On a chilly evening in
mid-December I was touched by this lonely low-down dawg mooching
around the brightly-lit grocery store. I don't know if he
belonged to it or not, but his demeanour was such that he seemed
to be forlornly hoping that someone would toss him a crust or a
bone or something.
My companion for the tour,
a charming lady from Oxfordshire in the UK, said something like
'Oh, what a shame' when I said it was blurred, and was surprised
when I replied that I thought it was marvellous!
It's completely personal,
of course, but I love the fuzzy canine shadow with the almost
transparent legs and echoed head contrasting nicely with the
colourful fruit and veg on the stand behind. Homeless people are
an omnipresent feature of Paris streets, and their plight is all
the sadder in the colder seasons and this could be a kind of
metaphor for that.
As I often mention, my
creative objective is to produce images which are half-way
between photographic-reality and artistic impressionism.
There are two great things
about having a predefined goal or guiding principle behind your
work. First of all, it gives you a framework to move within,
hopefully creating some coherence to your output. And secondly,
art is, well, art, man, and there ain't no boundaries nor rules
that weren't made to be broken, so go for it! The weirder the
wonderfuller I reckon!
Having said that, my own
stuff now seems relatively tame, but you'd be surprised how
often people (philistines!) still tell me things like, 'Well, I
like it, but it's a shame you didn't manage to get it in focus',
thereby missing the point by a few light stops, but never
mind...
It means something to me,
and that's what matters.
