In a message dated 5/3/2007 11:16:58 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Back to the photos though... What is it that makes these photos special to you? I ask because they don't strike me as special in any way. They document a scene, but so does any photo. The one that had some meaning to me was "Stop", because I thing you rendered the scene in an unusual way, with the word "Stop" on the street looming large, and the background was pleasing as well. While I was personally uninterested in the subject, nevertheless the image drew me in and I appreciated the aesthetics of the composition.
That's my comments. Not that I'm saying I'm qualified to be a judge, but in my personal opinion, you have one photo that rises above the ordinary, while the rest more or less render the scene, while remaining quite ordinary. They don't make any kind of statement to me, either of a scene unusually rendered, a beautiful scene or an ugly scene. They evoke no emotions. Tom C. ================ I've felt I've responded to you enough before. I will only do it one more time. I am NOT trying to evoke emotions in all the photos. Some I want to be just documentation. I will intersperse some editorial shots between those that are documentation. Shooting just a good documentary shot isn't necessarily easy, BTW. Everyone else has assumed my theme is man's impact on nature. Which I have found amusing. Yes, some of my theme is that. As in, no, I don't like they building right up to the boundary of Mt. Diablo State Park. So Stop was editorializing and meant to evoke emotion. So is the Oak one with the voltage tower. I have admired that particular Oak for years, it sits on top of a round little hill next to the Freeway. But now it has a big old gas station next to it that wasn't there before, and I had never found the high voltage stuff near it before. Do I have to have one theme? As a dyslexia, nope, I usually don't have one theme or one point. I usually have more than one. But you invited a rant, so you'll get one. <rant on> YES, man is a part of nature. That IS part of my theme. YES, we are not going anywhere (if we can help it). YES, technology is great. We are here, nature is here. So you hit on part of my theme. In CC County we have great open space and great open space laws. Lots in Mt. Diablo State Park. And lots by the county, and lots city by city. We probably do it as well as anywhere. Or at least now we do, having Mt. Diablo State Park here helped. More stuff is set aside for open space all the time even as more and more development goes on. OTOH, one of these days our development may outstrip our water supply and that may be a problem. OTOH, I seriously admire the long range thinking of many of the people in this area that have worked hard on saving Mt. Diablo and setting up city by city open space. I hope to show even more open space stuff as I go along. So part of my theme I guess could simply be, stop and smell the flowers. Too many think nature is "out there" instead of right here. In this area, at least, not everything is paved over. We don't have to make special trips to Yosemite to see nature, we can see it right by the freeway. We can see mustard and poppies right by the freeway. Let's appreciate what is here. Why do we have to feel that nature is always over there? Yes, some people I think see it that way, that nature is not here, it is over there. So I am showing it is right here. And I may call my series "Here and Here" (rather than Here and There). Because I feel it captures it as well as anything. Another aspect is animals are becoming more and more urbanized. When my mom moved into this senior community there were no deer. They had left because of the building. It took about 15-20 years, but slowly they came back. Because they can't hunt within this senior community, the deer are all over the place. Eating people's plants, etc. At first I think people were pissed they ate the plants, then they seemed to get it. The deer were here first and they now have no where else to go. So let's live with them, eh? Let them live side by side with us. If we want to keep some wildlife we are going to have to accept that it becomes urbanized and go with the flow. I hope to show some urbanized animals as well. So "Here and Here" sums that up. And by showing nature in context, right next to man-made stuff, I am showing it is HERE, not THERE. The other aspect is, well, I do get darn tired that a landscape shot must have all evidence of man erased. Clone out that telephone pole, move the camera over two inches to not show the house right next to the undeveloped hill with the lovely Oak. Is this reality? Nope. We've all talked before about how photography lies. Well, sometimes landscape and nature photography really, really lies. Sure, I like pretty nature/landscape photography as well as the next person, and I have tried to produce some good stuff that way myself. But WHY must all evidence of man be erased? WHY do we always have to lie about it? Some of the best "nature/landscape" shots in this area are right next to something man-made. If I JUST show the nature stuff I am implying that it is existing out there all by itself in some fairly pristine state. That it is "out there" somewhere, but not HERE. Well, practically nothing is in a pristine state anymore. And I get to feeling more and more that landscape/nature shots are promoting a belief system that there is a lot of pristine nature left out there when there isn't. If we value what we have right here, if we value some stuff that IS disappearing, then we work harder at preserving and having more to shoot and enjoy. It helps no one to pretend there is lots and lots of pristine nature in the US. There is a great deal yes, but it also does disappear. And why not value what is here and now? What isn't in some great park, but right next door? Right by the freeway? Right by a development? All the birds that visit the century Oak off my patio? A century Oak that was not uprooted when this senior community of 7,000, one of the largest and best in the US, was built? The birds come and go, a fantastic variety. They are yuppie suburban birds now. :-) I would say, in conclusion, Tom, you ARE having an emotional reaction to my shots. It seems you want me to shoot my nature pristine. I would question why? Do you think we HAVE to be ashamed of ourselves? That if we show nature next to man it always means something bad about man? That somehow we are separate and apart from nature? Are all man's works totally ugly compared to nature? Maybe mainly what I want to do is encourage a different way of looking at things. At some things, anyway. I know that am not the only one to do this. It seems we have all these labeled little boxes in our head about photography. Photographic categories. I do question that, really. That is also part of my theme. <rant off> So far my strong statements Stop, Oak, and Red on Red have gotten the most reaction. Because they do editorialize. It's bit harder to editorialize about some of this other stuff, but I will try as I go along. And people do tend to want to see a man against nature theme. Because somehow that is how we usually see ourselves, us against nature. So editorializing that way is easier. Some other ways will be harder and I also have a limited time frame for this project. I have a lot of complex ideas in my work, overlapping. It may not all show. But I have just started and I am not sure if I can capture it all and I am not sure where I will end up. I am also not sure if I will continue it beyond this project for my photography class, but maybe. However, I feel I am becoming a better photographer though the process of focusing on a theme (no matter how unclear it may be to anyone else :-)) and also in working harder at it, so that is good. Like it or not, this is what I am doing right now, anyway. Marnie aka Doe ;-) --------------------------------------------- Warning: I am now filtering my email, so you may be censored. ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
