I appreciate what you say, Asher, but unfortunately I live in a place that is hot, steamy and upside down which causes the blood to rush to our collective heads and we see things through a thicker fog.
If I hang this stuff in my house my friends say things like: what the **** do you take pictures like that for? And you ought to get yourself a decent camera, or even worse, you've become one of those taffy nosed arty types, you wanker. This will all transpire as they head for the fridge to avail themselves of a beer or 6. They are a very earthy lot, my friends. Not a cultured bone in their fat, sweaty, smelly, ugly bodies. If I was to suggest they come around for a Chardoney and a viewing of a few of the latest shots most would only want to see the ones with the big tits. They are beer swilling, uncouth, womanizing, uncultured, loud, course, foul mouthed, and down right ugly. I blend in quite well. As for the photos, they are merely something to do while I wait for the end. Bleed as I may over each shot, they are worth only what value I put on them and that, my good friend, is a personal thing.
I guess it's all about persecutive. The rabbit just wants to eat grass, look after its lts brood of little bunnies and screw as often as possible. Sounds like your friends, LOL! The hawk, however, sees him as a good meal and something to impress his mate, so he can also copulate too!
Now miles away in Liepzig, Milan or New York, there's a master furrier or two sorting thousands of the dried skins of them same rabbits! He works by large windows with northern light. A young apprentice labors by his side wetting the leather sides and stacking the furs, skin to skin. Then the young fellow wedges the end of each fur between is stomach and the wooden bench, and uses his bare fingers to stretch out the skin flat, and double its size. Now the master furrier matches the pelts. Each is examined for height of the fur, thickness, pattern and color. This results in 3 or 4 sets of furs. The best are now sent off for dyeing and the process is repeated. The hands of the apprentice are red from stretching the abrasive rough dry rabbit skins and some blisters show. He's off for the day.
A tall pretty girl, maybe all of 24 years old, with party breasts bouncing gently, (like on a striding model from Dior), comes in a furrier's store in Hampstead in London and looks around. She's likes the rabbit. She wants something new and fabulous, made for her curvy body. A artist is summoned! He sketches her with a new coat, designs it on her. The next day, she's fitted with a paper pattern mock up. It works. When she leaves, the shop in the back has to work day and night to make up the coat. But not rabbit, she wants mink! Work will now be 12 hours a day; thousands of pelts are matched, stretched and the best selected. Now cut with parallel 10 or 15 V shapes, each a cm from the next. The cuts are "slipped", one on another,as in plastic surgery, so the V's are now sown by seamstresses for 20 hours until each mink pelt is remade, but twice as long. The best are again sorted, matched and dyed and then delicately damped and stretched. Now they are tacked in sequence over marked brown paper patterns nailed to plywood planks. That works, so they are sown.
A week later, the long legged girl returns. Outside a stately Bentley waits. At the wheel is an gentleman in his 50's in a black suit. He opens the door for the older and upper class gentleman in the back. The minister, Mr Profumo enters the store and marvels at Christine's beauty in the coat. He pays and they leave. Back in his getaway apartment, he gets down to banging business, deal with her rent money and more and so the cycle is complete!
Your picture too, will give a lot of pleasure to people, but with no death, deceit or humiliation. Pictures of "tits' are fine for the roughnecks. However, we miss the person beyond the confrontational "sex in your face", mounds of flesh and the beer-belly-unwashed men's eyes staring at them.
A finely crafted reclining nude, (or its abstract smudge), however, can get the artist a good living, so he can actually enjoy life and it's pleasures. Your picture of the blurred feet and geometric squares is such a work! Now as a downunder native, (isolated in the most northern edge of your empty continent), hanging with unshaven friends, you may not want to admit that you appreciate that. Could make you the laughing stock of the pub and waterfront! However,
you made that picture instead of wanking, picking your nose or stuffing yourself with fat burgers and double cheese.
You simplified an ever changing scene and caught a mink of a moment. That has value and you know it!
If this were by a student in your photography class, she's have gotten an "A" and a kind tap on the back, close enough to take in her perfume and joy. on the way home, you'll muse, "Hmm, that was wonderful!" Your own, fine Christine will ask why you were so late and then put on the table the dinner, teli still on until bedtime. All the while, you'll remember the look in the girl's face, the glance she gave you when you liked her simple snap from the mall! That's what photographic art is all about; transferring, materializing and sharing transient of joys and appreciation of our tour on this place. But you know all that, just need a kick in the butt, every so often, to remind you!
Asher