Adorama seems like a good place, $591.24 includes 4GB SD and extra lithium battery-delivered. What do you think?

As some of you probably know, my heart was broken in a big way, several months back, and I was truly crushed. I was in the darkest period of my life.

I experienced, saw, and perceived the world in a very negative way. I tend to be very visually expressive of the way that I'm seeing, thinking, experiencing, and feeling, and so this came out in my photography.

Most of my photography from the last half a year or so has had themes of everything either being trapped and dying, or dead and destroyed. The pictures are unrelentingly bleak, desolate, gloomy, and harrowing. They depict the nightmare of the way I was experiencing the world.

I showed a few, several months ago, but most of them I put aside... I was too messed up to even deal with my pictures. Now, I'm starting to go through them, and I can't help but question whether I see a place for these pictures in my photography.

Basically, it's like this:

Whether it is a book, or movie, or photo, or painting, or whatever – If I'm going to be exposed to something thoroughly unpleasant, there has to be a good reason. There has to be some catharsis, some payoff, to make it worth having experienced the unpleasantness. I don't dig pointless negativity.

I imagine others are the same way, but I'm not sure.

As I start to go through these pictures, even though I think they are well made, I can't help but wonder whether there is enough off a payoff to warrant the unpleasantness that they put upon the viewers.

Here are some examples:








So, firstly, do you feel the same way, that you don't want to endure unpleasant "art" unless these is a good enough payoff to make it worthwhile?

Secondly, do you see the pictures I've been making, over the last several months, as pointlessly unpleasant, with no payoff? Or do you see some worth in them?

Thanks.

Art,

I think Adorama is a safe place to do business with.

The D80 should be a good camera for the money (though I have not personally used it, so cannot meaningfully recommend it).

By the way, in case this s unclear, the last picture shown is a shot of a roundleaf sundew plant catching and eating a fly.

That first one is really dark, that lower left corner definitely projects a hard-felt destruction. I feel "Art" is "Art". It comes from passion whether joyous or heart breaking and what is produced should not be destroyed. It is a memory and it is full of emotion, pure and raw. There is a scripture that is one of my fav's that I think describes it best.

To everything there is a season,
a time for every purpose under the sun.
A time to be born and a time to die;
a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
a time to kill and a time to heal ...
a time to weep and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn and a time to dance ...
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to lose and a time to seek;
a time to rend and a time to sew;
a time to keep silent and a time to speak;
a time to love and a time to hate;
a time for war and a time for peace.

Without sadness how will you ever know joy?

Thanks, Art.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying there should be no sad art. I'm saying that if an artist going to put me through something miserable, s/he better be doing it for a good reason, not just for the viewer to experience misery.

First, while I sympathize with your trauma, I don't necessarily find your recent work particularly depressing. I tend to see beauty everywhere overt human influence is absent.

I would find pictures of litter, pollution, murder, torture, and other evils of humankind to be acutely depressing - but still a worthwhile reminder to all of us that without vigilance, we're indeed nothing more than "the damned human race".

I guess the difference is that human-caused bleakness could in some way be prevented through enlightened living, while the tenacity and power of the non-sentient environment is an immutable truth.

Adding your emotional context adds a layer to your work that is only subjectively anguished.

I guess those are my two cents (at a infinite markup to what my opinions are worth!)

Make sense?

Yes.

Thank you.

I like them. They all show nature, which is pretty much emotionless, the viewer can project their feelings of depression or whatever if they wish. I think they reflect human emotion, and we've all been sad/depressed at one time or another. It gives some the opportunity to be able to identify with nature, and appreciate you're work if they're going through some depressing times in their own life. Nature can be perceived through different perspective. Like the old saying goes, "You can complain that roses have thorns, or you can be grateful that thorns have roses." <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Thanks, A.W.

So, I guess none of you would toss my last half a year's work.

No!

While we're being depressed or not, I have to say having my dog put down 5 days ago did nothing to make me regret the 15 years, 1 month, and 8 days that he was my constant companion. "Better to have loved...", as they say.