Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: cjogo on March 22, 2013, 01:55:27 am
-
WELL :: One thing its not square ... 1989 trip ...
All alone for several hours --- couldn't really take much more here ...
-
The problem I have with this image is it could be any building. That you had to name it ascerbates the issue. In that it could be any building, and though as Auschwitz, the structure is too far away to have significant meaning or impact. Even named, I get no chills, or feelings of disgust because of this distancing.
-
The problem I have with this image is it could be any building. That you had to name it ascerbates the issue. In that it could be any building, and though as Auschwitz, the structure is too far away to have significant meaning or impact. Even named, I get no chills, or feelings of disgust because of this distancing.
Guess I have a habit of naming every image - so I can find it in the database ..... The silent-towering stacks were more chilling than most the shots I took here.. tried to convey the mass space this entailed.
-
Very difficult to convey an ominous emotion with a "happy" sky.
-
As a photo it's pretty much eh.
As a, um, multimedia piece (photo and text, i.e. a titled photo) it strikes me as an interesting juxtaposition. Such a happy looking photo, it could be a horse ranch in Kentucky or something. And such an unhappy title.
The interaction of titles with images is an interesting one. As purists, we'd love to tell the story without the title. As artists, maybe we should be open to whatever works?
-
Very difficult to convey an ominous emotion with a "happy" sky.
Yes ~~ the skies helped bring some peace, while I walked the several miles from birkenau I to the larger camp II
-
As a photo it's pretty much eh.
As a, um, multimedia piece (photo and text, i.e. a titled photo) it strikes me as an interesting juxtaposition. Such a happy looking photo, it could be a horse ranch in Kentucky or something. And such an unhappy title.
The interaction of titles with images is an interesting one. As purists, we'd love to tell the story without the title. As artists, maybe we should be open to whatever works?
I guess I was "thinking" multimedia __ shot medium and 35 all afternoon here My favorite is a bonnet -bound elderly lady working the fields just outside the entrance --along side the tracks ..
Here is one near the train station >> upon arrival --- Mother and Child
-
"Mother and Child" is quite lovely.
To me part of the horror of Auschwitz is that it looked so ordinary, and there were no doubt many "happy skies" over it when it was operating at its worst.
I have relatives in Norway on whose property is a Nazi ammunition bunker. Inside are three storage rooms, and the doorways joining them are perfect Gothic Arches. I believe the Nazi masters had a religious fervor about their work, hence the elegance of the buildings at Auschwitz and the Gothic arches inside an ammunition bunker.
So I find the first photo eerily moving.
-
To me part of the horror of Auschwitz is that it looked so ordinary, and there were no doubt many "happy skies" over it when it was operating at its worst.
So I find the first photo eerily moving.
[/quote]
Exactly : how I tried to capture this historical spot >> Fields of pasture & blue skies > down~play the obvious landmark.. But, show those smoke stacks > where many left there last home / compound...
-
To me part of the horror of Auschwitz is that it looked so ordinary, and there were no doubt many "happy skies" over it when it was operating at its worst.
So I find the first photo eerily moving.
Exactly : how I tried to capture this historical spot >> Fields of pasture & blue skies > down~play the obvious landmark.. But, show those smoke stacks > where many left there last home / compound...
You have portrayed the "banality of evil" very well. It's a lovely pastoral scene, but just happens to be one where unspeakable atrocities were committed. Evil rarely dresses the part.
-
I can't critique this one, Jogo, because Auschwitz has always had a significance I can't deal with. Many years ago I wrote this:
Auschwitz
I am neither German nor Jew and I was a child
when the boxcars carried their cargos of horror over Europe’s clean land,
until the metal brakes shrieked and the wheels slowed
and stopped at last under the watchtowers hovering over those terrible yards
littered with dirty snow.
You who were granted a swift death — who were
chosen indifferently by men bantering with each other as they singled you out —
you were the ones who were blest, for the ones who were spared
suffered agony beyond passion and saw the smoke of the chimneys
blacken whatever was left of life.
But those others — those men who beheld your agony with eyes
that reflected only the sweat of the day’s work
and annoyance at supper delayed —
for them there will be no turning away.
For them, the stench of the ovens will hover over life and death
and defile their children beyond memory;
for the ordinariness of such men reaches over all our lives, even to me,
though I was a child, and innocent
when Auschwitz smoldered at the end of that railroad.
February 26, 1995
-
I interviewed many people I knew well and acquaintances > who lived their youth in the camps .. So, as soon as the Wall came down I was out shooting this Polish camp and survivors ...
-
I can't critique this one, Jogo, because Auschwitz has always had a significance I can't deal with. Many years ago I wrote this:
Auschwitz
I am neither German nor Jew and I was a child
when the boxcars carried their cargos of horror over Europe’s clean land,
until the metal brakes shrieked and the wheels slowed
and stopped at last under the watchtowers hovering over those terrible yards
littered with dirty snow.
You who were granted a swift death — who were
chosen indifferently by men bantering with each other as they singled you out —
you were the ones who were blest, for the ones who were spared
suffered agony beyond passion and saw the smoke of the chimneys
blacken whatever was left of life.
But those others — those men who beheld your agony with eyes
that reflected only the sweat of the day’s work
and annoyance at supper delayed —
for them there will be no turning away.
For them, the stench of the ovens will hover over life and death
and defile their children beyond memory;
for the ordinariness of such men reaches over all our lives, even to me,
though I was a child, and innocent
when Auschwitz smoldered at the end of that railroad.
February 26, 1995
Better than any photo I could take ~@@@!!! Wonderfully written,,,,
-
And for all the poetic license by Russ (very nice work, by the by), and imagery by Cjogo, you would have to have been there at least once to recognize what and where it was. I certainly would be the last person to degrade the importance of any of the camps, but for the non-seasoned viewer, or to someone not visually familiar with these places, it is just a red-bricked building in a large field with happy skies.
Still, good commentary. You should print this with Russ' poem embedded within it.
-
And for all the poetic license by Russ (very nice work, by the by), and imagery by Cjogo, you would have to have been there at least once to recognize what and where it was. I certainly would be the last person to degrade the importance of any of the camps, but for the non-seasoned viewer, or to someone not visually familiar with these places, it is just a red-bricked building in a large field with happy skies.
Still, good commentary. You should print this with Russ' poem embedded within it.
I have many shots from this camp --- Yes > would be a great marriage with Russ's poem ~! I have old interviews in Danish, French ,Polish, etc. Homes I visited and brought along a VHS setup, to get their stories. This [Forum[/b] has got me researching back through the archives ..I have so much work... I have really never looked at all just binders of sleeved negatives >> for 30+ years of traveling & dangling a camera.
-
I recognized the image...perhaps the distance is symbolic. It spoke to me. I like the marriage idea of Russ' poem and the photograph.
-
Trying to locate a few more ---- I have spindle stacks of CD's ===thats how most images were saved in the 90's :(
I hid my camera under my jacket -- 24m lens on a early Nikon // ASA 1000
-
I hid my camera under my jacket -- 24m lens on a early Nikon // ASA 1000
The graininess of the film is a good match for such a tragic subject.