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Untitled by JM__, on Flickr

Provia 100 - Minolta CLE - 50 mm

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 Bravo, Phil, you have fleshed out the Bible for a Broadway stage play with “all of the usual suspects” in the cast.  You even gave us a preview of the score with Aida.  How you ray out of your photograph, Egypt Wall, and dovetail photography with abstract painters is so creative that it demonstrates the close relationship of photography and painting that has existed at least since the 17th century with the advent of the camera obscura, not to discount the innovation of perspective by the Romans.  Applause for your creativity and attention to detail. Bavo, bravo.

Cheers, Rog 🎬

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6 hours ago, AntonioF said:

Oak

M6, Summicron 50, Astrum Foto 400

 

20190217-DSC02266 by antoniofedele, on Flickr

Love it, Antonio

12 hours ago, stray cat said:

Rog - here’s the truth (I swear by almighty, etc) of how it all went down.

It’s late ’49 and all the abstract expressionists are gathered one fine day in Pollock’s Studio in Springs, drinking red cordial and getting pretty out of control, and someone, I think it was one of the color field guys, maybe Rothko, says out of the blue, “you know what our problem is?” To which de Kooning (of course - who else - and also, predictably, to the corroborative giggling and carrying on of Kline and Twombly) offers the wisdom that “action painters don’t have no problem, dick, it’s just color field wankers who have issues”. But then Rothko (no, come to think of it it's Barnett Newman) retorts with “nah, even so-called action slackers have the same problem as us - Greenberg reckons we're the epitome of aesthetic value, and there's no arguing that we do psychic improvisation OK but... we ain’t got no FORM to our work”. This of course causes an eruption of murmering and a general disquiet until Clyfford Still suggests “... as in conventionally structured formal subjective composition? You mean like them pyramids they got down there in  Vegas?”.  “Nah, dummy” interjects Lee Krasner, offering around a plate of bread covered with hundreds and thousands, “like the REAL pyramids - in Egypt”.

So Pollock, ever the genial host, immediately rings up TWA and books first class seats for them all to Cairo. Due to numerous factors including the weather, the Super Bowl, a film vs digital debate on LUF and late season bookings they have to travel via Vence in the South of France, which is where they find themselves next day.  Trouble being, they’ve left New York in such a rush they’ve forgotten their paints. Luckily for them Henri Matisse happens to be in the transit lounge and when they explain their predicament to him he responds “Pas de problème, connards, j'ai une palette de rechange. Même les expressionnistes abstraits ne savent même pas dessiner, sans parler de la peinture ...” Which roughly means “I have a spare palette. Take it - and with it may you create beautiful works”.

Soon Egypt looms and they are landing in front of the Pyramids. The plan? To check out the pyramids (which they do) in order to gain inspiration so that they can paint stuff which contains revolutionary things like content and form. Unfortunately it is very expensive to stay in Cairo so they hitch a ride on a felucca down the Nile as far as low-rent Luxor. Their American Express travellers cheques by now having dwindled to almost zero, they’re forced to look for work.

Fortunately, a house painter named Abdul has just sacked one of his workers for stealing his camel so he hires them on a trial basis and points out a row of houses that are, to be kind, lookin’ somewhat drab in their beiges and greys. Abdul exhorts them to “do yer worst, fellers” and, as they only have between them the single palette of Matisse’s to work from, they are forced to draw straws made from the papyrus reeds that grow abundantly on the shores of the  great river. Robert Motherwell draws the short straw but then, and no-one has ever been able to explain what happened next, somehow it is Hans Hofmann who is passed the palette. Hoffman works furiously and paints like a man possessed, each stroke of his brush laden with such unimaginable emotional intensity that it causes Arshile Gorky to swoon and Anne Ryan to faint. However when Abdul returns he just stands, jaw agape, anger growing and can only utter “يا هذا فظيع” before the Abstracts all feel it best to scram at great haste. Abdul, watching the Abstract Expressionists running away, decides he’s seen enough and had enough of the painting game so instead becomes lead baritone, playing Amonasro, King of Ethiopia for that evening’s performance of Verdi’s “Aida” at the Temple of Karnak.

The Abstracts, meanwhile, have decamped in haste and en masse back to the Valley of the Kings from whence they are able to travel by donkey cart, courtesy of an art-loving peasant named Mustafa, to Alexandria. Here they are able to talk themselves onto the Cunard Liner Queen Mary which is on her final journey to California, and they even manage to wangle a gig as a comedy routine onboard. Finally back in the USA, eschewing any notion of changing their styles and instead resuming their former modus operandi of color field and action, the Abstracts shift the centre of the known art world to Long Beach - which explains why the residents of said town are so knowledgeable about all things art. While this is all goin' down Mustafa and his donkeys have kept going and end up in Cairo, where Mus becomes Chief Curator of Antiquities at the British Museum.

 

Mustafa, sitting on his ass, Valley of the Kings

A few years later, a lost Australian traveler happens by the long-forgotten walls of what has come to be known colloquially as “حماقة هوفمان”. Deciding to blow off a few frames at the end of his last roll of Kodachrome so he can wait for the onset of digital a mere few decades hence, he points his camera randomly and accidentally takes the only known photograph of the only known extant example of the abstract expressionists’ historic foray into the world of form and content.

