Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => But is it Art? => Topic started by: 32BT on July 11, 2019, 04:37:05 pm
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https://fstoppers.com/originals/capturing-peoples-insecurities-interview-photographer-behind-rock-your-ugly-388665
Stupid title, has little to do with insecurities, but d*mn the microstories in those captions combined with the images is solid gold.
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Feel as you do. Really absorbing I think.
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Not my cuppa, Oscar; life passes too quickly to worry about other people's hangups.
It brings me back to our dear Diane Arbus: a helluva lot of good it did her to wallow in that world. She ended up taking herself out. Some things should just be seen, noted, and then forgotten.
I'm old enough to have seen a lot of shit and been through some too. Avoid it while you can because when you can't then's the time to deal with it.
Rob
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Not my cuppa, Oscar; life passes too quickly to worry about other people's hangups.
It brings me back to our dear Diane Arbus: a helluva lot of good it did her to wallow in that world. She ended up taking herself out. Some things should just be seen, noted, and then forgotten.
I'm old enough to have seen a lot of shit and been through some too. Avoid it while you can because when you can't then's the time to deal with it.
Rob
I couldn't disagree more. Other people's hangups are your epiphanies. If not that, then at the very least they can teach us sympathy. These images however, clearly go beyond hangups. In combination with the captions they show us contrasts, and with that leads for moving on.
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Not my cuppa, Oscar...
+1
P.S. Thanks for ruining my day with ugliness.
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+2. Problem is: ugliness gets instant attention.
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Many thanks, Oscar.
Can't say I see much in the way of ugliness, just real-life variation of the species and all the more interesting for it.
Only got to look at some of the folk here on LuLa to see them wallowing in their own world of hang-ups and insecurities.
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... Only got to look at some of the folk here on LuLa to see them wallowing in their own world of hang-ups and insecurities.
After watching those images, I might have to retain you, Keith, as my shrink, to recover. You are a professional therapist, right?
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After watching those images, I might have to retain you, Keith, as my shrink, to recover. You are a professional therapist, right?
No, but I'm married to one, who dedicated her entire professional life caring for and helping those less fortunate than ourselves.
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No, but I'm married to one, who dedicated her entire professional life caring for and helping those less fortunate than ourselves.
I was married to a dentist. I have an3:30pm opening next week, would that work for you?
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I was married to a dentist. I have an3:30pm opening next week, would that work for you?
Thanks, but I'll pass: I've seen your teeth.
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Interesting work and project, in stark contrast to the "glamorous" world and values that are fed continuously onto us. Yes, having a not perfect nose; a burnt arm; scars in your chest - all are part of life, and photography is a tool that helps in telling those stories.
I don't see ugliness in these personal stories, only daily life. To those who dismiss it, I hope it does not happen to you, such misfortunes.
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... To those who dismiss it, I hope it does not happen to you, such misfortunes.
If it does, I wouldn't advertise it to the world.
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Perhaps ugliness is a young person's game?
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/07/08/whats-the-use-of-beauty/
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Perhaps ugliness is a young person's game?
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/07/08/whats-the-use-of-beauty/
It was never my game. Whatever ugliness I produced came from personal lack of abilitiy to render unto beauty what she deserved; I didn't always know how.
Beauty does have a common denominator - and it changes with the times. A Mansfield, today, is ludicrous unless you are into private websites (I assume). The natural beauty of Shrimpton, again for me, outshines all of the Photoshopped Evangelistas and Stones. The perfection of the unreal is at once its removal from humanity and any sense of beauty: it becomes artwork and/or caricature. So, yes, I believe that if you lose the sense of vulnerability, of the all too transitory sense of the nature of youth that shines on the surface above, and clothes the bones, then you could just as well be looking at painted marble or, even, ebony. Paradoxically, some old beauties manage to retain the face. Deneuve is one who springs to mind. Fatter, the face still has it, Bardot lost it - or threw it away - years and years ago, sadly. Those same cloaked bones of youth still suppport the canvas, the condition of which depends, really quite a lot, on the care given to it through life. Perhaps that is an area where wealth comes into its own: preservation.
