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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BackdoorArts" data-source="post: 334853" data-attributes="member: 9240">Again, to each his own.  I've far from mastered anything here, I've simply found a sweet spot within this type of processing that helps me express a specific and repeatable feel with the photos.   It's meant to evoke a feel, an emotion, a vibe (if I can use "hippie parlance") to the viewer, and I don't expect that to be universally accepted or liked, so it's OK.  To the "motor oil" point, the skin tones are one of the first things I played with, and to be honest, "normal" skin tones rendered the feel utterly schizophrenic, as if the human body was out of place with everything else.  I easily could have rendered them all in B&W, which would have likely diffused most of the skin tone criticism (a word I don't equate to negativity), but the B&W's for me were just more street photos, and I wanted to express something different.  They're not meant to be portraits or even accurate representations of what things or people look like, and I sure as heck didn't set out to take snapshots for a family album.  They're meant to evoke a feel, and they obviously do that.  I suspect some people, were to see themselves in the photos, might be aghast at how they look (and might choose to wear more sunscreen), while others might actually appreciate the imperfections the treatment brings out.  Again, I'm cool with all of that, because I never set out to take photos of people, or things.  I wanted to capture a recurring event, and all that goes with it, and I think I've managed to do that in a way I'm happy with.There's a part of me that's moved past taking "nice" photos that are universally likeable, in favor of capturing something that speaks to me.  As my brother and I walked through an art fair two weekends ago we were discussing the possibility of him starting to sell some of his work now that he's no longer shooting for a newspaper, and as he looked at the other photographers' work he said, "Man, I guess everybody loves to buy 'Wallpaper Photos'."  What he meant was that there are a lot of people out there taking high quality photos of things that are very pleasing to the eye, shots that people can't wait to make their computer wallpaper for the next week or two - until they find something else to replace it.  But those photographers all seemed to blend in to one another, and of the 20 or so booths that we passed there were maybe 3 that made us stop and take a hard look, because they had something different to show that actually had something to say.  I'd decided this long before that moment, but I could never exactly put it into words until then - I don't want to be a wallpaper photographer.  Sure, I want to be able to make wallpaper quality photos when they're appropriate, but I want my photography to be something beyond that, and if I'm going to make a go at this as a serious sideline then I need something that sets my stuff apart from the others.  I may not sell as much work, but those I do will sell because they spoke to the person and not just because they'll look good over the couch (not that there's anything wrong with that).</blockquote>

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