I'm too behind on other things to justify blogging at the moment, but I just came across this dumb picture on the hard drive. While it's a cheap, one-note kind of a picture, it brings up questions about sequencing, punctuation, and the difficulties of balancing subtle quiet pictures with louder, easier, sometimes even punch-in-the-nose "dumb" pictures. Those who do it well, (Robert Adams, Alec Soth, Wolfgang Tillmans, Jason Fulford, Mike Slack, Ed Panar, and Adam Bartos all immediately come to mind), can use such seemingly simple pictures as a form of punctuation in a series, like an exclamation point or a question mark; sometimes as a simple key/guide to leading the viewer through the quieter, subtler pictures. Hmm... maybe that doesn't make enough sense without clear examples. Well, to keep up the emasculated male subtext, how about I go with Soth's stallion for now?
Alec Soth, Impala, 2005
1 comment:
Funny, sad, serious, stupid - this is the real rhythm of how we see the world. The trick, of course is striking the proper balance and avoiding being too clever. Hot dogs and hot dog jokes are both great. You wouldn't want to live on them, but once in a while, they're perfect.
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