Ugliness is far more common than beauty, but not as common as bland normality. That's perhaps one of the greatest challenges the non-wealthy amateur faces with photography of people if he wants to depict beauty. Where the hell can he find it? Yeah, the streets; really? Now and then I do see somebody amazing but there is no way I can make use of that. The last such occasion I remember was months ago when my daughter was here on holiday and, stopped at a street corner to let cars pass, I saw this vision sitting in the passenger seat. I was powerless to snap; and if I had been prepared, what then? A stolen image and no chance of working with the person to achieve something that might have been better?
Beauty may or may not have definitions, but unlike much of art, I do believe there is a broader consensus of "knowing it when we see it."
Rob
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Ugliness is far more common than beauty, but not as common as bland normality. That's perhaps one of the greatest challenges the non-wealthy amateur faces with photography of people if he wants to depict beauty.
Why can't we celebrate bland normality as a reality that no one wants to address? Even the rich have to address their discontent and feeling of not being good enough. During the summer, I follow my wife's FB page and watch everyone's trip to Europe or the photos of an incredible rock climbing adventure. In many ways, I would just like to post - today I'm doing chores around the house. I just cleaned the toilet. Or today, I never really left the house because I felt depressed. Or, my job really is so stressful that I feel comatose when I come home. Or, today I had an argument with my wife even though I love her.
I also see this in landscape photography. Sometimes the composition is too perfect and may not truly express that sense of place. If you look at old Carlton Watkins photographs there is something special about the messiness in the composition, but it also very real and worthy of beauty.
I'm sure even the founder of this site had mundane days that are on par with normality.
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Why can't we celebrate bland normality as a reality that no one wants to address?...
Because we are sick of it. Because we live it every day. I do not want to celebrate crap around me. I leave it to Baudelaire and his carcass poem.
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Slobodan, I'm not going to try intellectually to keep up with you and Rob C from a literary standpoint. I had to look up the poem. However, when it comes to traveling off trail in the mountains, you will have a hard time keeping up with me. I see what you're saying, but don't we create unrealistic expectations and feed upon that? Here is an old slide from when I first started teaching in Yosemite. I still keep up with most of these kids which I get incredible joy. I still remember finding this dead bird and my students' reaction. One of the girls in this picture owns the best taco truck in town.
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Nan Goldin. Crewdson.
Two who celebrate the "norm" and to what point? One does it via crappy technique and the other does it via overkill and LF. In neither case is anything worth saying or seeing said or seen. Those pictures just are: there, and of no consequence, like almost ninety percent of what we ever see.
As Slobodan says, we are surrounded by crap every day, wherever we turn. It's why people hang onto their cars: to keep personal, physical distance from the stinking herd. To avoid contamination with the quotidian that threatens our very existence as individuals. It's why people pay through the nose for expensive cameras, trips to the polar regions, to safari camps; it's why others buy yachts and Ferraris - to be different and depending on their ambience, even that is often not enough.
The average is a mess; it's what many strive to leave behind, and why the race to whatever goal is there: it's the natural desire to escape that greyness, to soar with those fucking eagles at least for five minutes in one's life before crashing back down into the crowded cesspit of average humanity.
What's to celebrate about average?
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The average is a mess; it's what many strive to leave behind, and why the race to whatever goal is there: it's the natural desire to escape that greyness, to soar with those fucking eagles at least for five minutes in one's life before crashing back down into the crowded cesspit of average humanity.
This is exactly what Nan Goldin is expressing. The soaring and the crashing.
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This is exactly what Nan Goldin is expressing. The soaring and the crashing.
I can only see her pavement pizza.
;-(
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Tate Modern is currently showing a very good presentation of her slideshow 'The Ballad of Sexual Dependency'. It's full of joy as well as sadness.
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Nan Goldin. Crewdson.
Two who celebrate the "norm" and to what point? One does it via crappy technique and the other does it via overkill and LF. In neither case is anything worth saying or seeing said or seen. Those pictures just are: there, and of no consequence, like almost ninety percent of what we ever see.
