Withered thistle

[mistress_elaine]

In which I go all Warhol on your arses and ask how you like the experience...

Last night I made this and posted it to bestshot, a delightful new photo community which all the serious photographers among you should check out.

Comments

hohoho! be spammed

[shizunde]

is it legal?

because i like your photo.

[mistress_elaine]

If "it" is yours, then yes, and thanks for the compliment. :-)

If it's not yours, then...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

[shizunde]

i did it ^__^
before going for lunch i read the other comments & about you liking the tougher versions...
then i was staring at the picture thinking: "squares, crop, bold, powerful..." and i felt like boldly cropping like nobody had cropped before... and did all the opposite things: and made it pussy and pink and fluffy and with rectangles, and i blurred stuff...
...
and then i typed some nonsense unrelated to the picture

he-he-he *evil* rather than pop-art it is ... art-nouveau? something about the '20's

[mistress_elaine]

Heh. Yes, very art-nouveau-ish. Snigger. :-)

Seriously, I caught the parody, and enjoyed it quite a bit. It is the sort of picture which lends itself to parody, isn't it? And hey, parody is a form of flattery. One might even say a kind of ode. So, as long as you're learning by parodying my stuff, I don't mind your making it look just a tad ridiculous. Be my guest. Just don't put my name under it. :-)

On a technical note, how do you create those overlapping borders? I rather like those. Not for this picture (ha!), but in general. Nice stuff.

[mortsleam]

I think the original, dark version is probably the best. I like the graininess and the grey coloring. Somehow very reminiscent of a daguerreotype. The second version seems a tad too light and colorful.

But...

As a Warholian series, the orange, green, and red (yes!) versions work well together. Especially with what_name’s blue version.

[mistress_elaine]

OK, I'm going to make a blue version of my own now. And a foxy brown one, and probably a few others besides. Who knows, I may even attempt a layer and create a glossy, silvery grey one. How does that strike you?

What do you think of the contrast and the centredness? Is the contrast strong enough for your taste, or do you think I should turn it up, as what_name was suggesting?

(Speaking of what_name, woo hoo! You just made a link to another person's journal! Well done. I'll make a real LJ user of you yet. :-))

[mortsleam]

Actually, your composition is, as always, nearly perfect. At first it seems too centered, but it's actually just enough off-center on the bottom left and towards the upper right that it's balanced. And I like balance. And while the darker contrast looks good on the original version, I think the more washed-out tones make the colorized versions stand out better. So, then, if you do do a blue-grey or "Foxxy Brown" (isn't that a Pam Grier character?) version, use the lighter tones as a starting point.

Or follow your own muse.

[mistress_elaine]

Aw, thanks. You're being awfully nice. So nice that I think I'll follow you as my muse. Your suggestions seem to make a lot of sense. :-)

The IMDb informs me that Pam Grier did indeed play a Foxy Brown in the 1974 film of that name. I've never seen the film; 1970s blaxpoitation films are fairly hard to come by here. ;-)

[mysticchyna]

hello. i found you via bestshot. i think your work is wonderful, and you seem like a nice person. we have some things in common, and some in common lj friends. i have added you to my friends list. feel free to (please) add me back.

[mistress_elaine]

Thanks for the compliment(s). I'm very honoured, and will happily add you back. Nice to meet you!

[8thirteen]

I think the original is by far the best, but it might be interesting if you put all four of them together -- 2 on top of the other two -- and show them all as one piece... very Warhol indeed!

[mistress_elaine]

I agree. The first is the stand-alone piece, but the rest might make a nice set. I'm not sure whether it should be a set of four or six, but I'll give the matter some thought. :-)

[mistress_elaine]

Heh. A whole wallful of them, eh? Oh, dear. I'm not sure if I can bear to make quite that many...

I suppose I could do a collage of 45 miniature versions -- nine rows of five images each. There's something very Sol Lewitt-esque about that. Yes, I rather like that idea, although the idea of having to churn out 45 of these images scares the shit out of me.