• Please use real names.

    Greetings to all who have registered to OPF and those guests taking a look around. Please use real names. Registrations with fictitious names will not be processed. REAL NAMES ONLY will be processed

    Firstname Lastname

    Register

    We are a courteous and supportive community. No need to hide behind an alia. If you have a genuine need for privacy/secrecy then let me know!
  • 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!

Challenge for Pictures in a Series: Motif or Concept Towards ZEN

D

Deleted member 55

Guest
My Mothers memorial candle.

B0CFF5D4-72CB-437E-8154-AE64223438D1.jpeg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
M

Maggie Terlecki

Moderator
Asher Kelman said:
Maggie,

Yours works! I feel it. But the title IS required here to guide us with a tap on the shoulder pointing our gaze in the right direction.

The aphorism, that, “A picture should speak for itself!”,( like most of them), is false! Titles can set the mind to accept the implausible. Sometimes we need that.

Asher
Click to expand...
I agree, I think in this case, it is required and once you see the title, you can understand the image, otherwise, just a couple of pears, right? who cares. :-D
 
M

Maggie Terlecki

Moderator
Asher Kelman said:
I have new compassionate lemons:
Click to expand...

Beautiful! You are also so fortunate to have fruit with leaves on them.


BAD4C60B-B68C-49CF-8DF9-40B8590F961F.jpeg


Living far north as I do, everything in the supermarket is picked free of leaves except perhaps tomatoes which you can get a branch. How I would love to play with these. As for the image, you have just a sliver of light and so much of the subjects and their shadows in that slice. I also think the black triangle helps balance out the composition.

Nice work, Asher!
 
M

Maggie Terlecki

Moderator
Asher Kelman said:
....and perhaps purer Zen:

​
Click to expand...
The composition of this works well with my sensibilities. I love a lower perspective where you set the image like this, where we can appreciate those beautiful swooping curves.


286461C0-D9A1-4F4C-BCFE-5D95D86FC7F8.jpeg
​


To me, I wish the foliage was a bit more in focus, but that is just my personal choice. It is an interesting piece. :) Maggie
 
Asher Kelman

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Maggie Terlecki said:
The composition of this works well with my sensibilities. I love a lower perspective where you set the image like this, where we can appreciate those beautiful swooping curves. To me, I wish the foliage was a bit more in focus, but that is just my personal choice. It is an interesting piece. :) Maggie
Click to expand...
Thanks, Maggie!

I value your direct honest feedback. It works well for preliminary ideas like these. It’s often obvious when a piece is refined, totally ready for sale or up for exhibition. I always remember a fracture of a femur a nurse exposed to me by tracing a fine spiral line on the XRay I thought was just fine.

It’s important to get to know different folks range of acceptance of feedback.

Good point about focus. I will repeat this with my real camera. The first try was sheer impulse-driven! One can’t help but rush and get that done NOW!

Asher
 
nicolas claris

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Maggie Terlecki said:
I'm supposing this a temple where people go to pray or meditate.

I see people on the walk around but also a geisha at the far right of the image. Beautiful place! :)
Click to expand...
There are so many temples in Kyoto, I can't remember which one this was… Shame on me :(
As for the geisha, she may not be one as in Spring, a lot of juvenile girls do wear the traditional suits :

Rues_NCK7539.jpg
 
W

Wolfgang Plattner

Well-known member
Hi,

sorry, but don't forget about this in the opening post:

" ...Say, do you suppose it would be worthwhile to start a post about simplified Zen-ish photographs? Members could post sample images to illustrate approaches to minimize distracting elements. ..."
 
Asher Kelman

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Wolfgang Plattner said:
Hi,

sorry, but don't forget about this in the opening post:

" ...Say, do you suppose it would be worthwhile to start a post about simplified Zen-ish photographs? Members could post sample images to illustrate approaches to minimize distracting elements. ..."
Click to expand...
Wolfgang,

An important reminder. I think this is a good idea.

@ Everyone

We do need to stay on track.

Could you perhaps outline in our new thread here, what could be “The key characteristics of ZEN” to guide us?

Asher
 
Asher Kelman

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Nicolas Claris said:
Tadao Ando's Ceiling (part of)


​
Not too many distracting elements?
Click to expand...
Nicolas,

This is so important to me as it points me to a great gap in my knowledge of Japanese Architects. Tell me, is this meditative and relaxing to you?

This, to me, at least, is ultra simple, elegant and architectural. But it’s a portion of something that I miss.

What does it belong to?