As Slobodan says, we are surrounded by crap every day, wherever we turn. It's why people hang onto their cars: to keep personal, physical distance from the stinking herd. To avoid contamination with the quotidian that threatens our very existence as individuals. It's why people pay through the nose for expensive cameras, trips to the polar regions, to safari camps; it's why others buy yachts and Ferraris - to be different and depending on their ambience, even that is often not enough.
The average is a mess; it's what many strive to leave behind, and why the race to whatever goal is there: it's the natural desire to escape that greyness, to soar with those fucking eagles at least for five minutes in one's life before crashing back down into the crowded cesspit of average humanity.
What's to celebrate about average?
How on earth do you get out of bed in the morning?
:-(
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How on earth do you get out of bed in the morning?
:-(
Very carefully!
:-)
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you beat the average every waking morning ! :)
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you beat the average every waking morning ! :)
Notwithstanding anything to the contrary, I'm going to accept that as compliment, and dedicate it to my tombstone; not that I want one, of course!
;-)
Rob
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If it does, I wouldn't advertise it to the world.
Your prerogative. The people in the photograph chose to do so to go against the normality. Against what is considered beauty by the average person.
Having a scar from heart surgery, a not perfect nose, or a burn scar, do they make those people ugly?
I find it interesting that those proclaiming here against the crap average daily life, of wanting to soar with the eagles, etc, they are the ones demonstrating average and normal behaviour. By looking at the people in the article as being ugly.
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Your prerogative. The people in the photograph chose to do so to go against the normality. Against what is considered beauty by the average person.
Having a scar from heart surgery, a not perfect nose, or a burn scar, do they make those people ugly?
I find it interesting that those proclaiming here against the crap average daily life, of wanting to soar with the eagles, etc, they are the ones demonstrating average and normal behaviour. By looking at the people in the article as being ugly.
If I understand you correctly: if one looks at unattractive people, whether they ended up there by nature or accident, then the act of looking renders the looker normal or average unless he refuses to accept the evidence of sight? i would have imagined that denying the evidence of one's own sight and judgement would be neither normal nor average, just perverse.
Being normal or average is either good or bad depending upon the situation being calibrated. I can wish that my heart were normal or average and my sight devoid of cataracts, but wishing doth not make it so. I wish that I could sing and play guitar or piano, but again I am not even average: I suck at both activities.
As for my eagles, without my specs I don't even know when they are there. But once I did.
Denial changes nothing. It's but a cloak.
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If I understand you correctly: if one looks at unattractive people, whether they ended up there by nature or accident, then the act of looking renders the looker normal or average unless he refuses to accept the evidence of sight? i would have imagined that denying the evidence of one's own sight and judgement would be neither normal nor average, just perverse.
Being normal or average is either good or bad depending upon the situation being calibrated. I can wish that my heart were normal or average and my sight devoid of cataracts, but wishing doth not make it so. I wish that I could sing and play guitar or piano, but again I am not even average: I suck at both activities.
As for my eagles, without my specs I don't even know when they are there. But once I did.
Denial changes nothing. It's but a cloak.
Your starting point - that people with surgical scars, crooked noses, etc, are ugly and not normal, is wrong. There is beauty in everyone.
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Your starting point - that people with surgical scars, crooked noses, etc, are ugly and not normal, is wrong. There is beauty in everyone.
On the assumption that you refer to the invisible, the spiritual, I agree wholeheartedly with you Paulo.
That does not apply, unfortunately, to the physical being. Were I mistaken, then there would exist no models, actresses; heart-throbs to take wives away on mental journeys to Hollywood whilst lying in bed under a beer belly.
There is beauty as there is the quotidian and the downright repulsive; it's something that resembles the human see-saw, our state of being as creatures. Even pet dogs are blessed/cursed accordingly. Go to a strays refuge and see what's left behind that nobody has the heart to take home. Of course, that allows room for the anthropomorphically inclined to believe that the ugliest mutt there speaks straight to their heart. It might actually bite their bum the minute they get it home.
On the little matter of normal: normal, not in the sense of being without mental issues, is the terrible state of reality: physically, the huge majority simply, and normally, sits on the wrong side of centre.