As for Abdul, he is still with the opera, although now singing in the mezzo-soprano role of Amneris, Princess of Egypt, in the Elton John/Tim Rice version.

And that, Rog, is exactly how it all went down, I kid you not.

 

 

And he I was getting ready to read a true life story!  I got half way through it and only then realized that it was a joke.  🤦‍♂️

2 hours ago, SunnySixteen said:

Lone skier on a ridgeline, Monashee mountains, BC Canada

Cinestill XX 250D - Summicron 50 - M6

 

Love this one.  Please tell me that you are Josh...

1 hour ago, benqui said:

Skyscraper in L.A., MP, 35mm Summarit, Portra 400

 

 

very cool, Marc.  Very punchy colors and those fading lines

44 minutes ago, JMF said:

 

Teatro Popular Oscar Niemeyer by JM__, on Flickr

SWC/M - Cinestill 50D

wow I am in love with the sky in this series..

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no Jardim Botânico by JM__, on Flickr

Cinestill 50D - Plaubel W67

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Just now, stray cat said:

Ha ha! Please assure us, Adam - you can't see the little dog, but what Dorothy's actually saying is "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore".

LOL, yes, you tell the story much better than me, Phil.  

PLEASE tell me all about being in Kansas that fateful day... 😂

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Just now, stray cat said:

I just kick myself that I said something slightly unbelievable in my story that gave away the fact that it was made up! Anyway, I love the photo of Dorothy, Toto or no Toto - she's really not groovin' on the weather is she.

I thin it was jus too early in the morning for me and probably didn't even have my glasses on yet.  But it was a cracking story nevertheless!

And I am serious about your Toto line.  I am going to steal it from you for Instagram tomorrow 😜

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1 hour ago, JMF said:

Untitled by JM__, on Flickr

Provia 100 - Minolta CLE - 50 mm

This is wonderful, Jean-Marc - out of the darkness into the light. There is just a hint of detail in the shadows to the right, but not quite enough so that we can tell what is going on. It is a mystery. At the same time, everything outside, in the light, is crystal clear - or is it? It is also somewhat undefined - a tad out of focus, perhaps a little blurry. A really interesting and well-conceived picture that stands as something metaphorical, inviting further thought and inspection.

1 hour ago, Ernest said:

 Bravo, Phil, you have fleshed out the Bible for a Broadway stage play with “all of the usual suspects” in the cast.  You even gave us a preview of the score with Aida.  How you ray out of your photograph, Egypt Wall, and dovetail photography with abstract painters is so creative that it demonstrates the close relationship of photography and painting that has existed at least since the 17th century with the advent of the camera obscura, not to discount the innovation of perspective by the Romans.  Applause for your creativity and attention to detail. Bavo, bravo.

Cheers, Rog 🎬

Thank you sincerely, Rog. The credit is all yours - you have opened up myriad avenues of knowledge, curiosity and inquisition that I'd have never even dreamed of, and I feel enriched. And, as I know you would always say, a broad range of knowledge will only serve to not only enrich our practice of photography but also our experience of viewing the work of others. Having said that, having Wikipedia and Google translate open helped immeasurably!

Edited by stray cat
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2 hours ago, Matisse said:

Leica M3, Elmar 50, TRI-X

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I meant to say, too, Matisse how much I've been enjoying your snow series. And I note the use of the Elmar 50mm, a lens that I adore and which is perfect for the look you have achieved in these pictures.

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2 hours ago, A miller said:

Love it, Antonio

And he I was getting ready to read a true life story!  I got half way through it and only then realized that it was a joke.  🤦‍♂️

Love this one.  Please tell me that you are Josh...

very cool, Marc.  Very punchy colors and those fading lines

wow I am in love with the sky in this series..

Haha yes I'm Josh. Thanks Adam.

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38 minutes ago, SunnySixteen said:

Haha yes I'm Josh. Thanks Adam.

aha, I have finally confirmed that I am not crazy!!

It's the SunnySixteen vs SixteenPads vortex that I got lost in.

I must remember:

SunnySixteen = Josh

SixteenPads = Patrick

Whoop whoop!!!

Edited by A miller
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The Eclectic Series III
M-A APO 50mm & Nikon F2 Micro-Nikkor 55mm
ADOX Color Implosion & E100

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The Eclectic Series IV
M-A APO 50mm & Nikon F2 Micro-Nikkor 55mm
ADOX Color Implosion & E100

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The Eclectic Series V
M-A APO 50mm & Nikon F2 Micro-Nikkor 55mm
ADOX Color Implosion & E100

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The Eclectic Series VI
M-A APO 50mm & Nikon F2 Micro-Nikkor 55mm
ADOX Color Implosion & E100

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The Eclectic Series VII
M-A APO 50mm & Nikon F2 Micro-Nikkor 55mm
ADOX Color Implosion & E100

Excuse the avalanche, but I'm going away for two weeks.

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