I wished you had posted a warning. There were some images I found disturbing and distasteful. I think including dead baby parts in your "art" inappropriate. The "eye" camera was pretty gross as well.
I am sure you did not mean "your art" as in my art. Not mine. That said, I wish I was as creative
and as craft oriented as Wayne. There is a lot of skill, work and thought into the art of Wayne
Martin Belger.
A disclaimer for taste?!? Are you serious? - Absurd. We are all adults here I presume.
Read a bit more about the project(s) and intent behind them. All of it highly recognized nationally
and extensively exhibited in established galleries and Museums in the US. He is also one of the
speakers at F295 (a major venue of alternative photography in the US) this year. Here:
Kaden K. wrote:
A disclaimer for taste?!? Are you serious? - Absurd. We are all adults here I presume.
Yes, we're all adults. I'm just looking for a head's up. Something like "Be aware that art on the link contains parts of dead babies." It's not something you'd ordinarily expect and it will keep folks from being blind sided.
There's some personal reasons I found the images of his art disturbing that I choose not to share with strangers on the internet. I'm not looking to prevent, I'm just looking for some common courtesy. If you're so insensitive that you can't imagine some folks would be upset, then God help you.
Let's be real "there are no dead babies here". I am not responsible for the various
traumas/phobias/circumstances that each of us may or may not have.
Anyone can be upset at any given time for just about anything imaginable, and
we may even differ on religious issues. We all come from different backgrounds.
That is the beauty of it all.
Clearly not an issue of being insensitive personally to you or anyone else on purpose,
hence the outlined absurdity of this line of thought.
I'll be glad to place a caution of "strong subject matter" on any future posting, but as
a rule of thumb I suggest that you please avoid all my postings.
Whining repeatedly, definitely not cool on my book.
Kaden K. wrote:
I'll be glad to place a caution of "strong subject matter" on any future posting, but as
a rule of thumb I suggest that you please avoid all my postings.
I appreciate your offer to place a "strong subject matter" on posts with similar content. Avoiding your posts would be a shame since except for this isolated situation, I really enjoy them.
Kaden ... I apologize as well. I'll try to post warnings at my boring images in the future.
Just' funnin' ... for those of us who have seen much of Kaden (understood @ alternative), it wasn't that surprising to find "alternative" imagery involved in addition to alternative technique.
I think (Kaden, correct me here) that is part of the reason (other reasons also) why Kaden posts via link ... it acts as a buffer to give pause for what you "might find". Granted, it took me a bit of time to "warm up" to Kaden's alternativeness, so I can understand the "shock value" that some might incur when we don't find "pretty pics" around the bend.
But ... when you walk around the corner @ museum and find something that wasn't "prefaced" as "WARNING: Next display may be offensive to some." ... and it bothers you ... (honest question), what is the appropriate response to/responsibility of the museum.
We've all come here to see and evaluate (opinion) what others have produced, so while NSFW tags (which you should be working anyway) can be helpful, I think there is an unwritten understanding that "it's all fair game".
This one didn't give me a "Warm & Fuzzy" feeling, but we've all seen "graphic" award winning PJ that disturbed us as well ... and it often comes without warning as well. Would a little "hint" be nice ... maybe so. But I don't think Kaden was "outa line" or irresponsible without it.
Of course, with Kaden ... he should probably just build in a signature tag ... "Caution, alternative thinking may stretch (or warp ) your mind in ways you weren't expecting."
You got it RustyBug. It is impossible to buffer one from life and sometimes words are used for
the purpose of controlling the actions of others. Placing labels in art is seldom a positive thing.
I must say that I find the unique cameras posted, all around amazing.
I myself recently took a workshop with an amazingly creative artist known nationally for his camera
creations and pinhole art. He can make cameras out of just about any object you can think (Jo
Babcock - highly advise purchasing his book "The Invented Camera, Low tech Photography &
Sculpture").
I created an 8x10 large format box camera using foam core and a 300mm camera lens for less
than the cost of 2 burgers. Here is an image of my friend Carlos using it:
As to the photographic art of Wayne Martin Belger as far as I am concerned it is brilliant. The fact that
his stunning cameras are created from scratch (how many of us have those skills), and they become
art objects incorporating a creative ideas that gives meaning to the end process, the image, is really
nothing short of brilliant. Case in point, the HIV camera where infected blood is used as a filter to shoot
images of HIV infected patients. One word - Wow! The same can be said for any other of his cameras
and he also seems not to shy away from using his personal pain/tragedies as part of his art/therapy. I
call that courageous. Most of us would avoid it altogether.
Maybe language wasn't perfect on my end - this image is not a pinhole image, but rather an image of
part of Jo's collection of 1000 pinhole cameras which went on to be exhibit as an object installation
and pinhole photography exhibited in CA, NY and many other places around the US. Hope this clarifies
it.
My advise is that you check out his book. Jo is well known as a pinhole photographer. In the book
(in the vein of examples) the milk bottle shot the milk man, the cigar box shot the cigar smoker...and
so on. Really an amazing book culminating with his van being turned into a camera and shooting the
grand canyon.
Btw, here is another example of very creative photography - in this case Garbage Men take photos
using giant Dumpster Cameras:
) your mind in ways you weren't expecting." 