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So we are all striving for Barbie? Even though she was divorced six times and she would be the first to die if she was starving? Isn't our perception of beauty just driven by Sports Illustrated and Playboy. You know Rob, you married a keeper, but was it just because you wanted to have sex with her??? Or was her beauty something more. What I admire most about you is how much you loved your wife - spiritual.
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So we are all striving for Barbie? Even though she was divorced six times and she would be the first to die if she was starving? Isn't our perception of beauty just driven by Sports Illustrated and Playboy. You know Rob, you married a keeper, but was it just because you wanted to have sex with her??? Or was her beauty something more. What I admire most about you is how much you loved your wife - spiritual.
Actually, removing the personal bit, which I'm sure is infinitely variable, I do believe we all strive for Barbie, but Barbie is different for different folks: I don't much like the blonde variety for anything but snaps. Most of the ones I ever met were tint jobs. Or old ladies with grey-gone-blonde. Not so much blue rinse around these parts.
Not sure about Playboy or SI - haven't bought Playboy since the mid-70s, I think it was, and SI never, and fake boobs are a turn-off. The last kinda "dream crush" I had was Bardot, and she was anything but pneumatic. In the flesh, she oozed sophistication, which to me seems a rather European thing - possibly because it's the only kind I know anything much about; it's divorced from wealth, yet often found within it. I also think it doesn't often come with youth.
;-)
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I went for Barbie, but thankfully mine also had a brain.
;-)
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I’m not sure I understood all the intonations correctly, but if I would be sick of all the crap around me, I have to rethink how I organized my life or I have to tune my expectations. ...
There is a canyon between speaking out for natural beauty and exploit the hang ups of insecure peoples.
(The work of Nan Golden has nothing to do with both.)
.....
I’m on my way back from a trip in Poland and Slovakia. Saw lots of girls in western styled leggings, showing each imperfection of the flesh (or the perfection of the same) most of the girls covered the back with a sweater for obvious reason. I also saw traditional dressed girls proudly in long folkloric dresses, beautiful hair, fresh and happy look, all looked adorable, the skinny and not so skinny. They got other things on the mind than covering some cellulitis.
The delusion having to comply to Marvels ideal of beauty, and trying to make the world believe it is possible with a bit of photoshop tweak, plastic surgery left and hopefully also right, Instagram profiles of fake reality, etc, is the real crap around us, not the real reality of not so ideal peoples.
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About ideals. I ‘m not in for Barbie style woman. I don’t like the American styled bimbos. 🥴
I prefer more bootie Slavic types.
😜
Anyhow, ultimate beauty: Sophia Loren in una jornada particular
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I’m not sure I understood all the intonations correctly, but if I would be sick of all the crap around me, I have to rethink how I organized my life or I have to tune my expectations. ...
There is a canyon between speaking out for natural beauty and exploit the hang ups of insecure peoples.
(The work of Nan Golden has nothing to do with both.)
.....
I’m on my way back from a trip in Poland and Slovakia. Saw lots of girls in western styled leggings, showing each imperfection of the flesh (or the perfection of the same) most of the girls covered the back with a sweater for obvious reason. I also saw traditional dressed girls proudly in long folkloric dresses, beautiful hair, fresh and happy look, all looked adorable, the skinny and not so skinny. They got other things on the mind than covering some cellulitis.
The delusion having to comply to Marvels ideal of beauty, and trying to make the world believe it is possible with a bit of photoshop tweak, plastic surgery left and hopefully also right, Instagram profiles of fake reality, etc, is the real crap around us, not the real reality of not so ideal peoples.
....
About ideals. I ‘m not in for Barbie style woman. I don’t like the American styled bimbos. 🥴
I prefer more bootie Slavic types.
😜
Anyhow, ultimate beauty: Sophia Loren in una jornada particular
I couldn't agree more.
In my defence I went with the Barbie 'cause I was but a single 20 year old buck with testosterone coursing through my veins. Happily it was the mind I married.
;-)
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I couldn't agree more.
In my defence I went with the Barbie 'cause I was but a single 20 year old buck with testosterone coursing through my veins. Happily it was the mind I married.
;-)
It would be intellectual wrong and testosterone wise stupid to assume all blondes are empty headed. 🤓
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I’m not sure I understood all the intonations correctly, but if I would be sick of all the crap around me, I have to rethink how I organized my life or I have to tune my expectations. ...
