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Art from the iPod

Tom dinning

Registrant*
After being hassled so often by security guards at the local shopping mall I decided it was time to think small. Now I know this is the place for big things accompanied by big ideas but I couldn't find another heading that would suit my attemps at contempt. Then I realised I had gone too far. The resulting images were so gritty and shakey they went right past 'disgusting' and 'pathetic' and finished up back to 'arty farty'.
Hows that for not trying. You know, I'm getting the hang of this photography thing. 'Point and press', as the beloved and astoundingly astute Christine would say.


Cas Mall #4 by tom.dinning, on Flickr


Cas Mall #3 by tom.dinning, on Flickr


Cas Mall #2 by tom.dinning, on Flickr


Cas Mall #1 by tom.dinning, on Flickr


Cas Mall #5 by tom.dinning, on Flickr
 

Michael Nagel

Well-known member
Tom,

To me this is a pretty good representation of what you encounter when you got to mall.
There are people walking around or sitting, eating, either alone or in small groups and each is there on his own business. There is little interaction.

The last one shows it the best for me.

Taking photos of people is a difficult thing.
As we are moving - as a society - away from mutual trust to mutual distrust (as I see it in many occasions, but this is my view), it is likely to become more difficult.

Best regards,
Michael
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Bressonic snaps from Downunder!

Now I know this is the place for big things accompanied by big ideas but I couldn't find another heading that would suit my attemps at contempt.





Cas Mall #4 by tom.dinning, on Flickr​



Tom,

This, Tom, is the essence of something great. All your Aussie roughness can't hide simple and great instant vision, valuation and capture. If HLB has taken this picture, (among the thousand snaps for the day) and it had been processed so and selected by his team of dedicated darkroom wet nurses, folk would be queuing up to adore this in an exhibition. Those there, the true "Artsy Fartsy" of your contempt, would share great wines and discuss the brilliance of the man who mastered this moment.

However, I cannot accept this designation for your singular pictures. You made it, processed it and display it yourself, all from your brain, just you use a better tool. I happen to think that some of your work is truly exceptional and you have developed a gift for stopping time and commenting on our lives. This picture now is no longer about what you saw in one fleeting moment but rather what we feel in the pulse of modern life. But in the mall, it's rather civilized. They pass pretty boxes and no bomb goes off! I consider that an advance for humanity.

Asher
 

Tom dinning

Registrant*
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.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
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
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Men at work: Waiting at the Mall!

Those are such simple snaps made with a simple camera, but they do make an excellent recording of "Waiting at the Mall". I do this too, occupy myself while the wife shops. If the wife is not shopping, you may be a pervert!





Cas Mall #4 by tom.dinning, on Flickr



Cas Mall #3 by tom.dinning, on Flickr



Cas Mall #2 by tom.dinning, on Flickr



Cas Mall #1 by tom.dinning, on Flickr


The order of these 4 pictures is interesting. I'd have expected picture #2 and 4 to be together as they follow one another naturally. However, the series is laid out to connect us to the entire scene. So tom has, (intentionally or not), recapitulated the dramatic B&W floor pattern of #1 be by including it in image #3. That means that we're not just staring at the man contemplating his lunch, but taking in the entire scene, stopping at different, unrelated, parts of the mall floor to sample the denizens doing their individual things. This arrangement of images, (done consciously or not), gives us a view like that of the master painters who took in a view of a village, recording all the many unrelated activities in each section of the picture. Tom's very small collection of iPod snaps make a delightful recording of experiences in the mall, (and we men can relate to that as the women do their sport of shopping, and it appears that that may be common down under too)! :)

Asher
 
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Tom dinning

Registrant*
Boy, you sure can talk, Asher.
If you're right I'm a bit embarrassed by all the attention. I only got that sort of attention when I'm in trouble.
You could well be right. Most days I don't trouble myself with such details. If I feel a deep and meaningful moment coming on I up the meds and have a lay down. Ultimately, for the greater populous, photography is fun and a way of sharing simple things. I'm with them most of the time.
Excuse me while I go have some fun.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Boy, you sure can talk, Asher.

I hope you like the story. It's all true. Except I had to chase up the street to apologize and grovel to return her back, as I shamefacedly had just told her that "This is a bespoke fur shop and we can't serve you, so kindly leave." It was that, or getting fired for kicking out a paying client, high class working girl, or not!

Still, there's a cycle of life and everyone uses up or consumes the value of other animals, the planet or people in some way. That's what's so great about the iPad. They'll recycle all the rare earth metals and copper. Your picture harms us little. Yes, it's exploitative too, but to all our benefit and in good fun!

