Preferences...and the Fly
I've had my icon on here for some time and will be changing this. I liked the "air brush, high light, wash-out look" but need to change it. It's a little to "soft and pretty", if you know what I mean. It's one of those sort of vanity photos, I guess.
Anyway, I want to put something up that's more me and will have to sort thru some pics. I'm starting to lean towards a more "real" feel to images of people's faces. I notice quite a few British pics look like that...usually have more of a natural feel (no air brushed away wrinkles) or capped teeth (which is a big industry here in America). For the record, I have had braces (massive under bite, crooked teeth on the top) but refuse to do the bleaching of my coffee stains. Maybe when I'm older, I'll feel differently. But for now, I'm all right with off-white teeth.
This concept of "perfection" comes up in art a lot. What is perfect? What is beauty? Many people have written, explored, debated, denied and have tried to get to some concept of beauty or idea of perfection. I don't know what it is, personally. I do know if a person tries too hard, perfection becomes the base for failure...as in, why bother, I'll never be perfect. And I've seen too many people try to be beautiful (and for some reason this is attributed to youth most of the time. Again, it's a big industry) with rather pathetic results.
For myself, I've noticed that beauty is often something that connected to surprise. It's like going for a walk, seeing some shade under some trees, reaching the shade and looking up through the branches. Suddenly, you're aware of a whole new view, a whole different perspective...and it feels beautiful and amazing. This is beauty to me.
I guess I think the discovery...the unexpected is what makes things perfect and beautiful. For example, I have this fly sitting on my monitor right now. It's been sitting there all day and I could probably catch it with my kids bug vacuum and set it free outside. But it's not doing very much sitting here and is actually sort of like a temporary bug sticker on my page, I guess. The funny thing about it is as I look at various photos and artwork on flickr and on different art sites, there's the fly. It's become part of the work and often I'll find myself laughing... there's a fly in this serious nude photograph. There's a fly on the landscape. Oh, and there's a fly part of this birthday party. Very odd and funny and a tad Gary Larson-ish. I've even thought, what an interesting idea of adding a fly in your work...only to remember, it's sitting on the screen.
So, the fly stays and gives me a different perspective to a flat surface. It's added a bit of clear winged, delicate legs, round little bodied dimension.
Anyway, I want to put something up that's more me and will have to sort thru some pics. I'm starting to lean towards a more "real" feel to images of people's faces. I notice quite a few British pics look like that...usually have more of a natural feel (no air brushed away wrinkles) or capped teeth (which is a big industry here in America). For the record, I have had braces (massive under bite, crooked teeth on the top) but refuse to do the bleaching of my coffee stains. Maybe when I'm older, I'll feel differently. But for now, I'm all right with off-white teeth.
This concept of "perfection" comes up in art a lot. What is perfect? What is beauty? Many people have written, explored, debated, denied and have tried to get to some concept of beauty or idea of perfection. I don't know what it is, personally. I do know if a person tries too hard, perfection becomes the base for failure...as in, why bother, I'll never be perfect. And I've seen too many people try to be beautiful (and for some reason this is attributed to youth most of the time. Again, it's a big industry) with rather pathetic results.
For myself, I've noticed that beauty is often something that connected to surprise. It's like going for a walk, seeing some shade under some trees, reaching the shade and looking up through the branches. Suddenly, you're aware of a whole new view, a whole different perspective...and it feels beautiful and amazing. This is beauty to me.
I guess I think the discovery...the unexpected is what makes things perfect and beautiful. For example, I have this fly sitting on my monitor right now. It's been sitting there all day and I could probably catch it with my kids bug vacuum and set it free outside. But it's not doing very much sitting here and is actually sort of like a temporary bug sticker on my page, I guess. The funny thing about it is as I look at various photos and artwork on flickr and on different art sites, there's the fly. It's become part of the work and often I'll find myself laughing... there's a fly in this serious nude photograph. There's a fly on the landscape. Oh, and there's a fly part of this birthday party. Very odd and funny and a tad Gary Larson-ish. I've even thought, what an interesting idea of adding a fly in your work...only to remember, it's sitting on the screen.
So, the fly stays and gives me a different perspective to a flat surface. It's added a bit of clear winged, delicate legs, round little bodied dimension.
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