There is a canyon between speaking out for natural beauty and exploit the hang ups of insecure peoples.
(The work of Nan Golden has nothing to do with both.)
.....
I’m on my way back from a trip in Poland and Slovakia. Saw lots of girls in western styled leggings, showing each imperfection of the flesh (or the perfection of the same) most of the girls covered the back with a sweater for obvious reason. I also saw traditional dressed girls proudly in long folkloric dresses, beautiful hair, fresh and happy look, all looked adorable, the skinny and not so skinny. They got other things on the mind than covering some cellulitis.
The delusion having to comply to Marvels ideal of beauty, and trying to make the world believe it is possible with a bit of photoshop tweak, plastic surgery left and hopefully also right, Instagram profiles of fake reality, etc, is the real crap around us, not the real reality of not so ideal peoples.
....
About ideals. I ‘m not in for Barbie style woman. I don’t like the American styled bimbos. 🥴
I prefer more bootie Slavic types.
😜
Anyhow, ultimate beauty: Sophia Loren in una jornada particular
Strange; I didn't take to la Loren all that much, far preferring la Lollo and Claudia Cardinale.
Of the Hollywood ones, the first was Ava Gardner and I have to admit to a liking for the young Michelle Pfeiffer. (Ava came immediately before Brigitte.)
There have been several tv series girls that attracted me, but I never learned their names,,, The CSI Miami show had a couple of such, but not the blonde with the ultra-high squeak! Imagine having to hear that all day long.
How fortunate never having to hear their views on us.
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...Anyhow, ultimate beauty: Sophia Loren in una jornada particular
My ultimate was the woman I stood behind today in the queue for Sainsburys checkouts. Thankfully my ultimate changes every day. Please, put me down when it becomes anything other.
What can I say, I like real women.
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My ultimate was the woman I stood behind today in the queue for Sainsburys checkouts. Thankfully my ultimate changes every day. Please, put me down when it becomes anything other.
What can I say, I like real women.
I've never tried a doll. I don't think I'd like it very much.
:-)
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Strange; I didn't take to la Loren all that much, far preferring la Lollo and Claudia Cardinale.
Of the Hollywood ones, the first was Ava Gardner and I have to admit to a liking for the young Michelle Pfeiffer. (Ava came immediately before Brigitte.)
There have been several tv series girls that attracted me, but I never learned their names,,, The CSI Miami show had a couple of such, but not the blonde with the ultra-high squeak! Imagine having to hear that all day long.
How fortunate never having to hear their views on us.
Well, not just Sophia Loren, but Sophia Loren in that particular movie. 🤪🤓
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Well, not just Sophia Loren, but Sophia Loren in that particular movie. 🤪🤓
As a middle-age MILF? ;)
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As a middle-age MILF? ;)
Never under estimate middle aged Milfs. :P
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What's a MILF?
Mid-life female?
I think women are sometimes far more atttractive in the time between late-thirties to, say, sixty. I believe it's because they know all there is to know, are probably quite self-confident and don't care too much what other's think, and know how they look good, what suits their type. I think the main sartorial mistakes are made by younger wonen clinging on to the person they often never were.
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What's a MILF?
Mid-life female?
I think women are sometimes far more atttractive in the time between late-thirties to, say, sixty. I believe it's because they know all there is to know, are probably quite self-confident and don't care too much what other's think, and know how they look good, what suits their type. I think the main sartorial mistakes are made by younger wonen clinging on to the person they often never were.
Hammer and nail.... 🙌🏼
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What's a MILF?...
Tsk, tsk, Rob, you seem desperately behind the times ;)
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Tsk, tsk, Rob, you seem desperately behind the times ;)
He is just not vulgar.
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He is just not vulgar.
It is in the mainstream already:
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MILF: American Pie, 1999.
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It is in the mainstream already:
Slobodan, what's the mainstream?
:-)
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He is just not vulgar.
Thank you, but you should have heard the other me when the water heater tank fell off the wall on Sunday!
Anyway, the thing's back up on the wall, but I shall give it a wide berth.
:-)