nicolas claris
OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Personally, I don't need the story, this image is questioning me with its mystery, and for me that's the point!
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An ill defined photographer.
- Thread starter Tom dinning
- Start date
Tom dinning
Registrant*
Through a vision I had late in the evening, as if in a dream, all was revealed.
You are so right in many ways, Nic. Once the photo has left my presence it and it’s interpretation is beyond my control.
I like it that way. I want people to be mystified, puzzled, perplexed, intrigued.
For you, that’s enough. For others, it isn’t.
They need a more concrete concept to hang their thoughts.
Christine used to ask me such questions. Of course, I was obliged to answer her. Over the years she asks less and provides her own understanding. That delights me because she sees what I don’t.
It’s never about the content alone. Some days it’s not even about that.
How can we express an idea without words, especially when the idea is so esoteric, so imaginary, so reliant on the thoughts of the photographer.
For those photographers who see birds, people, buildings, flowers, dogs, ..... they see less of an idea and more of a thing.
That thing becomes the way of describing the photograph.
“It’s a photo of a bird, people, a building, a flower, a dog .....”
In a sense, the photo becomes the thing.
There are many photographers who take pictures with this in mind. I call them, to myself of course, ‘advertisers’.
They clearly express the idea behind the image. “ yes, It’s a bird, person...” They have succeeded in their venture.
In a way, I never succeed; not in that way at least. It’s because others don’t see as I do, I fail as a photographer.
The reason: it’s not clear what I have photographed, either physically or mentally.
The dilemma for me is to photograph as others will understand or photograph so I have demonstrated my thoughts to myself.?
It depends.
For you I don’t need to say anything other than for you to look take the image and make of it what you will. I don’t even want to know what you make of it. If you told me I’d probably say: “Really?”.
If Asher asks me my first thought would probably be the same but I’ve mellowed in my old age. I’ve become marginally more tolerant of those who don’t understand what I do.
For that reason I have provided Asher with an answer to his question which will allow him to verify his thoughts and have a good nights sleep. He might well be puzzled by the fact that he likes the image for his own reasons and not for mine, which in itself could be taken as a slap in the face for me.
Such is life.
Here’s another version with a little help from a passer-by.
Tom dinning
Registrant*
I have two things on the iPad I use consistently.
One is NOTES where I write ideas that come to me.
Not things to remember. Just things to finish thinking about.
Like a piece of prose, or a paragraph for a story.
There will be photos there as well. With notes beneath them. Thoughts that accompany the image.
Then there is PHOTOS.
Not many, just enough to browse. At the moment I have 84.
I change them with some irregularity. Most of not all have been edited and compressed for the web.
Each night I browse through them and wait for smouldering ideas to flare.
That’s when I move the photo to NOTES.
When I am done with the photos I remove them and load another lot I have accumulated on the Mac or iPhone.
It’s like a diary in constant motion and modification.
There are times when a photo-notes combination becomes a finished product.
I might send it to a forum, print it and give it to some lucky person, read it to Christine or Nevayah, or enter it in an e-book I’ve been working on since the invention of electricity.
Why, you might ask?
Because I can.
Because it gives me insight into my world.
Because it is the mental pain I find I need from time to time.
Because I cannot separate the image from the words.
Because nothing stands still.
Because ............
STOP.
I’ve had all that.
Rediscovering, reinventing, reliving
What others did, redid, as if
Nothing was known.
Again and again, I have seen
The child, the teen,
Walk the shaky path to me
You don’t know, old man
How could you know
What it’s like for me?
And I walk the same path
To the same place we all will be.
I don’t feel the pain of others
Nor happiness or grief
Mine is mine alone
Not shared, not seen
Nor can there be regret
For nothing to expect
Not love, not fate, not hate.
Not years of what did not
Could have, should have
Just pleasure in all,it having been
All I have seen, nothing yet foreseen
Then linger in the past from time to time
And wonder if, or wonder why.
Then knowing that one more step
One more thought, one less retort
Will take me to nothing more
Than what is there for all of us
Whatever it might be.
One is NOTES where I write ideas that come to me.
Not things to remember. Just things to finish thinking about.
Like a piece of prose, or a paragraph for a story.
There will be photos there as well. With notes beneath them. Thoughts that accompany the image.
Then there is PHOTOS.
Not many, just enough to browse. At the moment I have 84.
I change them with some irregularity. Most of not all have been edited and compressed for the web.
Each night I browse through them and wait for smouldering ideas to flare.
That’s when I move the photo to NOTES.
When I am done with the photos I remove them and load another lot I have accumulated on the Mac or iPhone.
It’s like a diary in constant motion and modification.
There are times when a photo-notes combination becomes a finished product.
I might send it to a forum, print it and give it to some lucky person, read it to Christine or Nevayah, or enter it in an e-book I’ve been working on since the invention of electricity.
Why, you might ask?
Because I can.
Because it gives me insight into my world.
Because it is the mental pain I find I need from time to time.
Because I cannot separate the image from the words.
Because nothing stands still.
Because ............
STOP.
I’ve had all that.
Rediscovering, reinventing, reliving
What others did, redid, as if
Nothing was known.
Again and again, I have seen
The child, the teen,
Walk the shaky path to me
You don’t know, old man
How could you know
What it’s like for me?
And I walk the same path
To the same place we all will be.
I don’t feel the pain of others
Nor happiness or grief
Mine is mine alone
Not shared, not seen
Nor can there be regret
For nothing to expect
Not love, not fate, not hate.
Not years of what did not
Could have, should have
Just pleasure in all,it having been
All I have seen, nothing yet foreseen
Then linger in the past from time to time
And wonder if, or wonder why.
Then knowing that one more step
One more thought, one less retort
Will take me to nothing more
Than what is there for all of us
Whatever it might be.
