color I Dreamed of Heaven and Woke with a Wicked Thirst

a seemingly quiet neighborhood...who knows what happen behind the windows...the slight blurr indicate a "passing by" feeling of a curious but distant observer...that's the mood I get from this image Jeff...

En route to the neighborhood watering hole perhaps?

 

This shot could easily be dismissed as a careless snapshot - yet I suspect it's a bit more than that. Your enigmatic titles are always integral to the image as well.

 

I would be interested in your thought process here Jeff.

 

Best, David

That's a wicked pitcha.

Laurent: This was a photographic "drive-by." It's an "anti-sunset" picture. Not that I'm against sunsets, but c'mon, life ain't always on the mountaintop. I appreciate your thoughts.

 

 

David W.: The more I shoot, the less I want to shoot the same old picture. I was looking at my first pictures, all quite pretty or attempts at taking pretty pictures of pretty things, and not a one of them has anything particularly interesting to say. This man walking alone through a middle class neighborhood seemed to have the makings of a sad story of some sort, hence the title.

 

 

Bob: Yo-ah so smaht.

I think your title is just great! Excellent photo . Mood is pooled to the maximum.

Regards!

This is REAL, and that's what I like best about it.

very beautiful cityscape..congrats.

Beautiful composition and colors, looks like a great place, I like it.

 

Alberto

The perspective of this overweight, not-so-well-dressed man walking on a manipulated incline suggests that things are a bit harder for him. I like what you did with the lines as well like tracks we must walk on in our lives, the working class Yellow Brick Road. Very pretty sky and branches as well. I love the anti-sunset movement!

I'm always interested in how your pictures fall. I don't know whether you intentionally group them in any order but with each it's as if we walked into a room in your mind and turned on the light. The rooms are so different and yet it's not hard to believe they're all under the same roof.

Tatjana: This is a mood piece, as you've identified with heavy colors and feelings. Thanks.

 

 

Tim: More and more, I'm struck by how divorced from reality photography has become. Although I'm equally to blame, happily dabbling in photoshop wizardry, I think that real life begins to disappear and a cartoon world emerges. Occasionally, I see someone truly gifted who uses all the PS trickery to achieve something that elevates, but most of the time, all I can see are all the tricks. I know this is a "second verse same as the first" complaint from me, but I'm thrilled that you found this to be real.

 

 

Mehmet: Thanks so much.

 

 

Alberto: This is kind of a middle-class Americana neighborhood, a mixed bag so to speak. Thanks.

 

 

Donna: I had just come from an evaluation at a state (psychiatric) hospital and happened to have the camera in the car next to me as I was driving. I never bring a camera with me because I go to some pretty seedy places and it would be a liability to tote it around or leave it in the car. Here, I snapped a few shots while stopped at a stoplight. I found this man to be a sympathetic character and saw the scene very much like you've described. The incline, accidental at the time, was what kept this photo from being a throwaway shot. Thanks.

 

 

Jack: I don't find this photo to be particularly likable or enjoyable or even a good one, but I kept coming back to it for some reason beyond me. I intuit that you appreciate the process more than the result here. I like your notion of the artist's mind as a series darkened rooms with lights begging to come on. I don't fancy myself to be an artist, but I do think a lot about people. I find the psychology of making art, whatever medium is involved, to be fascinating.

Coming to America the first time(years ago) I remember being impressed by two landscapes( between others) that I saw around for the first time.. The brown brick buildings that were so different from my country buildings, and the line of this kind street houses , with nearly the same constructions and colors. The man looks like a '" blue collar" figure very different from that high middle class surrounding...

 

The houses reminding a soft sunset color palette but it is a nice real life " anti sunset" composirion...

 

I love Jack's poetic interpretation...;-))

 

(I see that we wrote simultaneously, but you were faster than my English writing....)

 

The grass is green on the other side of the fence, but that ain't heaven. Heaven is back down the hill with the "have-nots" who appreciate what they do have...family and friends who love and accept them.

Jeff,the caption is better than the image.As said earlier, I find the image moody.

Nicely done. There are some technical issues (shot through the windshield?) but I feel that it is important to get the picture firstly resulting in a visual story here - the lone figure, a relatively new car that looks ready to travel, recycle bin, an unlit fireplace. I like it.

Yes, for me the process is fascinating and I follow individual arcs because the direction the artist is taking interests me. A picture or even a series is only a single chapter, the product a particular time and space in a person's life and since we aren't static our work is constantly changing as the tale unfolds. If you're interested in an artist's career you have to follow the breadcrumbs they've dropped along the path through the woods. Individual pictures can impress you or move you or delight you or whatever, but in a way they're still only breadcrumbs, signposts along the way.

A wonderful slice of life drive-by. I love the treatment, the bold yet still mostly pastel handling of the colours in particular sets the mood nicely. To my tastes I like the inclusion of the reflection from your dashboard, it adds honesty and context. The flow and motion up and into the frame with a hurried rush from right to left comes across as gloriously unconventional in a way that makes my eye ricochet around the frame like a steel ball in a pinball machine. I hope not to come across as projecting my thoughts onto your processes, but I have found from my own experiments that sometimes the act of taking that quick shot in passing frees the mind to tap into compositional approaches that may not have been arrived at had I been stationary on the curb. Here you have merged a casual feel with a strong sense of intentionality as if this was taken accidentally on purpose.

"...accidentally on purpose." I like that.

This is a real piece of life and your title says it all. Thank you for sharing. :)