Who is complaining simply critiqued a photo, whats the problem? You and Tom can varnish things up as much as you want personally I don't care but you cant make sugar out of shit.
James
James,
You have a perfect right to point out why Tom’s work doesn’t make it for you and merits the dismissal as “shit”!
It could indeed be just as worthless to many of us, who don’t express their opinion.
My personal caution is that you
seem to express you own reaction as if it’s
absolute: like, if it’s going to be taken seriously, then the dog MUST be visible.
For me, I am so impressed by the gesture of the bent man in the curve of a tree, that I had no pressing concerns about for anything else! I saw it as a thing of form and gesture.
On reflection, next I thought of the passage of time and aging.
Then I wondered about the tree and old-man shadows being from two different light sources!
...........Only after other folk’s comments did I examine the picture for the missing dog(s)!
But if someone took this to be, “A picture of a man walking his dog”, then, indeed there was something missing, which you, understandably, didn’t accept.
In
documenting “A dog being walked” a dog, surely, is needed!
However, in a photograph,
purely as art, who can say what is “needed” unless one commissions the artist to include the dog!
Since I am geared to art, ideas and the the music between the notes, (in jazz), dog or no dog, I like the images both for form and as an incomplete open-ended metaphor that everyone would have to fathom for themselves.
I was in the Venice Biennale decades ago in the USA pavilion and was stunned to see several pieces of ~3 ft squares of paving stones stacked at odd angles as the major contribution that year for the American contribution to the show!
I heard so many comments of disappointment, dismissal and disgust that this could be called art, never mind “Art” to represent our best!
I myself thought it was a work of transience and unimportant. But others thought it was simply brilliant, being so simple!
So you thinking Tom’s work is not worthy for your taste is fine by me.
I just happen, this time, to admire it.
In our strongly opposing opinions, we make for a better understanding of his work.
Asher