If you're right I'm a bit embarrassed by all the attention. I only got that sort of attention when I'm in trouble.
Well you have to suffer then and just deal with the effect of your ability to see. It's a gift and, for me at least, gives delight.

I'm just relying on you running out of negative words to describe your snapping activity, but you Aussies seem to have caves full of the stuff, as if you could last through Armageddon and still have enough. Still, you guys are creative, know how to barbecue beef and share beer! I also learn from you many quaint words like "wanking", but I can't figure out what that means! I remember my old Ford T4 had a "crank" shaft and that was so hard on my hand! Maybe it's something like that? In the meanwhile, get Christine to take you out again. Who knows, maybe by the beach near Darwin you'll have fun snapping a new set for us! So feet alone won't do! :)

Asher
 
Tom. I love these. You really have a great eye and the ability to capture that ephemeral something that many of us miss through the hustle and bustle of our daily lives. I tried to post earlier, but Asher was so busy talking I couldn't get a word in edge-wise! LOL :-D :-D
 
said a whole bunch

Asher

Asher, if I ever get a compliment such as this from you, I will have to pinch myself and check if I have died and gone to heaven. I know Tom is very humble and self-effacing, but I'm sure you have touched him with your wonderful story and heartfelt comments.

oh, and The bit about a word in edge-wise was just a friendly poke :)
 

Tom dinning

Registrant*
Asher, if I ever get a compliment such as this from you, I will have to pinch myself and check if I have died and gone to heaven. I know Tom is very humble and self-effacing, but I'm sure you have touched him with your wonderful story and heartfelt comments.

oh, and The bit about a word in edge-wise was just a friendly poke :)

Don't apologise to him Maggie. He'll start up again.

An aging man left home for his early morning walk across the pastures and into the thicket of trees at the edge of his vision. He was alone except for this thoughts and a rising Sun. He pushed the ear pieces from his ipod into each ears and turned the volume up, sufficient to block out the ambient noise from some distant traffic and a barking dog. With each tentative stride he felt the world come to a conclusive peace and his thoughts moved to a new and higher level.
What am I doing here? he asked. No-one answered. A leaf fluttered from a tree and fell to his feet. He stepped over it as he might a puddle, not wishing to disturb the pattern of life beneath him.
Let the leaf fall where it may, he heard himself say, over the soft base of Damian Erskine ringing in his ears.
The aging man walked on, wiser than he was before. A crowd of finched scurried for the last seed from drying grasses, swinging listfully on the seed heads in time with a phantom clock. As he stepped closer, they took flight, preferring not to eat than to be eated.
Let the birds fly as they will, he heard himself say. A tremor of bird sounds penetrated his brain during an interlude on the ipod.
Once more, the aging man continued on, even wiser than he was before. He looked down at the path beneath his feet and saw the gray concrete covered in drying moss. His left hand came into view. The Sun caught his gold ring and flashed a reflection his way as if to remind him of something almost forgotten. He remembered. He lifted his head to see ahead. Children on their way to school, a couple walk their dog, the council truck bumped its way towards a pile of rubbish left by marauding youths the evening before, a sprinker gushed into action and a rainbow fell across the path.
What am I doing here? he asked again. There was still no answer. The old man knew there would be no answer. He still remembered the falling leaf and the finches, the glimmer of the Sun and the drying moss, the children and the man with the dog. The memories would fade quickly, he knew, but he would be a wiser man for knowing.




_DSC0483 by tom.dinning, on Flickr​
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
........Once more, the aging man continued on, even wiser than he was before. He looked down at the path beneath his feet and saw the gray concrete covered in drying moss. His left hand came into view. The Sun caught his gold ring and flashed a reflection his way as if to remind him of something almost forgotten. He remembered. He lifted his head to see ahead. Children on their way to school, a couple walk their dog, the council truck bumped its way towards a pile of rubbish left by marauding youths the evening before, a sprinker gushed into action and a rainbow fell across the path.

What am I doing here? he asked again. There was still no answer. The old man knew there would be no answer. He still remembered the falling leaf and the finches, the glimmer of the Sun and the drying moss, the children and the man with the dog. The memories would fade quickly, he knew, but he would be a wiser man for knowing.




_DSC0483 by tom.dinning, on Flickr​


We just need to either open or close our eyes and we can see so much beauty there's so much to see if we are open to it. Normally I'd follow the younger woman in the darken doorway, but this time, the old man has gotten it right!

Asher
 
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