102 - Virtual Life

102 - Virtual Life
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

As so often happens, I pulled over while driving back from a mall to take a photograph of a telecommunications company building from, I believe, the 1970s and which is reminiscent of an old 1960s portable radio set. Anyway, I still have not done anything with either of the images I took of that, but instead I have of this new housing block I noticed on the other side of the road.

The white face silhouettes are from another picture of Ania, and are perfect reflections - it is the building which distorts the image.

We all live in sets of virtual realities, where we distinguish between a skirt and a kilt even though there is no real distinction, they are both bits of cloth wrapped around us. What happens if a man wears a 'skirt' in public, though, and what if he wears a 'kilt'?

The purpose of art is to break through these virtual realities to show that other existences also exist. This is not to infer that art is for the domain of pleasure or work, art works in both and elsewhere, everywhere we exist.

Going to see art in galleries is not about learning about those artists, rather they are places we know that we will be exposed to art and then, by practice in recognition, we should be able to recognise art anywhere, in any field, including technology or picking rags from the side of the road.

100 - My Fist Remembers...

100 - My Fist Remembers...
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

This started off with a wish to do something for one of the Flickr groups, which I then decided against as I could not be bothered to go to the effort of photographing myself, but then when I saw what the target for the day was and decided I could do it with nothing more than the small pile of objects that end up like driftwood around my keyboard.

The aim was to take an image that was reminiscent of the 'no image' graphic used by Flickr for members who have yet to put up a thumbnail of themselves - or whatever.

My belief is that if you spend too much time looking for material, you are not focussing on the prime task, practicing avoidance, or you are doing it for someone else. The memory stick and press stud were there and were enough to produce the face like image on my hand, what more would one need?

I was not really serious about the image, I just happen to like some of the people in the group, including my younger brother. I almost only saved it as a jpeg image, but at the last minute saved it as a gimp file - which is lucky as the imagery I put in ended up being a lot more powerful on a personal level than I had expected.

People who fight a lot tend not to forget, perhaps because it gives further excuse for the excitement of further fights, whatever. The psoriasis is there, and I do remember what my hand was like before it came, and it is a big, visible part of my life.

I love the color, the expression, the rough and flakey nature of the skin, and even the position - although why I chose my right hand I do not know as it was harder to use my camera with my left hand.

Still, as I worked with the image, I worked my thoughts into it, trying to look for and show those things that I find important. In many ways it is rather like playing lucky dip with your mind, the actuality of playing with your thoughts bring on unexpected ones.

101 - Bad Gurls Dont Grow Old

101 - Bad Gurls Dont Grow Old
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

On the saturday I played around with some images, but I was too tired to concentrate. However, by the next day my mind was ready and I produced a stream of images, including a couple which we will not be publishing yet as some of Ania's students and compatriots would not understand.

I was pleased with the basic shot, as I had taken it while on the stairs in our block on our way to work. I might point out that the graffiti is from elsewhere, nearer where we used to live.

I like graffiti a lot as for many people it has been the only way they could express themselves publicly and get away with it, especially when at an age that no one else wants to listen or from a background that has little in the way of voice in society. Since the 1990s there has been an explosion in the quality and color of graffiti here as access to the materials required has improved. Their has also been a shift away from political/racist graffiti to the personal.

I was rather pleased to be able to insert the graffiti into this image, even though I made a few mistakes in the original, some of which made their way into the final image.

Interestingly, graffiti lends itself to this kind of transform. For example, the original was painted on a rough surface and I was able to use a wipe tool to wipe away most of the apparent surface imperfections much as if I were wiping around the wet paint of the original. Secondly, since most graffiti appears on flattish surfaces, it is easy to change its perspective - so this one went from a front-on image to one made to look as if it were on a receding wall. I look forward to using more graffiti - and I would like to thank the unknown artist.

Anyway, the key thing is Ania, and doing the kind of things that help to improve her confidence and success, so that she can follow her own path and achieve what she desires in spite of the people who in the past and present have tried to keep her in check.

She's my bad girl, and I love her.

100 - Blue Car Jazz

100 - Blue Car Jazz
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

This image was part done on my computer for several weeks, with only the blue treatment and the black background done. I wanted to add some kind of light treatment to the background to show the traffic bending away into the distance. The problem - my lack of drawing skills.

