am I here to ripple the void between us?
This is the image I want. This is what draws me here.
Where is my humanity? you ask.
It lays dormant within.
It observes and does not interfere.
It has no connection longer than the time it takes
To photograph and move on.
Like all things, caring lingers just long enough to take notice.
And is replaced with the next.
As if each is the first or the last.
If I fill the day with the truth of others
There is no room left to make the next move.
1402
 

James Lemon

Well-known member
Difficult to see past all the words Tom. Were there other pictures concerning your life with photography too? Unfortunately I didn't see them either.
 
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Peter Dexter

Well-known member
Well I can see a connection between the poetry and image in the above post so that they work together with out the image being an "illustration". One of my favorite examples of this is the group of photos by his son Joel in the novel Mickelesson's Ghosts by John Gardner.
 

Tom dinning

Registrant*
Difficult to see past all the words Tom. Were there other pictures concerning your life with photography too? Unfortunately I didn't see them either.

If you get bored reading, James, look at the pictures. Imagine you're watching a porn movie. the storyline is only there to keep the pictures separated.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "Were there other pictures concerning your life with photography too? Unfortunately I didn't see them either."
Have I missed something as well?
 
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