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Enclosed Patio


Frank Sellitto

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Leica Barnack iiif, 35mm 3.5 summaron, Vista 200

 

 

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    There's something terribly lonely about this image...

     

    www.robertpoolephotography.com

     

    Provocative observation, an image that elicits something terribly lonely. This something is not in the image itself but beyond the image, and using the paired words terribly and lonely to define that somethingness illustrates the frustrated boundaries of text and image. Terribly lonely can mean very lonely, but terrible can also mean causing terror. Does loneliness cause terror? Is being alone terrible? Is this an image of terror? Is all of this extracurricular? What is the evidence? Poole underscores loneliness, but can loneliness be liberating or oppressive? Are we restricted to either/or? Sellitto's image intrigues and poses questions. It is not easily dismissed. The solitary figure, a middle-aged business man in transit, sits at a table with three empty chairs, his back to the camera. Only a bottle of water sticks out of his carryon bag and a paperback book on the table in front of him. The night scene looks like the set for a stage play, a sense of artificiality, reminiscent of Beckett's Theatre of the Absurd. Loneliness, the impossibility, absurdity of it all.  A monolithic core ten steel wall with a flat tree sculpture and decorated with a few dozen cartoon-like over-sized butterflies, climbing no higher than the reach of a installation workman on a four-foot ladder. Then there's the memorial wooden bench on the left of the frame, dedicated to whomever, and the slightly mysterious rock pathway that leads nowhere in front of the core 10 steel wall. All in nearly shadowless illumination. Our traveler is caught between a splash of yellow and red flowers in over-sized pots. There are no witnesses to this scene, this theatre of the absurd. Is our traveler carrying on a conversation with the unseen occupants in the three chairs flanking his table? I know, I have perhaps carried on too far with this circus, but that is the frustrated boundary between text and image. Words are always defined with yet other words, whereas the image is concrete, as allusive as that may be.  I hear applause for the Barnack IIIf! Bravo!  (Sellitto, the photograph reminds me in a way of Struth's series in museums. Your photograph is part of a larger work focused on these nightscapes, the unrecognizable in transit? Very provocative photograph, this is you've shared.)
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Yes, guilty. Words invariably betray the writer just as the photograph proclaims vision of the photographer. What is notable is the subtext of the seemingly mundane we sometimes discount or simply disregard. In Sellitto's "Enclosed Patio," Poole latched onto "something" that was "terribly lonely," a subtext that was not easily definable with words, yet there it is in the photograph. An ambience. A sterile interior landscape that perhaps draws an equivalency of a mental landscape. Photographs that intrigue manage to prompt dialogue with a viewer that invites interpretation, a way of filling in gaps to bring into focus the blurs of logic.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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    Provocative observation, an image that elicits something terribly lonely. This something is not in the image itself but beyond the image, and using the paired words terribly and lonely to define that somethingness illustrates the frustrated boundaries of text and image. Terribly lonely can mean very lonely, but terrible can also mean causing terror. Does loneliness cause terror? Is being alone terrible? Is this an image of terror? Is all of this extracurricular? What is the evidence? Poole underscores loneliness, but can loneliness be liberating or oppressive? Are we restricted to either/or? Sellitto's image intrigues and poses questions. It is not easily dismissed. The solitary figure, a middle-aged business man in transit, sits at a table with three empty chairs, his back to the camera. Only a bottle of water sticks out of his carryon bag and a paperback book on the table in front of him. The night scene looks like the set for a stage play, a sense of artificiality, reminiscent of Beckett's Theatre of the Absurd. Loneliness, the impossibility, absurdity of it all.  A monolithic core ten steel wall with a flat tree sculpture and decorated with a few dozen cartoon-like over-sized butterflies, climbing no higher than the reach of a installation workman on a four-foot ladder. Then there's the memorial wooden bench on the left of the frame, dedicated to whomever, and the slightly mysterious rock pathway that leads nowhere in front of the core 10 steel wall. All in nearly shadowless illumination. Our traveler is caught between a splash of yellow and red flowers in over-sized pots. There are no witnesses to this scene, this theatre of the absurd. Is our traveler carrying on a conversation with the unseen occupants in the three chairs flanking his table? I know, I have perhaps carried on too far with this circus, but that is the frustrated boundary between text and image. Words are always defined with yet other words, whereas the image is concrete, as allusive as that may be.  I hear applause for the Barnack IIIf! Bravo!  (Sellitto, the photograph reminds me in a way of Struth's series in museums. Your photograph is part of a larger work focused on these nightscapes, the unrecognizable in transit? Very provocative photograph, this is you've shared.)

 

 

Ernest,

 

Thank you for investing the time to comment on my image and your evaluation of it, ignited by Poole's statement as a "subtext" .....an undercurrent or a token representing a psychological state.  Not very often does one so eloquently  write about an intentionally openended image in which is certainly a welcome.

 

Best regards,

 

Frank Sellitto

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Ernest,

 

Thank you for investing the time to comment on my image and your evaluation of it, ignited by Poole's statement as a "subtext" .....an undercurrent or a token representing a psychological state. Not very often does one so eloquently write about an intentionally openended image in which is certainly a welcome.

 

Best regards,

 

Frank Sellitto

Well, it is all your fault. It is a fault we should all aspire to attain. The provocative photograph that instills the imagination.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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