fine art -- industrial and other Industrial Tubing

This Industrial Tubing is found in South San Francisco/Burlingame,

California, near the San Francisco Airport. Your ratings and critiques

are invited and most welcome. If you rate harshly or very critically,

please submit a helpful and constructive comment; please share your

superior photographic knowledge to help improve my photography.

Thanks. Enjoy! John.

have always something that evokes old fears and the strangest associations. The way you choose to compose this work, with those protruding lighted tubes [like futuristic clutches], is a very good touch. Thank you for sharing, Giuseppe

I like the composition, the tonal range of the black and white photograph. I like the pattern and texture. Some how I feel that the image lack total symmetry. The overall feel I have is one of complication and complexity. I would have prefer a little simpler composition.

These actually are 'stainless steel' or perhaps aluminum (but I think 'stainless steel' tubes, part of some industrial machinery. Perhaps it's an incinerator, but that remains to be discovered.

 

These are not 'light tubes' although they are bright, but that's reflected light, and the choice was to 'bring them out' to emphasize them and to make a differentiation between them and their surroundings.

 

I'm glad this photo pleased you.

 

John (Crosley)

If one looks at some of the highest-rated images on Photo.net, one will discover that for the most part, the very highest-rated are generally more complex.

 

Now, they may fit together or 'hold together' better than this image. I 'threw this up' here to complete an initial attempt at displaying such images -- I never had done so before, but hope to develop this end of my craft.

 

Part of the issue, which you may not have recognized -- is that American metalworkers are not so good on symmetry, and what you do not see as symmetrical may in fact have originated with their lack of symmetry in their own work. In other words, this collection of tubes and joints may have substantial geometrical 'errors' in it, which I believe is easily seen (at least by me -- but then I'm very attuned to such things, and perhaps you are too).

 

Too complex? I am not sure. Perhaps not so pleasing to you? Of that I am sure, based on your comment.

 

But you have to post initial images to have a starting place; not everyone starts out as a 'genius' in the business of 'image posting' in a genre like this.

 

I think I would rather err on the side of 'more complex' rather than more simple, but if I could post a 'more complex' image that was so harmonious that you felt it was 'less complex' that would be more like a triumph to me.

 

Thank you for sharing your opinion; I'll keep it in mind when I take my next such image(s).

 

John (Crosley)

I am sorry for my bad English: I knew we were speaking about 'reflected light', and my comment was about the compo you had chosen to emphasize those tubes. Btw I think that "industrial landscapes" are among the most diffcult subjects. Thank you again for sharing, Giuseppe

So ... looks like you finaly took the decision to go a bit more consciously toward the Art path ...

 

Brilliant serie. I just would love to see massive prints of these photos > I don't think the web presentation can really show the whole range of subtilities.

 

Really looking forward to see more of this kind of work.

 

kind regards

 

laurent

 

A conscious decision or just something to fill a few hours?

 

Only time will tell.

 

I constantly strive to fill my repertoire.

 

Perhaps this is larger format stuff, not DX format grist . . . . ?

 

But it required the 'reach' of a long telephoto to get near the subject.

 

Of course, I am aware it's somewhat 'trendy'. but then I don't follow 'trends' so much -- at least on purpose.

 

I just like taking what I see and appreciate.

 

I refuse to be pigeon-holed; that's all.

 

(maybe like you, too).

 

At least as I understand your spirit.

 

Thanks for the continuing encouragement L-P.

 

John (Crosley)

All images posted here so far were compiled within two hours of each other on one windy afternoon when I was stuck in a nearby motel.

 

I was trapped with auto in a semi-industrial area near the San Francisco Airport and no people around -- and definitely no 'landscapes' in the traditional sense unless one were out near the runways and the TSA (Transportation Security Agency) takes a very dim view of those who venture near the permiter fences of the International Airport even with cameras.

 

So, I 'made do' with my two hours or so.

 

This is the result.

 

I found it intriguing.

 

I may do more.

 

In fact, I have done more, and soon when I go to the East Coast and through the 'Rust Belt' I'll be looking for more of the same, but in an 'older' context.

 

Thanks again, for your encouragement.

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

Just check your email : Not beeing sure about answering in this thread, I prefered to send you the email, and at the exact same time you just clarified completely what I was writing ...

 

 

I did get your e-mail, and was heartened by it.

 

We generally are on a wave of similar length, I think, so words are little impediment in our communication if they are not precisely written I think, or ideas not fully formed.

 

I very much appreciate your continual encouragement; it means a lot to me. More than you might know, and whenever I see your name (recognizing your enormous talent), I take a deep breath, and say to myself 'I may not be at his level . . . ever . . . but I have my own level . . . . and that's something that no one else in the world has . . . . at least when you look at my more consistent and better stuff.

 

Of course, since this is 'proving ground' and a social place for me, I do post things that have little artistic merit, but just 'for the heck of it'. Occasionally I get a big surprise. That's part of the fun of this site for a prolific shooter like me who is not so bound by 'rules' and who never had a formal photographic education and who only took one 'art survey' course in university. (though I have been to most of the world's major museums -- with many yawns, as most bored me, except for the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, I think in part because Van Gogh was 'interesting' and broke away from the formal 'brown' school and refused to kowtow to the rigidity of then-current definitions of 'art'.

 

He proved pretty prescient . . . . tragically.

 

I have no thanatos, myself, over my art.

 

I look at it as 'fun' in a major way/with no need to 'succeed' by crawling over someone else (compare that to the practice of law as a litigator in which there most often is a 'winner' or an attempt 'to win').

 

Thanks for your continued interest.

 

John (Crosley)

as always your photos are opening interesting dimensions and exchange, which is another prooff if needed of the power contained in your work.

 

First, i don't believe in talent : Only extremely hard work, strong will ( and the ability to refuse compromises when they wil endanger our creativity ), constant self-questioning are the only "secret" for creative people.

 

The concept of talent was ,I think, first invented either by somebody who was too lazy to work like hell, and needed an excuse for not beeing able to produce anything creative, either by an artist who, if succesfull wanted to make people believe creating Art could be easy, but just in order to anihilate any kind of competition ...

 

Another little detail I think is important, is that the only way to be able to create something really new, is by first kjnowing all the formal and traditional ways of thinking and working : We need to know against what we have to fight, what we need to destroy and transform : When we don;t we just keep doing again what has been done for generations. And that is why Art in general is so poor today : by refusing to learn ( and actually to teach ) Art history and traditional crafts, you end up with massive amounts of "artists" thinking they are so clever and do something new, when you'll find that what they present has been already done many times. And theses artists are actually doing it genuinly, as they have no way to know it has been done before ...

 

And at the end, probably it's all about finding the right balance between all the formal ways to express ourselves, our own discoveries when applying these ways, constant questioning, but always as you said having fun and enjoying this research.

 

And as for wining : it is probably only a race aginst ourselves : in Art you'll never crawl or win over anybody but yourself as every expression has its place out there.

 

And when I fight against myself, I'm sure to loose ( you may say as well as I'm sure to win ( but I don't care about the winner here )). I then prefer to see that as a little trip, some kind of constant inititation during the interval between birth and death, and this interval is always too short for us to loose time to fight ( especially when it's against ourselves )

 

Take care

laurent