11-17-10 – Artistic Bent

Oh, man… too much to respond to before heading to work…

I was griping, but like I said, I’m not going to call out specifics. I guess I shouldn’t too much, because I archive-dove, but they were all shots that I’ve been saving for a fitting theme. I think it burned me more that at the time, two of my shots had two and three votes, respectively, and that the bulk of the 6-10 vote range seemed to not just snapshots, but bad snapshots. Oh well.

Regarding Flowers and puppies: Agreed. I loved u-mans holga flower, but I have a lo-fi weakness. And Kestrana’s blue flower because it’s my favorite color and reminds me of Hawaii. Other than that, meh.

Regarding Hagrid: Sounds fixable.

Regarding boy in cape: Awesome shot.

In part I feel like many of you do in the thread about the voting this week. My Egypt reflections picture is one of my personal favorites but it also marks the time where I feel I transformed from a person taking snapshots to an amateur photographer considering more than just the main subject in the picture. At the same time I also feel like telling the whole lot of us to stop whining because our idea of art isn’t the mass idea, apparently. The last few posts make me feel like a sellout because I happened to post a picture of a flower this week. Personally, I think that picture is the best one I’ve ever taken, I’ve been saving it for this contest since I took it and I was excited to share it with everyone. We might be collectively disappointed in the voting but I think if the John Q. Public voter were to read this thread they would get turned off from participating and that is definitely what we DON’T want.

PandyFarmer, thanks for the comment. I almost did not take the time to get the photo. Was busy doing other things in the house and looked out the front and thought that would make a good picture. And kept doing what I was doing. Then looked again and decided to stop what I was doing, grabbed the camera, went out and took several shots. I’m glad I did. Thanks again.

I’ve looked through the entries again, and added a considerable number of votes I’d declined to earlier. I guess I’m more relaxed (the beer says so…) and viewing with a more open mind having followed this thread over the last 24 hours.

kes I, too, loved the colors, but I didn’t even notice it was a flower. I saw the stamens/pistils (I always forget which is which) as hooks, metallic in nature, and the lighter bits behind them as a chain tying them to the piece. I thought it was jewelry. I knew the image was organically inspired, but just thought it was a really great artistic image of someone’s craft (I have friends who make a living off such artsy things). So then everyone makes me look closely. ‘Doh!’ IMHO, it’s an even better shot for it.

ennui I echo the masses. Get any shots of them as a family?

I’m doing remarkably well, which really surprises me. It’s more than I’d hoped for, especially as the origami shot that I took specifically for this contest is faring best of my 3. It was a difficult choice of which shot to use–I spent several hours trying different ways to compose that image with a particular wanted result at the end. I came close to what I wanted.

And just now I had an epiphany. I went about it backwards. I should have laid out the papers first, then imaged me removing them one by one. Same net effect, but I get to choose the final layout with precision.

Damn.

I love that shot of the papers. It’s one of my favorites in this contest.

ennui I echo the masses. Get any shots of them as a family?

I spoke with them for about two minutes, gave them my email address to get a copy of the shot and never heard from them again. The marched off in the parade and that was that.

OMG Kestrana, those colors in your flower shot are gorgeous! I’ve never seen one like it, do you know what kind of flower that is?

Unfortunately no. I’ve looked on the Central Park flower website and several tropical websites. Found some other pictures of the same flower on Flickr with such helpful names as “Blue Flower”.

After some Googling I think it could be something called Tibouchina urvilleana. The unusual hook shaped stamens are what made the connection for me.

LeicaLens Thanks!

Mopsy *dies of jealousy that you see that from inside your house*

…I think you’re getting a little too hung up on the voting aspect of Farktography.

//just sayin’