Comments on: christopher young – five #08

By: shutterlight

shutterlight — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:37:07 +0000

I love the colors here.

By: Photography Techniques

Photography Techniques — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 06:04:45 +0000

[...] Magazine has a great write up on photographer Christopher Young. His work is simply [...]

By: vicky slater

vicky slater — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 19:24:40 +0000

Ah, good. I tried to look for our chat to refresh myself but things move so fast here.
Anyway, I’m glad we agree.

By: Frostfrog

Frostfrog — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 18:57:51 +0000

Absolutely, Vicky – and that is precisely a point that I made in the earlier discussion.

By: vicky slater

vicky slater — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 08:39:21 +0000

I really like this.
I like how it feels so considered and precise.
I love the items that are half in and out of the frame and how that’s both wrong and perfectly right and it does something to my brain.
I like knowing that though it’s as found, everything portrayed is absolutely deliberate.
A very thoughtful and well executed piece.
And though I liked your statement I only read it after letting my own head play around with the picture for a while.

frostfrog, i think i know what you’re talking about but isn’t that all part of putting your work out there?
:)

By: Frostfrog

Frostfrog — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 03:10:32 +0000

Addendum to the above: I don’t know why, but I tend to drop out many words and make other little errors when I type these things. When I proofread before posting, my mind puts the words right back in even though they are not really there. It corrects the errors, even though the errors remain. I hope readers can figure out approximations of those dropped words and errors by context. Sorry.

By: Frostfrog

Frostfrog — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 02:46:38 +0000

Often, when an essay is posted, I take a look at it, then go about my business for a few hours, then see what images my memory pulls up before I reopen it take another and then, perhaps, to comment.

As this was single image and of a totally different sort than I had seen before, I went away and then, when I came back, pulled up my mental image of the picture, studied it, and then pulled up the real image to see how close I had gotten it.

To my surprise, I remembered pretty precise, down to the fine details.

I think a picture could only cause me to do that if there was something worthwhile and strong about it.

As to the need of context or not, when I first looked at the picture, it took straight back to a moment in Montana in the fall that I was 12 and entered an abandoned mansion with my dog and a friend. My dog was a brave and courageous dog and, teeth bared, would stand by me and against just any threat that one could think of, but the place so terrified him that when a gust of wind blew through a broken window and sent the curtains flying, the dog race out of the mansion and skedadalled on home.

I wonder if the picture would have brought that experience back to me so strongly, had the context been made instantly know.

Vicky Slater – for further evidence of the point that I brought up in another discussion, just scan the above comments.

By: zebrafactory

zebrafactory — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 02:19:06 +0000

Thanks all – and I truly mean all – for your comments. Any feedback is always much, much better than none. With artist statements there is always this balance between writing nothing at all, simplifying it to extremes or writing where my head is at. I guess ultimately the work is not journalism – ie. trying to tell a specific story about that space – but more about the experience of engaging with a space as much as possible without prior knowledge or context. It comes back to the ‘lack of motifs’ issue in my personal identity. That is, what ‘belongs’ or rather what doesn’t belong to me. What am I ‘allowed’ to make images about? With that in mind, I’m more interested in how a lack of information (or ‘caption’) in images can open doors for others. As a side note, the scene as with 99% of my images, is as found.

By: Ramon Mas

Ramon Mas — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:37:21 +0000

I really love this evocative-textured-nicely-naturally-lit photograph. I don’t have a problem with the picture being closer to fine-art than to photojournalism, or with the artist´s statement being ambiguous or too personal. The image simply works for me.
Cheers,

By: partha

partha — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 14:45:42 +0000

Hi,
A different perspective, a different composition,different view. Simple yet striking.There is nothing special in this photograph and that the strength in it. There is a untold story which gives viewr a option to think over it.
I just want to gaze it for some more time.
Regards.
partha Pal
India

By: Thomas Bregulla

Thomas Bregulla — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 11:55:09 +0000

Every picture which looks boring in the first logic, makes me search ..
Martin Parr said, “one can see how much effort you took when taking a picture, everybody is naked.”
I like in this picture the way you captured the light .. and the shadows.

Regards the caption, it may be good as a statement, however your picture can stand for itself.

Congratulations for being published.

By: LindaO

LindaO — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 07:45:49 +0000

I like the crossed curtains and how they fall gently on this rose-colored air conditioner. The light shimmers through and it almost seems like this is the first image in an interesting movie. I hear the foot steps on the dirty floor with that crackle texture denoting it’s been awhile since the floor has been swept. The air is damp and cool. Wh lived before and why did they leave? Nice picture.

By: neven grujic

neven grujic — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 02:06:32 +0000

i love photo, but i think is too much intro,bio and ….it is only 1 image.
we try too speak visual and thats enough!
un saludo

By: peter grant

peter grant — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 01:43:32 +0000

Hi..

This is a really interesting idea in that its like a blank canvas where we’ve been given a theme to illustrate on. I guess its very analogous to writing exercises for a short story, or something.

By: Imants

Imants — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:23:17 +0000

It isn’t an artist’s statement it is a critique……Being the artist and critic has become a bit of a trend here in Australia, the problem with going down this path is the audience is isolated from the artwork, the artist is not the decision maker for the audience.
As images rely on your statement/critique( the same seems to be the case on the supplied url) maybe a different media may be more applicable.

By: Brian Frank

Brian Frank — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 21:50:53 +0000

This is an example of where context matters to me. “I’m interested in finding scenes that potentially speak to an unknown history of a space.” A known history of a space would make the image more involving. It is a lovely picture, but that seems to be about it.

By: Michal Daniel

Michal Daniel — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 21:17:50 +0000

I will not comment on the image because it does not move me, at all, in any direction. But I agree with Sebastian. This type of Artist Statement would have been a lot better: http://www.johnbrownlow.com/phb/statement.html

By: Sebastian

Sebastian — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:11:43 +0000

Ridiculous artist’s statement luckily stopped reading it. Love the photograph!

By: skiwaves

skiwaves — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:09:07 +0000

The fact that this subject matter doesn’t have strong appeal for me personally, is irrelevant. However, I can see that it is very carefully composed, and that the photographer is mentally immersed in this space. What does appeal to me is use of natural light, and most of all the use of medium format film. It seems that film is becoming the “glass plate dinosaur” of the 21st century. I’m always happy to see that certain photographers are hanging on to it.
Way to go Christopher!

By: Frank Michael Hack

Frank Michael Hack — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:28:04 +0000

This esthetically is a really beautiful image. Fine art photography though and through. For Jim I think the lack of context is bothersome, but the beauty of the image is enough for me. Contrived, and boring yes but I think in a way that is the point isn’t it? Not as much of a fan of the artist statement, it always seems to be he Achilles heal of many of the pieces published here. I think the images are more powerful than the words and that makes sense as we are image makers not authors or poets in most cases.

Great work.