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02/11/2008 06:25:15 PM · #1 |
I appreciate the comments I got on my "Earliest Memory" entry. I made some people think, and I could not have had higher hopes for the photo. Thank you.
I would argue that, yes, memories can be abstract. Many people remember smells very vividly, and other people remember events in a more "emotional" way rather than a specific "event-based" way. However, none of my own memories are nearly AS abstract as my photo. What I really wanted to do was take a (very) soft-focus photo of a bench surrounded with flowers. I want to commend  JuliBocfor doing so well what I was not able to - make the memory recognizable and beautifully abstract at the same time.
While I appreciate a range of approaches to this challenge, I do think that a grand total of none of us remember our own birth. (Perhaps I would have enjoyed the humor more if I hadn't read about that exact idea in a thread before the challenge and if the idea had not been replicated multiple times.) Do I mind that those photos got higher scores than I did? No. Absolutely not. I fully realize that it is the idea AND the execution of the idea that counts, and my execution left much to be desired.
There has been talk for a while, and I have noticed some specifically recently, about new or fresh ideas, the same old themes, eye-candy, etc. The reason I point out the "birth" photos in contrast to my photo is that I would like to express something to people who may feel that their shots are not being appreciated for their creativity of thinking. Work on your technique, and continue to work at it. Please do not assume that your images don't appeal to people simply because people have a closed mind. Kinetic photography may not do wonderfully in a free study, but it will do better if it has nice contrast and composition. Out of the box thinking will do better if it respects the challenge at the same time as being out of the box.
Even free spirits can learn from those around them. |
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02/11/2008 11:13:30 PM · #2 |
I'm one of those who you got thinking while looking at your photo. I can't look at a photo for too long, I can't see something attractive there, but the idea behind the photo is interesting. It could very well be a scene from the life of a kid, but it isn't, mightly it isn't. This is an abstract stuff, open to various interpretations and views. I got stuck by the idea of abstract memories - can they exist? You say smells are abstract memories, but I don't think so. Smells are there, you can test them, you can qualify and quantify them. Even a memory of a memory isn't abstract, because it is there, inside one's brain and notion.
I don't mean that abstract things don't exist. Say, for example, beauty is abstract, I guess. If your image was presented in a way that would say: Look, at the early time of my life I found this detail of parasol beautiful (interesting, magical...), then I might have... Wait, maybe you said that... Let me think some more about it, ok? |
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02/12/2008 12:11:39 AM · #3 |
Just today, I told a large meeting of Web folks about how your aristry so inspired Team Suck that we bought you a camera. It was one of the best examples of community-building I could think of.
So keep pursuing your own vision! :)
Message edited by author 2008-02-13 22:23:19.
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02/18/2008 10:54:55 AM · #4 |
I just encountered this thread. I'd like to add a comment:
One of the core meanings of "abstract" is to reduce a thing to its basics; the essence can be abstracted from the whole. And in a sense this is what we do with memories; each memory is an abstraction at two levels ΓΆ€” it is a small part of a larger fabric that is retained (our memories, in sum, are less than the total of our lives) and of the "incident" itself the memory may be an abstraction, probably IS an abstraction, with not all components of the "incident" being "recorded", or recorded equally.
It's not much of a stretch, then, to realize that a "fuzzy abstraction" such as the parasol shot is a valid memory. Indeed, the title plus the image called back in MY mind an early memory of equal abstraction, a sense of light filtering down through bright leaves in springtime. So I think it's as "real" as any other memory, yes.
R.
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