I love doing these photos. I think that it is much more difficult to get a satisfying picture when taking other types of shot taken from life as it moves along . But nevertheless I love to take these shots so close up and showing me what I cannot see with the 'naked' eye.
I have wondered whether this is partly because I am aware that my sight is getting worse and that I want to see everything more clearly.
But I also think I appreciate the carnivalesque qualities of this kind of shot. I love to use saturation and to make these images look like adverts. It somehow transforms things into popular culture artifacts by making them huge, exaggerated images. That is, I associate bright colours, the celebration of the frivolous and the seemingly unimportant, with popular culture. Some people see these characteristics as vulgar and garish. Unlike the subtle subdued tones of high culture - a restrained way of carrying on. But I like 'in your face' stunning things happening around me. (Which is probably why I am a fashion junkie too.)
BTW did you catch the Lady Chatterley Affair, about the 1963 Chatterley trial the other night? By Andrew Davies? That had a LOT of rude words in it and made me feel very depraved indeed to watch it. It were grand.
At the time when Lady Chatterley's Lover was written people thought it showed no restraint at all and so believed it might be dangerous. The problem was they did not know whether it was OK to like it as it may have been vulgar. They needed it to be declared as high culture.
It was only released from its banned status because posh, educated people said that it made grand statements about life, humanity and relationships. Hmm. I am not sure I agree that it should have been 'unbanned' just because posh clever people said it was 'worthy'. Why does everything have to be justified on moral grounds?
Lets enjoy a bit of unexpurgated vulgarity round here.
4 comments:
Also I forgot to say ... it was all a bit hetero- normative, eh? What, what?
I like the selective gaze of the close-up or even the slightly-composed selection of objects. I understand what you say about garishness, but I also like the idea of dignifying the quotidian(I blogged about it a bit the other day).
Ah yes I like that phrase 'dignifying the quotidian' - in fact I may have to quote you on that as I have a paper planned about representations of the everyday and Flickr ... it will be a thing about the 'look again' culture and sharing of viewpoints, identity performance etc.
Hey Karl, I always klnew that you were more dignified than I am. I am sorry about the vulgarity I impose on you ... I am trying to learn about restraint.
Poor you Chris. Siuch a nuisance isn't it?
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