A ballad to my dreams...

We all have dreams ...

 

Thanks for your thoughts.

Thanks

Gorgeous play of light and shadow. If only we could hear the song.

There is music in. The title is visible at the right side. BR Joerg

Superb composition and play of light & shade,Pnina This image & caption made me hum spontaneously Nana Mouskouri's song:

 

I have a dream, a song to sing

 

To help me cope with anything.....

 

When I know the time is right for me

 

I'll cross the stream - I have a dream

I agree about the superb composition, and the lighting is interesting. Though they feel alone in their own worlds, they also complement one other, providing contrast and influence mood: she bringing quiet, he bringing life. Like in other of your works, there's a bit of a voyeuristic feel.

This is a wonderful image, Pnina, and a very rare one. I see it as both visually striking and original. Composition, light, colour, geometry are fantastic. I also like the sharp contrast between the raw, dynamic attitude of the guitarist and the graceful, peaceful pose of the dancer. complementary Light and shadow, masculinity and feminity, yang and yin...

The shadowed figures hold so many interpretations, especially what appears to be an outstretched arm. Is he fully engaged in the embrace, or is he distracted and reaching out to something else. A ballad is never simple. And love has twists and turns that are unimaginable until you are on the ride.

Adan,imagine that you hear the music...;-))

 

Jorg, thanks , and welcome back

 

Amal,I have all Nana M. songs, I love her French and Greek music. Thanks for your association with her in this one.

 

Donna,right now I read again Susan Sontag's book about photography that I have read a long time ago.( in Hebrew).I identify with her definitions, and she writes( among many other things) that to photograph, is to " buy power on what is photographed" creating relations and interpretation of the visual depiction done by a person ,like in painting and drawing.

I think that it is right especially when it is human related. In use of the camera there is a form of aggresiveness, and also voyeurism. So I think that especially photos of human situations always have voyeuristic component, connotation and personal interpretation.Thanks for writing your impressions.

 

 

 

Laurent, nice and kind interpretation, I like the yin/yang association as those relations are affecting a lot of our life.

 

Jeff, this is the ambiguity on one hand and human relations that have dreams, drawbacks, Joy and happiness ,on the other. When I photo a scene on the stage, it is always when it forms a thought and says something to me, and so it is my personal interpretation .Thanks for yours

 

 

 

Excellent angle! This man looks like he is singing to the girl next door and she is preoccupied with her own activity to notice his interest in her. A not to uncommon occurance.

 

Kirk

The ambiguity of the scene, the uncertainty it conveys, touched me.She looks like reading a letter? indifferent..., he is " singing" his dreams to the space.... human behaviour. ... A balad to the complexity of human relations.....

Pnina, I have felt that aggression in photography, drawing, from both sides. In some photos, it's more obvious. In spite of the fact that you clearly and consistently write that when you shoot dance scenes, it is your interpretation of the scene, not necessarily the intent of the dance, I tend to forget that all we see is strongly mitigated through the artist's eye, that it is all artifice, artificial in that it is a meeting of thought and feeling in which the visual is understood and then presented through more of the same.

 

So is all photography editorial commentary?

I go back to my previous citation in my photo ' All the world a stage".

here

I enlarged the word SAW in order to emphasis it

 

A citation of Susan Sontag words( I don't have the English version, so it is free translation) :

 

" PHOTOGRAPHS , are not only forwarding what was there , but what somebody SAW there. , they are not only a documentation, but an interpretation as well " .

 

I think that yes, at the end each photo and art work is an editorial decision.

 

Take for example your head drawing in B/W. you wrote that you have decided to crop the other part and upload only the head. was it not an editorial decision? you gave it the starting point, the way you wanted it, even initially it was different. If viewers will interpret it the way YOU saw it? I think that most of the time each will take it to his own world and interpret it in his own way. Also when you draw or photograph a person, you perceive him in a way he probably will not perceive himself, it will always be your commentary of him.

 

When I photo a dance or a visual theatre, I decide which frame to take from the whole, I photo some fractions of the show, I post process it, elliminate ( crop) parts that I think are not relevants, adds sometime, manipulate it to complet my idea...

 

So yes again Donna, I think at the end, it is an editor commentary ,which is the artist himself.