I like it but it’s provides no tranquility to me but it’s obviously contains fine succinct architectural minimalist planning.

FC10239C-14E5-420A-9939-E20AB19D413F.jpeg

It’s new to me and I respect it! Is this a painting or a window with a live moving passing cloud. That would be a major interest. If it’s the latter, wonderful. If it’s a unchanging painting it calls attention to itself as being incomplete and so is not relaxing and to me, not Zen!

I am more used to the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and Bauhaus. They also are not Zen but they are also elegant concrete, metal and glass structures, simplified yet bold.

I would love to learn about the entire structure Tadao Andeo designed of which you show a fragment..

It could be clearly Zen to someone else, especially closer to Buddhist tradition, but with my limited understanding I experience starkly simple and agreeable architecture itself, nothing more. If this is Zen to Tadao Ando, (and it might well be), then I would conclude I know nothing at all of the nature of Zen.

Asher
 
nicolas claris

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Asher Kelman said:
Nicolas,

Is this meditative and relaxing to you?

This, to me, at least, is ultra simple, elegant and architectural. But it’s a portion of something that I miss.

What does it belong to?

I like it but it’s provides no tranquility to me but it’s obviously contains fine succinct architectural minimalist planning.


It’s new to me and I respect it! Is this a painting or a window with a live moving passing cloud. That would be a major interest. If it’s the latter, wonderful. If it’s a unchanging painting it calls attention to itself as being incomplete and so is not relaxing and to me, not Zen!

I am more used to the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and Bauhaus. They also are not Zen but they are also elegant concrete, metal and glass structures, simplified yet bold.

I would love to learn about the entire structure Tadao Andeo designed of which you show a fragment..

It could be clearly Zen to someone else, especially closer to Buddhist tradition, but with my limited understanding I experience starkly simple and agreeable architecture itself, nothing more. If this is Zen to Tadao Ando and it’s might well be, then I would conclude I know nothing at all of the nature of Zen.

Asher
Click to expand...
Asher,
this is a part (as written in the introductory text) of a contemporary art museum in the island of Naoshima.
I do not know about Tadao Ando's intent with this. I don't even know about Tadao's Zen attitude (although I do have my own interpretation about this).
For me, IMveryHO, the zen captured with this photo is the image itself as I felt when framing it, being bewitched by the atmosphere of the place.
A pure window and a suggested travel to the sky.

There is nothing to be missed. All is in this image.
This is not a report on whatever. This is a moment.
 
nicolas claris

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Asher Kelman said:
Wolfgang,

An important reminder. I think this is a good idea.

@ Everyone

We do need to stay on track.

Could you perhaps outline in our new thread here, what could be “The key characteristics of ZEN” to guide us?

Asher
Click to expand...
I strongly disagree.
When someone (Maggie in this case) place a comment (an interesting one!) that needs a reply, one can divert from the original subject if the response needs it. That is one of the basement to the modern web attitude and the way to learn from the sides.

And that image might tell us a lot about what is zen and what is not…
In a Country where all is far from being zen… (Japan)
Ying/Yang … (China)
Openness is zen, keep cool :)

Rues_NCK7539.jpg
 
Last edited:
Asher Kelman

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Nicolas Claris said:
Asher,
this is a part (as written in the introductory text) of a contemporary art museum in the island of Naoshima.
I do not know about Tadao Ando's intent with this. I don't even know about Tadao's Zen attitude (although I do have my own interpretation about this).
For me, IMveryHO, the zen captured with this photo is the image itself as I felt when framing it, being bewitched by the atmosphere of the place.
A pure window and a suggested travel to the sky.

There is nothing to be missed. All is in this image.
This is not a report on whatever. This is a moment.
Click to expand...
So, Nicolas, that was a window!

That then is very different as the clouds though it ARE alive.

That’s indeed Zen-like as one has infinite change through a pure cut in the concrete.

This is a perfect example of how the aphorism, “The image must speak for itself”, (leveled against names for pictures or introductions in museums), is wrong: in this case, I was lost as I thought the flat, static image, (perhaps a “Painting” or “Photo”), of a static but incomplete cloud was a severe error of design, with tension and so non-Zen!

But as soon as I know this is now, instead:


8A37E8D0-CAF6-4725-89D3-058685567C25.jpeg


Nicolas Claris: “Window in a Concrete Ceiling”,​


.....and a place to meditate and allow the mind to wander to the edges of the Universe.

Yes, pure Zen!

Enfin!

Asher
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top