Luminous Landscape Forum

The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: seamus finn on April 10, 2011, 10:39:54 am

Title: Front of House People
Post by: seamus finn on April 10, 2011, 10:39:54 am

My s90 took me for a walk today and led me to these folk who were busily going about their daily chores.


Title: Re: Front of House People
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on April 10, 2011, 04:05:57 pm
I thought is might be another of those protest marches, but they all look a bit more cheerful than the average protester.

Charming bunch.

Eric
Title: Re: Front of House People
Post by: RSL on April 10, 2011, 07:44:31 pm
Fascinating, Seamus. They all look very Irish.
Title: Re: Front of House People
Post by: feppe on April 10, 2011, 07:59:54 pm
Maybe they're hoping to go on a trip (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1043552/Gnome-Stolen-garden-elf-returned-7-month-adventure-world.html).
Title: Re: Front of House People
Post by: popnfresh on April 11, 2011, 02:20:03 am
Reminds me of a nightmare I once had after a particularly well lubricated frat party.
Title: Re: Front of House People
Post by: stamper on April 11, 2011, 03:46:43 am
Is it a gathering of American politicians? ;) ;D
Title: Re: Front of House People
Post by: seamus finn on April 11, 2011, 09:46:52 am
Feppe,

Believe me, these poseurs would be mad to go on a trip anywhere beyond that garden wall. They don’t yet know that the country outside has disappeared down a gaping black economic hole at warp speed, thanks to a criminal cabal (banksters and  conniving politicians). All that’s missing in this scene is Nero playing a fiddle. Maybe he doesn’t look sufficiently Irish to be included but he’d certainly feel at home.

These guys will hang on in the garden, simply because the Woman of the House has them spoiled beyond what’s good for them. All due respect, she’s like a German bank feeding them  an ever tastier banquet of  sweet stuff - and they’re high on it, in the zone.

Even if they choose to, they won’t get it as easy if they emigrate to Australia where all Irish able-bodied persons with a passport (including the walking wounded) are going to as we speak. These cheerful gnomes will stay put, not knowing that the party is over. Watching them, carefree, frolicking in the garden, enjoying the feel-good factor, believing it will go on forever, I can’t resist a frisson of anxiety about the whole hunky-dory scene. It reminds me of Ireland in 2006 – happy, happy, happy, in the boom. Just like the gnomes in the garden.

Take a look at the colour picture. I’ve posted it to show them in their best days. I fear that the sun will soon set forever on their happy realm, for if we know anything about history, we know that it repeats itself.

At first glance, everything looks rosy,  doesn’t it.  But the longer I stare at the scene, the more terrified I get.

My big concern is the expression on the elderly female gnome’s face (bottom right lurking behind the daffodils). That’s the give-away. She’s a malcontent if ever I saw one and believe me, as a newspaper editor and journalist of forty years standing, man and boy, I know a trouble-maker when I see one.

An elder of the clan, she should be up front beaming reassuringly at the world or at least, putting on a brave face, like Ireland Inc. has to do these days, lying through its  teeth to the Germans and French that everything is okey-doke.  Instead, she’s skulking in the undergrowth with, dare I say it, malicious intent, looking like she’s about to burn a senior bondholder  - if she could find one in this Garden of Eden.

See that venomous expression.  Does she know something about an imminent default on sovereign debt in the Kingdom of the Gnomes?  Is she in negative equity already, like the rest of us mortals in the other world? Was she a shareholder in a bank and is now penniless? Is her pension worthless? Has she found out what has happened on the other side of the wall?

Notice the way the gnome carrying the empty tray is watching her with palpable apprehension. I took him to be the main man because he has the requisite charismatic look but he seems to be very edgy. Then again, a man in his position has a lot to be edgy about. One thing for sure, he doesn’t trust the lady in the undergrowth one little bit. Maybe he’s thinking she’s about to do something stupid – like  stage a coup d’etat.  Wait a minute!  Could he be a secret bondholder himself – maybe one of those politicos who siphon off stuff and invest if off-shore! Is the sulphurous gnome in the bushes lying in wait to burn  HIM!

Come to think of it,  his tray is empty. Not a good career move. Not such a bountiful image for the rest of the expectant gnomes who have never known a day’s need, who are so used to being so lavishly spoon-fed that their sense of entitlement knows no bounds.  He needs to get his hands on some of the good things of life pretty damn quick before the gnomes get the wrong idea and start asking awkward questions. Like where did it all go wrong. And whose fault is it.   This kind of thing could lead to a run on the House or, worse still from his point of view, a leadership challenge led by the shrew in the bush. No wonder he looks edgy.

And then there’s the unthinkable: has he pawned off all the bonbons (not them all surely?) to save himself from some kind of bailout, just like the government outside the wall hocked the country to the Germans not so long ago? Is the IMF about to arrive in the Garden of the Gnomes?


The more I examine the body language in this whole tableau, the more I think I’m looking at a pictorial metaphor for the  rise and fall of the Celtic Tiger. Next thing you know, these gnomes will be rioting outside the gate.



Title: Re: Front of House People
Post by: RSL on April 11, 2011, 10:29:20 am
Surely it's a tragedy in the making.
Title: Re: Front of House People
Post by: seamus finn on April 11, 2011, 10:50:14 am
Unfortunately, Russ, in the real world, the tragedy has already happened. These days, considering what has been done to our country through willful greed and hubris by the cabal I mentioned above, to be an Irishman is to be in a distressed and disorientated  state. I only hope we can pull through over a very, very long haul.
Title: Re: Front of House People
Post by: RSL on April 11, 2011, 01:34:03 pm
Seamus, I hate to say this, but don't feel like the lone ranger. I've been watching what's happened to Ireland and I feel your pain. Unfortunately, Ireland isn't the only country whose "leaders" have managed to plunge the country into a financial jam. The US, I'm afraid, stands on the brink, and the crevasse before us is deep and dark.
Title: Re: Front of House People
Post by: seamus finn on April 11, 2011, 01:59:40 pm

To be sure, Russ, the US stands on the brink, but her capacity to recover is much more powerful than the puny economic clout we wield (if wield is even the right word). Right now, we have ceded our economic independence and to all intents and purposes, our hard-won status as a sovereign nation to the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund,and a collection of banks, mainly in Germany and France who recklessly fuelled the so-called Celtic Tiger (basically a property bubble) with cheap money of which we readily and greedily availed at catastrophic cost to a once proud country. It's cold comfort to know that we are not alone. What's hard to swallow is the knowledge that we took the shilling and did most of the damage to ourselves. What else is new!

All this is a far cry from the poor gnomes above - I posted the picture for a bit of fun after trying out my s90.When feppe suggested they might be going on a trip, it occurred to me there is nowhere for them to go and they'd be better advised to stay behind the garden wall because what's outside it ain't a pretty sight at the moment.
Title: Re: Front of House People
Post by: RSL on April 11, 2011, 03:23:08 pm
Seamus, Seems to me this discussion belongs in the Coffee Corner, so I've transferred my response there.