Interior Shadow

Jack...Pondering..''What's behind the grey door''?Salutations-Laurent

Only the shadow knows, Jack. The white border prevents us from wondering whether the entire world has flopped to the right by about 20 degrees. Looking at this image makes me wonder whether I need to start over when it comes to creating abstract images. A favorite.

Good one Jack. It's actually kind of spooky, but in a subtle way.

WOW!!!! Striking, spontaneous and minimalism taken to a whole other level. Your image is so strong it takes me back to my coveted Photography Year Bokks of the National Photographic Society of the UK back in the early 60's. I am dumbfounded and cannot come around such a special image, so simple, yet so utterly complex, unraverable. A class of its own, no peers, uncomparable, un-relatable. 101% McRitchie. Best. DG

P.S. It is the twilight-zone...the figure is both, simultaneously in front and beyond the closed door. What a conception! My sincere admiration. DG

Laurent, Michael, Patrick, Daniel - Thanks for the nice comments on this picture. Like many of us, I try not to repeat myself or fall into a programmed way of seeing the world. Our blessing and our curse is homeostasis which gives us a stable world but also a predictable one. The bane of the artist is predictability and of course that's exactly what society seeks: the predictable and the named - neat little categories to keep everything in order and open to reason and explanation. I've commented here recently about the difference between the thing and the thing photographed. Once I understood that the photo doesn't stand for the object, it is the object, things opened up for me. I know a lot of people will dismiss this as just a another shadow portrait cliche, it's really not; it's the singular product of that moment of recognition that sends you scurrying for your camera. That to me is the goal, those moments when you see things and they give you a little start, a temporary breakdown in the programming that lets you see the world afresh.

Daniel - Thanks especially for the extended comment (if a little effusive), I think you understand where I'm coming from.

...It was a dark and rainy night, quo vadis?....

Hi Jack,

 

I have to admit this image confused me to some extent; the 'typical' traits of your photographic style are absent, such as meticulous attention to composition, straight lines and balance. This photo is an obvious deviation from your well-known style that I've come to appreciate and I must say the difference is somehow refreshing. As a photographer, I like to be able to express myself anyway I see fit and I sincerely value the fact that you make this statement, thereby reminding us all of the necessity to keep seeing the deeper reason to create images. Kind regards, Vincent

Phillip, Vincent - Thanks for the comment. I wrote a long reply but once again this piss-poor excuse for a web site couldn't digest anything more than a few sentences and sent my comment hurling into the ether. It was a long anecdote about the great photographer W. Eugene Smith and his epic battles with the story editors at Life Magazine. He had one set of priorities and they had another. He was interested in the purity of the raw image; they were more concerned with putting out a popular magazine. The point I was trying to make was that I think each of us has a W. Eugene Smith and a Life editor inside of us to a greater or lesser extent. In this picture, I sided more with Smith and I hope to be on his side in the future as well.

It's interesting Jack, I would also crop that poking out corner on the bottom.

I found the following statement most interesting philosophically, Jack: "[T}he photo doesn't stand for the object, it is the object," If you mean that the photograph is the object of the photographer's work - "object" in the sense of "result," I would agree, with the qualification that this reading renders your statement somewhat trivial. What I really think you mean has to do with the photograph itself, and here;'s where the meat comes into play. Literally it's the result of light being directed to a light-sensitive medium (a sensor, photographic paper, wet plate, etc.) But I prefer to think that it is what happens on the part of the photographer before clicking the shutter and what happens following that action, i.e., a process rather than a thing. The progress consists of both subject and object. I hope this all makes some sense!

Michael - Yes, your latter assumption is what I mean. Unless you are doing documentary photography (and I`m not completely sure it applies even here!) the image is not an actual representation of the thing but the result of lights and darks rendered on sensor or film by a chemical/electronic process. The photographer collaborates in the creative process by choosing subject, composition, settings, etc. but after the shutter is pressed , the umbilical chord to the actual subject or event is cut and a new thing (the image) is formed. I`m sure that is obvious to you since so many of your pictures involve further manipulation of the image. There is something of a gap between grasping this intellectually and really coming to grips with the concept on an operational level. It`s not so easy to free ourselves from cultural or peer expectations since they are so finely woven into the substance of our being. But on those occasions where insight translates into action and you realize that you are creating, in a way, an independent artifact, the results can be very rewarding. (Now you know why I don`t get on forums very often; My ideas don`t lend themselves to the written form very well unless I spend an inordinate amount of time whipping them into shape. Hope you got what I was driving at. Regards, Jack) pps: good thing I saved this long comment before attempting to upload it because it wouldn't post and I would have lost it as has happened many times before. Forewarned is forearmed.