Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2007/01/21
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Works for me, too, Peter. The repetition of the jeans' color in the puddle's reflection of the sky is momentarily disjointing, as our first impulse is to relate the two in a causal, even teleologic, functional relationship. But because this innocent formulation is optically impossible on the grounds of projective geometry, as our experienced photographer's unconscious then tells us, we soon identify the real dimensions of the image and come to appreciate the deeper level of the image: The implication, nay, the declaration that first impressions of the world carry the hazard of simplification to the merely superficial, while we rely on our sophistication to steer us safely away from such hazards. Thus the modern technologue passes on anew, in fresh metaphoric song, William Blake's celebration from 200 years ago of the invigorating yet so essentially instructive dichotomy between innocence and experience. Too, we find in the truncated human figure, bereft of face and body language and perhaps even gender itself, a traveler momentarily passing into our ken before quickly passing out of it, on a solitary journey to an unknown destination for an enigmatic purpose, an eloquent symbolism of the ineffable anomie of contemporary life amidst the wheeling indifference of the natural world, symbolized by the clouds and the sky, a reinforcing meta-metaphor for the fact that this modern metaphor of Blake is, after all, quintessentially modern and therefore verging tantalizingly on one of the core Universals of the human condition. But if this be true, what are we to make of the contradictory fact that the heavens have been captured and brought down below the level of the human, and by turning Nature itself, in the form of the rain, to subjugate itself through a human construct in the form of the paved-over earth (a primary, literal subjugation of Nature as the agency of the secondary--yes, it must be said again--metaphorical subjugation of Nature)? Nothing less than the recursive nature of Reality and of metaphor itself! Or it's a purty pitcher and nice coupla coincidences. --howard I think I'll have another Lagavulin. Now, back to the final exam in Art Appreciation.... On Jan 21, 2007, at 2:04 AM, Peter Klein wrote: > I found this one today as I was going through my hard drive and > cleaning up old work files. I didn't work it up when I took it 2 > years ago, but now I really like it. > > <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/pklein/album170/PC190437StepOnSky- > w.jpg.html> > > --Peter > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information