wimmen Tanyth Berkeley

[jtk]

<p>Fred, "wimmen" is common spelling used by a subset of female intellectuals and rock bands. It may have begun with Aline Kominsky (Mrs. R Crumb).</p>

<p>I don't think Mrs. Crumb has any desire to "leave men out of it." She's still happy with RC in the South of France, I read recently.</p>

<p>BTW...you're a musician...have you ever heard Cheap Suit Serenaders?<br>

<a href="

<p>Thanks to their experiences in Tucson with Virgin-in-tortilla, later heretical iterations of genders of Aline's former associates embraced your "wimmin" spelling....I've heard tell.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.mineshaftmagazine.com/alinereview.html">http://www.mineshaftmagazine.com/alinereview.html</a><br>

<a href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Aline_Kominsky-Crumb">http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Aline_Kominsky-Crumb</a></p>

[jtk]

<p>...actually, there are deeper historic wimmen roots:<br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dAZd9Sr12k">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dAZd9Sr12k</a></p>

[lightwait]

<p><br />Why do people so commonly resist seeing a photograph <em>as a whole</em> rather than as some sort of collection of canned objects?</p>

<p>Don't look now, but a collection is some kind of whole.</p>

<p>Personally I don't have an awareness of any of my photos on a pixel level. At the level of pixels, images are meaningless as wholes.</p>

<p>What are you really trying to say?</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><strong>John--</strong></p>

<p>Thanks. I did not know of these various alternatives and their milieus. Interesting. Glad I mentioned it.</p>

[jtk]

<p><em>"One of the things that kind of unnerved or bothered me was the sense of recognition that the photographer had put her finger directly on something."</em><br>

Yes. Exactly my experience. I didn't see them as "a collection" initially, I was TOLD they were a collection...might have seen them as accidental individual photos otherwise. So I studied photos that I might otherwise have rejected, getting increasingly "unnerved or bothered." Then I posted this OT.<br>

<em>"Why do people so commonly resist seeing a photograph as a whole rather than as some sort of collection of canned objects?"</em><br>

...because art history/art appreciation teachers teach that way...not entirely wrongly, but it brings the story of the blind men and the elephant to mind:<br>

<a href="http://www.jainworld.com/literature/story25.htm">http://www.jainworld.com/literature/story25.htm</a></p>

[william l. palminteri]

<blockquote>

<p ><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=2361079"><em>Fred Goldsmith</em></a><em> </em><a href="../member-status-icons"><em><img title="Subscriber" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/sub3.gif" alt="" /><img title="Frequent poster" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/3rolls.gif" alt="" /></em></a><em>, Nov 24, 2009; 01:42 p.m.</em></p>

 

<p><em>Something's been bothering for several days about the title of this thread.</em></p>

 

<p><em>I just realized how "wimmen" [sic] was spelled. I believe the more usual alternative spelling is either "wimmin" or "womyn." The point was to leave "men" out of it.</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Fred, I wonder if it gets that deep. Jiimy Dean, the C/W singer spelled it "Wimmen" when he covered the Stuart Hamblen tune "I won't go Hunting with you Jake, But I'll go chasing Wimmen".<br>

It was the flip side of "Big Bad John, Jimmy's huge hit from 1961.</p>

<p>Bill P.</p>

[cyanatic]

 

<blockquote>

<p>Just to clarify my comments there, I just don't seem to find people photos (of complete strangers...) all that interesting, in general, unless they happen to be doing something interesting... Or perhaps the environment they're in is interesting to me...<br>

The thing is, the girls in that link are basically just stood there doing nothing particular of note in front of some not-so-fascinating-to-me foliage... So all I can really do is look at their heads. Is that interesting to me...? Nope.</p>

</blockquote>

<p >I don’t find bell peppers or symbolic movie still emulations very interesting either, but it doesn’t prevent me from trying to understand the aesthetic intent of Weston or Sherman. And I think that that is all any of us are really trying to do in this discussion. And although I am not implying that Berkeley is of the same magnitude, her photos are certainly worth the type of discussion and consideration that I would not give to an anonymous porno lensman from lickaliciouscuties.com </p>

<p > </p>

<p >Women in TB’s series look different, and are photographed differently, than fashion, cheesecake, or porno queens. Comparing the two seems a bit pointless as they’re not even in the same ballpark. (If I’m looking for prurient images of women, PN’s Philosophy of Photography forum is not going to be my first stop.) The “head shots” of Berkeley need to be seen as a series. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. If we had been shown only one of her photographs and asked, “Here! What do you think of this?” a quick dismissal of the image might be understandable, even if we knew, or were told, of Berkeley’s thematic intent. Taken as a body of work, it is certainly worthy of discussion. The uniqueness of these heads (the subtle uniqueness, for these women are not circus freaks) seen in series is the draw. </p>

<p > </p>

<p >If they’re not your cup of tea, that’s fine. But contrasting them to the attraction of a hyperfox photo doesn’t seem to be a very relevant comparison. </p>

<blockquote>

 

</blockquote>

 

[lightwait]

<p>John,</p>

<p>That question about seeing parts was not mine. I posted it before realizing it was missing quotation.<br>

What follows it is my response to it.<br>

Sorry for the mixup, the quote belongs to Julie Heyward.</p>

[tonmestrom]

<p>Interesting read. Actually I like her work and I think she's produced a great and impressive series.</p>

[joe_jackson4]

