advertisement


Phonography

IMG_1273_800px.jpg


Iphone SE companion pic to yesterday's x100 post of The Groom in 'pic a week'
 
palindrome said:
Don't know. That's why I keep lingering! :)

Seriously tho', I would say a moody tranquility. And a question as to what is over the horizon.

Growing up, I lived on the southern edge of Loughborough, and myself and a couple of friends would spend a lot of time during those years wondering along the edge of such fields, through local copse, along the towpath of the Grand Union Canal. My 'backyard' wasn't so much the town but local countryside; and that oft-times made me feel unshackled, free from what was a very unhappy childhood. It (whatever 'it' actually is) stays with you, and sometimes there is a recognisable affinity in some of the images posted here (and elsewhere) that taps into this sentiment/feeling.

And that's about the best I can explain it.

John
Click to expand...

That's a really interesting post, and I know exactly what you mean. I suspect that photographs that step subtly outside of the literal are the ones most likely to trigger those emotions. I find the slightly dreamlike quality of holga or pinhole can do it, I suspect because their odd combination of sharpness and lack of definition looks a little like memory itself. I follow a brilliant photographer called Kit Young, who works (conventionally) with 35mm HP5 in the Norfolk Broads, and his painstakingly worked wet darkroom prints trigger my childhood recollections of gloomy East Anglian evening landscapes in the heart of winter, what my mother referred to as 'the gloaming', when there's a certain translucence at twilight.

Anyway, thank you for posting your reflections, I feel quite moved, although I did very little. Its strange that one works quite hard to create that feeling in a photograph, and then it comes from an entirely unexpected direction.
 
eternumviti said:
thank you for posting your reflections, I feel quite moved, although I did very little. Its strange that one works quite hard to create that feeling in a photograph, and then it comes from an entirely unexpected direction.
Click to expand...

That's a good point of separate discussion, and thanks @palindrome for the candid response; I dare say there are things honestly captured here over the years, that set have me off in comparable, if lesser, ways.

Things that appeal directly to evoking senses can slip right under the radar; the best example is smell, which - being based entirely in the lizardy-bit of the human brain, is hard-wired-to /directly evokes memory directly without mediation by the higher functions.

It can be anywhere from welcome, to deeply -disconcerting, when such happens.
 
@eternumviti & @martin clark

Thanks for the kind words.

Looking at the olfactory senses from the other end of the telescope; of course, we can't smell the visual contents of a photograph. And yet, in a way, it seems that sometimes we can, when an image conjures moments and feelings that are deeply embedded in the psyche, they provoke, trigger, the memory of other senses, including the olfactory. Looking at Toby's photo didn't simply remind me, in a descriptive way, of the smell of drying wheat in hot, dense and humid air, I believed I could actually smell it; also the dank mustiness typical of so many long walks along the canal. Yet, there is no canal in the image. It's all by association. And the subjective power of ones imagination, but imagination based on real world experience and circumstance. Looking at the image, for me, was pleasant, nostalgic and thought provoking, which is why I have lingered there for a while.

This has happened quite a lot over the years in this room, not just being impressed with the photographic prowess from so many contributors but, and regardless of technical know-how, sometimes the ability to just conjure beyond these two dimensions.

John
 
calorgas said:
Great pic ^
Click to expand...
Thanks. I had to crop out a bit of my thumb though. For reference, it's the stairs in between floors at the Riverside museum in Glasgow. A fascinating place for anyone interested in transport and history, particularly Clyde-built ships
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top