The Closer She Gets

...The more she gives away her age. Sigh. It's funny how ad slogans and images that are imprinted on my brain mean nothing to anyone only a little younger. Actually I was thinking of "365 Photos". It was meant as an exercise that would encourage you to take more pictures, and to think about what you wanted to accomplish with your photos. I started out with a couple of ideas. One was an idea that has to do with my idea of what Art is. I think of (modern secular) art as a way of pointing to the mundane and getting the viewer to see it in a different way. The exact way of pointing, or the way the thing is seen is the choice of the artist, with an idea of who his viewer is. Between the artist and the viewer there is a relationship of collusion or confrontation that gives the image a meaning outside of its strict visual context. So far I find I have three different directions I'm going in. First: pictures of the utterly banal - various parts of my house, the work area of my desk, the inside of my fridge. This idea needs more development. I think with better selection and/or cropping it could be quite interesting and make a statement about my relationship with my surroundings. Second: pictures of natural objects like flowers, plants, or fruits which are obviously beautiful, but whose beauty is revealed in close focus. Third: images where the image might have intrinsic humor or where there is a natural "clash" between the items photographed together. In this category fall all of the "me and my snack" pictures.

I think at the end of the year I will break these various categories out in my Flickr galleries. So far it has been an interesting exercise. At the very least it has forced me to look around me for images I want to capture, and in the process look a lot more closely at the details of the world around me. If you have time to check out my Flickr galleries you can check out the 365 group for this project. Also, on my sidebar there is a Flickr "badge" that is featuring random items from the 365 group.