 

Goofy me, I thought the letter the silhouetted woman is reading was a calculator that she was working like she was doing her finances or working on a math problem, something routine and unromantic.

 

I see the letter now.

 

Kirk

Regarding the "success" of the art work, is it dependent upon the piece successfully transmitting the artist's point of view? Particularly if it is dependent upon symbols--many things can be construed as symbols: light streaming into a dark room, for instance, can be spiritual for one, remind another of imprisonment, be banal, ordinary for a third....when has the viewer read in too much? I looked at a photo today of a mother and three children looking out to sea. Only their backs are visible, but I was thinking of the events of today--the release and what he did to that father and 4 year old daughter--,and I saw the water, the children, the adult as vulnerable. Oceans can make one contemplative, even images of them, and people can be reduced to symbols, paricularly if one only sees only their backs...

I think Sontag expresses important, and limited, aspects of camera usage. Her gun and voyeurism analogies fall somewhere on a continuum of how a camera can be used. I think she is not just talking about how she, personally, sees camera usage, but how she perceives that cameras are typically used. I also think, to a certain extent, she is mocking those notions and challenging us to use the camera in different ways as well. If I'm not mistaken, she also uses the penis analogy for how cameras are commonly used and I think that's tongue-in-cheek, as she seems resentful of patriarchal tendencies on the part of society.

 

My own personal experience is that when I started photographing, I was pretty strictly acting as voyeur, nabbing shots of people on the street in a sneaky way, getting some good photos, enjoying seeing people unguarded, unknowing that they were being watched, being themselves. There's a lot to be said for that. Ultimately, I wanted more, and I have opted to use the camera in a more connected and connecting way lately. I will always play with the theme of voyeurism and always stay mindful of the fact that photographers are in some ways voyeuristic and in some ways intrusive. But I'm conscious of swinging in a different direction on the photographic pendulum.

 

I think you are attempting something different and are not sneaking like I did. You are openly engaging this world of dancers/actors on a stage and finding a path between connection and disconnection, looking for that junction of harmony and voyeurism.

 

I do see what you mean here. There is a distance, not only in the way the background figure is divided by the window, partially in silhouette and partially more detailed. There is no evident connection between the musician and the background person, other than that they share a stage. So you have opted to catch an optimal moment of disconnection. That emphasizes your own position as voyeur here.

 

As for the image itself, I think it's an effective one in portraying what's going on and in conveying those moody feelings of disconnect and longing. I like the way you've captured the movement of the guitar and the man's shirt and the relative stillness of what's going on behind him. That creates tension and even more (emotional) distance between these two.

 

Something about this feels like a self portrait and that is you in the window, partially obscured and partially more laid bare.

I read that the author S.Y. Agnon used to spend his mornings into the afternoon at the cafes, meeting people, being alone, then come home and sleep. At night he would stand at a podium at home and write. He had been gathering information. Yet, somehow, gathering material from eavesdropping seems less violating than the voyeurism of the camera. Perhaps it is just more clearly all impression whereas street photography is, in essence, less subjective.

 

I agree about the complete disconnect of the photo above. I like Fred's analysis of the woman in the light--half-seen--as you.

;-)) you are not Gooffy.... sometimes it takes time to include all the details, thanks for writing again.

First let me tell you that it was a very hard day emotionally ,yesterday ,and will be also today, we are glued to the TV, and all the country is mourning. It is such a cruel behavior of the other side, and we know that it is not the end yet.

 

 

So yes, a photo can be symbolic, even the symbole is not world known, but human behavior known, and associated with events of past and present.This is what I wrote about the viewer taking and absorbing a photo into his own world and interpret it according to his culture and life experience.

 

An extreme example ( to my deep regret) is the two sides of the borders yesterday.

 

I think that it is always the artists point of view.. as long as he thinks he succeeded in what he wanted to express. "Success"? is relative and it depends what each individual thinks about it.

Thanks for writing and expressing your thoughts.

 

Susan Sontag's definition of the camera use is wider a bit, not only voyeurism, it is also invading, aggressive, much more than passive documentation , and a" tourist in the reality of the other"....

