Tag: foreskin

[←] Source unknown – Maximiliano Patane (2013); [→] Source unknown – Title unknown (2014)

The original post features these two images (without attribution) and this accompanying quote:

“The vulgar man is always the most distinguished, for the very desire to be distinguished is vulgar.”

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Before I spent this two hours searching for the sources, I thought these were a breathtakingly fucking gorgeous (and I don’t mind admitting: arousing) photographic diptych.

Alas… although it demonstrates an image sommelier’s sense of pairing, it’s little more than an admittedly most adept effort at accomplishing the same end as a horny teenage boy ‘Photoshopping’ Emma Watson’s head onto Stoya’s body.

I’m hardly saying there’s no place for image mash-ups, adapto’s #comparative tag–for example–frequently spills over into staggering, full-in-the-face brilliance.

The difference is that adapto painstakingly cites his source material. The above can’t be bothered with such concerns, implying a rather disconcerting lack of respect.

A shame really, for–as the saying goes–what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

Source: patrickchurchartist

Sasha Kurmaz – Untitled (2010)

Folks are fond of reminding me of Helen Levitt’s notion that the only substantive difference between making work and thinking about making work is whether or not you’re running film through the camera.

I used to object; splitting hairs on the grounds that Levitt was a street photographer and I’m a landscape photographer.

Then I saw this photograph and chugged a big ol’ tallboy of Shutting the Hell Up™.

Great work has this way of transcending the specific confines that contributed to its creation

…

I’m reasonably sure Levitt would object to mention of her or her work in the context of the image above.

And I’m not sure I’d take issue with her quibble. Kurmaz’s work is largely derivative–borrowing wholesale, in turns from Ren Hang, Maurycy Gomulicki and Igor Mukhin.

As a result, his body of work is distinguished more by its high-gloss, fashion/lifestyle than a distinctive photographic voice.

Still, browsing his Flickr proves Levitt’s point: as long as you are shooting there’s liable to be some perfect storm of mitigating circumstances where good work stumbles through in spite of everything.

This is one such image. (Also, to his credit, Kurmaz seems very aware of this image’s ability both to read as homage and to accomplish something distinct from the work it clearly references–something that functions similarly only using music instead of images consider the Beastie Boys’ monumental Paul’s Boutique.)

Source: 20aliens