Then I came across some images of lights from an even older stalled project where I failed to photograph the lights of cars at night to anything like close to my satisfaction - it was freezing, I could not find a good location to take the picture, and the traffic was bolshy.

OK, the lights showed the camera had moved, but that was the effect I was after in comparison to the precise focus of the foreground.

Our expectations are a great thing when we are looking forwards to an event, with our minds filling in the gaps in the unknown future with our expectations from the past. Sometimes the actual event is better, sometimes it is worse - but it is always at least partly unpredictable.

Not knowing fully where a picture will take me is part of the interest I have in them, they allow me to explore things that would otherwise go unregarded in my mind.

099 - Saving the Woman

099 - Saving the Woman
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

Damn, this was a hard picture, I got caught half way through and could not see a way to complete. The answer was to accept that I had already used all my known methods on previous images and had no desire to go down those roads again. I mean, some of my previous methods had already been used, such as cutting out and use of high contrast, highly used already in many cases. The problem is that if you keep repeating the same techniques the results tend to become samey - they transfer from being innovation into skill training.

I am skilling on contrast and cutting out parts of images, and there is nothing wrong with practising skills - but you have to be careful that they don't take over. What I had was an odd shaped image of a woman and a picture and no idea how to balance it all up. I could have researched, I could have asked someone for advice - but what I wanted to do was resolve the problem myself, using my mind.

Eventually I modified my border skills, and experimented with a color palette (pale blues) that I rarely touch. Eventually it came right, proved popular - and only then did I see that I had resolved another issue that has intrigued me for some weeks - how to produce a gold effect. Look closely at the text - that is the most convincing gold I have ever produced, and it is related to the use of a pale blue filter layer.

Another thread of thought was based on my trying to conviince Ania that many of the things we do are wrong, because they simply follow what society dictates. The problem is that most of society is made up not of winners but of also-rans. This is not to be derogatory, but as in the case of fashion to dress in old styles today instantly makes you recognisable as being old from down the street, but that is the pressure of society, of also-rans.

Now, imagine that you want to be a winner - how are you going to win if you copy the average performance of the people around you? How are you going to beat the people already leading?

The answer is that IF YOU WANT TO BE THE BEST, DON'T FOLLOW THE REST, do something else. If you dress old, people will first assume you are old and hence think old. Dress current, and people have to categorise you different, whether they like it or not

098 - First Exhibition

098 - First Exhibition
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

These are two images from my first exhibition - Beautiful Lublin.

I want to support Lublin in bringing its identity into closer focus, showing people who live here more about what the city and region is as opposed to classical views on what culture should be - theatre, oil paintings and people playing violins.

The printing of books was an opportunity for the educated classes to hijack society's image of culture and twist it to fit some Western part of a European models, especially that of Latin and Greek models. I am part of a movement to try and revitalise culture, not in a cutesy overly-romantic way, but by showing people what is there so that they get the choice of what they want to call culture and nevber having to feel ashamed of it. This might sound old hat to a Westerner, but it is cutting edge thought here in Eastern Europe.

I would like to thank my wife for taking this picture, and everyone who helps to write and maintain Gimp photo-editing software for giving me the tools to convert the blurry, badly lit original into this sharp result.

The image on the right is of Jesus on a steel tube spaceframe cross, built for the visit by former pope, John Paul II, who once used to teach at the city's Catholic university.

097 - Danger on the Streets

097 - Danger on the Streets
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

The photograph was taken by my wife on the street where she works. I wanted to incorporate a number of different feelings in the image - that of morning, noon and night - and at the same time stress the dangers of the road. Alternatively, one can see day and night on either side of the hazard that is present all the time.

Here in Poland the effect of society has long been to make people selfish - to consider themselves as human and others as objects. Power over others is an important essence, and once understood the apparently random stupidity of many drivers begins to make sense.

In Poland, a car driver feels more powerful than a pedestrian, and the weaker must get out of the way of the more powerful. Society remains unaware of the underlying cause, and then people make a big fuss when someone dies. Too damn late - make the fuss BEFORE someone dies.