 

I agree to most of what she expresses, BUT ! like you Fred, I look and continue to look, using the camera in another way, in order to create my point of view and my way of experiencing human life.

 

Voyeurism will always be a part of using a camera, but I see it also as introspective ( changed it after learning a better term....thanks) to my own inner human world., conscious or subconscious, but a scene that touches me uplouds the sub to the conscious and to my awarness, and so widen my perspective ( with reading and other things around)

 

I do it a lot with the use of the theatre and part of the dance scenes, that are touching me, combining stage and life to one " chapter" of human life. ( btw, the curator of my last exhibition told me I do it and also wrote it in his writing of the opening, and was right of course).

 

You are right about the longing, disconnection of the scene that is so significant in human life and feelings.This scene helped me to create the right connotation toward a wider, general saying.

 

I strive to depict human life and feelings and I'm a part of human life, Fred...part of it is personal and part of it is looking at....

 

I think that looking at your work you are doing it in YOUR own way as well.

 

There is a lot more to say, I will try to do it looking at your work. Thanks for your wide interpretation.

 

( please take into account my limitations in expressing myself in English)

About the success of a photo. I think often it's not a matter of success. A photo just is and it is what it is to the creator and the viewer.

 

At the same time, I think there are measures of success. I'd need to hear a little more from Pnina about the notion that "as long as he [the artist] thinks he has succeeded at what he wants to express." It would depend whose perspective we were coming from. As a viewer, I might hear (and have heard) a photographer say he thinks he conveyed such and such. Often, it's the case that he felt such and such at the time but actually has not conveyed it at all. Sometimes, it's hard work and requires great delicacy and nuance to actually express in a photo what we feel at the moment we took it or even what we feel while processing it. A photographer may think he has succeeded in conveying a certain feeling, but if I don't see it, I'm not necessarily moved or influenced by whether he considers it a success or not. Although it will be information that's important to me, it will still not be a success to me. That's different, by the way, from my liking it. There are many photos I've seen that I've liked quite a bit but when I've heard the photographer's intentions and realized he didn't meet them, I may continue to like it but qualify greatly the level of success it has achieved.

 

Although I firmly believe that photographs are open to the viewer's interpretation and have a life of their own beyond the photographer, there have been some instances where viewers' reactions allow me to realize that I did not convey what I thought I wanted to. It's sometimes a juggling act to determine whether they just didn't get it or I didn't give it and how much that matters. Sometimes it's a matter of differing interpretations and sometimes it's a matter of ineffective communication or expression. The more experienced I become, the more clear these things get to me.

Very well composed. The space between becomes absolute by cutting the figures!

A photo is a photo, you are right, but I think that the photographer/ artist while creating it ,is closer to the photo in his will to express something and decide to upload it, and the viewer is than an interpreter.I think that in order to get the perspective ( yours, and of others) there is the need to expose it, when you expose, the photo gets life of its own, open to interpretations. Success? It depends. What the photographer thinks, is not always working for others.... what ever the reason is, and when an evaluation is a good one and succeed in explaining the pro and against, it can help the artists to understand if his intention was successful or not, if a change will help etc, and so also learn and develop.

 

 

 

It also depends of what you will define a success. Exposing at the MOMA.... will be a success.... ;-)) But there are gradations, and also the question what the photographer want to achieve, is exposing at PN ( or another photographic site) and get the viewers approval,( or not...), is a goal ,or an intention to develop and try the real world, and test his/her work there,and see how it works.

In the real world the competition is fiercer, and less easy to survive....It depends as well if people are ready to BUY and pay for your work, it depends if you are exposed in the media( critique,publication etc). I tried it, in the real world, and I don't complain....

 

What are your intentions Fred?

 

Donna, I think that you are in a good path with your drawings, and still has a way to go, the trick is ...work work work, trying, trying, and be open to real constructive critique.

 

Nothing changed, you are always short ( not in your phisical size....;-)) and to the point . Thanks.

Success can be measured in terms of exposure, commercial viability, sales, income, all of which I'd be happy to partake in! :)

 

I'm aware of them but also wary of them, in that they can be traps. My main benchmarks for photographic success are whether I'm being genuine and true to myself and whether I'm putting out there what I need to.