Triptych.

We may be avoiding something obvious: the images seem a like a science-fiction paperback cover's involvement of eros and death. The tomb-like background, the black veil, the carefully displayed breasts, the deathly grey-green Playboy-demure bodies...there's an adolescence to it as well.

 

"Fashion" seems partially to drive these images...the drapes and headdress and exaggerated height may be trying to portray grace...a virtue that may or may not be commonly involved in death.

 

Perhaps there's an AIDS reference, though I'd have expected nude men if that were the case. Maybe it relates to a "woman's disease," though if it were breast cancer I'd have expected more emphasis and less youth.

mmh .. death! Thats an interesting thought, could make some sense, I dont see any eros though. Only becauss you can see a bit of body?? I like the idea about life and death, the mood is there and the colors. Sill the posing does not really fit this idea.

Felix,

 

The Playboy-style toying with nudity, particularly the use of a bland, almost faceless model, show a photographer dealing in mild, simplistic erotic symbols rather than trying to create intense erotic images. It's on the lite end of the erotic continuum...like "Playboy." He wasn't trying to turn anybody on, he was just playing creatively.

 

The same applies to the death aspect...the corpse-colors, veil, and cemetary-statuary wraps and poses are the lite end of a continuum that on the other end markets bloody death images from Iraq and down your block. The photographer was playing with death, he obviously didn't intend to deal directly with it.

 

These theatric images are ambitious, executed well. My only real criticism has to do with the concept, which could be completed by some accompanying text...these images could illustrate an article... or the chalk on the wall could say something to us.

I hope there is no message here. I would call it "spiritual" rather than "erotic." But the point is that I look and look and look and then I think and think, but not too much of the latter. This piece demands enlargement. I see it as almost life-size figures on an austere white wall over a fireplace (not a museum wall). I see it as monumental, sculpturesque. If it works that way, then it is great. At any rate, to me it is powerful, teetering on the edge of melodrama without falling in.

I didn't call it "erotic," I spoke of of lite-erotic symbols.

 

The funerial look and the bare breasts don't add up to "spiritual" for me. I'm Zen-inclined: for me "spiritual" simply means "spaced-out." These images aren't at all spaced-out, the photographer had intentional and analytic (and more) fun playing with easy symbolism. There's no hint of "meaning" or requirement for thought: it's entertaining and obvious.

 

Here's the probable knowing or unknowing inspiration: http://www.notsorry.com/rodin.html

I really like this. Particularly the color scheme. People can blah all they want that it's too erotic or not erotic enough. Doesn't take away from the fact that it's a fine piece of work. Nicely done.

This is a real combination between creativitie and photographic composition. Very nice perspective and over all great work with artistic point of view. I?m so glad to see this kind of Job.

Congratulations !!!

http://www.musee-rodin.fr/images/imagra/Ph235.jpg

 

Here's a Steichen photo of a Rodin sculpture that's toned and lit much like Jarek's. Rodin did many nudes that remind me of Jarek's, but they seem to have been mostly men and perhaps actually done by his lover, Camille Claudel (great film recently)

 

Note the comment about Ansel:

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094828/usercomments

 

background: http://www.cse.wustl.edu/~loui/camille.html

 

It's hard to imagine someone interested in art and visiting Paris, not seeing these images at Musee d'Orsay http://www.musee-orsay.fr

 

You can see many Rodin sculptures at the Palace of Legion of Honor in San Francisco, and Maybeck's most famous "sadness" building is the Palace of Fine Arts (swans, water, near Golden Gate Bridge.

 

A little visual education never hurt anybody...it didn't hurt Jarek: his images are big fun :-)

Congrats! On a very superb executed work of art!

See what you have done Jarek? - people are talking.

Great work.

I agree with J. Kelly. You'll need stronger philosophical signifiers to move this into something beyond low calorie "fine art" erotica... t

Most everything is obscured, except for the breasts, which beam right out of the void. The only deep meaning I get from this fairly elaborate work-up is "Look at me!" or even (on the part of the photographer) "Look at these!"

 

Okay, so now we have seen them. Other photos in the folder show them even more clearly. Is there anything else that we should be seeing? I am looking for a deeper meaning but am not finding it.

 

Still, it is not an unpleasant set of images, even if some of your others might be better. Congratulations on getting Photo of the Week.

This one comes to mind.

This one has deeper meaning, I think.

yep... t

i don't like it, personally. it feels cold and harsh to me...ugly. disjointed.

 

but maybe that's what the photographer intended, in which case i think it's very good. :D

Jarek, those additional images are great. They confirm where you're coming from.

 

Regards, Djon

Absolutely superb. Those words are not an idleness. They are the sum of my feelings, and reflect the impact this has on me. Congratulations.

I love your work, Jarek. This POW is mostly very well executed,

but in fact, I will agree with Tom Meyer: I too miss a strong

meaning here. And I'll agree with Michael Seewald as well, when

he wrote the following lines: "Congrats on POW. I love you textile

images and have said so previously. In fact, the single images

are stronger than this set, IMHO." Your textile images are imo the

best you have posted here so far: they have 3 things that I find a

bit missing in this POW: simplicity, strength and humility. The

textile series is imo absolutely fantastic, whereas this is "just"

very beautiful. :-) Regards.