<p>"If they’re not your cup of tea, that’s fine. But contrasting them to the attraction of a hyperfox photo doesn’t seem to be a very relevant comparison."</p>

<p>It is to me.</p>

[tonmestrom]

<p>the way I sense it the close framing of these women and transgenders disconnects them from reality while the quite deliberate and consequent treatment decidedly brings out or suggests a kind of vulnerability. I find that very appealing but also confronting. I actually think she's very good in applying her chosen technique.</p>

[jtk]

<p>Berkeley may be addressing something about "authenticity." The great Spanish film maker, Pedro Almodovar, addresses exactly that with Agrado's monologue, perhaps about standard-issue women, in "All About My Mother." <a href="http://www.sonypictures.com/classics/allaboutmymother/laagradosmonologue.html">http://www.sonypictures.com/classics/allaboutmymother/laagradosmonologue.html</a></p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Unless more meaning and depth is sensed in the photographs of these young women (not always evident on first viewing), of physical characteristics perhaps generally unnoticed before now, or in their expressions, I fear that the series may become a bit circusy in nature (and I do not say that with any disrespect for the subjects) or even banal.</p>

[mizore]

<p>The male fantasy is women doing anything to look good to men, including surgery, and she who can afford the most surgery wins. Berkeley is playing against that more than with it. </p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<p>The male fantasy is more that of plucking the fruits of women doing anything to look good to other women. For women wanting to look better and outdo their competition and running in favor of the man choosing <em>them</em>. But most men don't care a zip nor fantasize, as much as other women do, what kinda dress or shoes a particular woman is wearing or is gonna wear to look good or better. When women go out they dress and make-up more to outdo each other, not so much to attract fantasizing men, isn't that the easy part ?</p>

[mizore]

<p>I wasn't talking about clothes. Guys in various cultures have traditionally required various deformations of female flesh. With Photoshop, those deformations can be done without surgery to widen and enlarge the eyes, fill out the bust, regularize the nose, and make the skin smoother than an egg. </p>

<p> </p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<p>Well, I for one don't traditionally demand the various <em>deformations of female flesh. </em>That sounds like something from Hellraiser, and I ain't Pinhead.</p>

[jtk]

<p> I don't think Rebecca understands genders as well as she might ( "gals" know how to attract "guys" because we reciprocally train each other in every culture).<br>

Men "deform" themselves as much as do women. To confirm, spend time in a gym...note the tattoos, perforations, and exaggerated bulges.<br>

Nonetheless, I do think Rebecca understands what Tanyth Berkeley is about. </p>

[mizore]

<p>I don't believe that guys who do the exaggerated bulges have women as the projected audience. And that's not literally crippling the way wearing high heels is.</p>

<p>One of my male dogs never got into dog fights, but if a female dog was in heat, she was his. The fighting between male dogs isn't to win the females; it's to keep the really charming males away from the females. Bulked up muscles in human males aren't a message to the women; they're a message to other men.</p>

<p>I think piercings and tats are fairly unisex in some circles.</p>

[luis_g]

<p><strong>Rebecca - "</strong> I don't believe that guys who do the exaggerated bulges have women as the projected audience."</p>

<p>" Bulked up muscles in human males aren't a message to the women; they're a message to other men."</p>

<p> Whew. For a minute, I wasn't sure <em>what</em> bulges Rebecca was talking about.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>And <em>I</em> thought we were back in the fantasy thread.</p>

[jtk]

<p>:-) </p>

<p>Multiple perspectives make the world go round.</p>

<p>...until they solidify into beliefs, instead of experience of individual angles. Then they bog things down as much as insistance that we agree our individuality away. IMO, of course...</p>

<p>In MY gym many women seem to admire the men's muscles, discretely ignoring flab...others are in their own worlds, just working out or trying to save their lives...some have minimal strategically-placed tattoos (a tragedy, like rain forest destruction). Some of the men court each other, twas ever thus...some court the women, others just work out. I wish I could make sweaty portraits in there, but I don't want to do it secretly and I don't want to make the place look adverting-squeeky-attractive.</p>

<p> </p>

[mizore]

<p>John, it's going to depend on the muscles and how much? Guy runners have one look, guy bicyclists have another (and often find gym trainers try to give them misguided advice about bulking up, which doesn't work for bicycle racers). I'm not sure what the appropriate body build for photographers is -- some appear to be quite lean; others not.</p>

 

[jtk]

<p>Rebecca, right ...except for negativity about trainers...I think the trick is to work with trainers who are certified, degreed, and who ask questions. I'm afraid that this means they're under thirty.</p>

<p>Photographers are often fat from being sedentary, but I know exceptions...one has lived most of the last twenty years photographing deeply in the deserts of Southern NM and AZ, and Northern Mexico. Evidently slimming. Imogene Cunningham was a skinny little bird...got lots of exercise, late in life, hiking around Haight Ashbury and everywhere else in San Francisco with a Rollei.</p>

<p>Local photojournalists are pudgy, save one who came somehow from Africa...still has a lean and hungry look. Ethiopian?</p>

<p>My experience with trainers (three good ones over ten years) has been that they advise selectively, depending on expressed or diagnosed needs. In my case the advice quickly eliminated a number of aches and pains (I have none, knock wood, had many ten years ago), shifted about twenty pounds from fat to muscle, vanished another twenty...not that many would notice :-( Feels like a "good thing" in the absolute sense.</p>