I'm deaf, very deaf so speak up.
I have NHS hearing aids and I am full of respect for the NHS audiology department but what they are delivering to me doesn't work for me and I don't seem to be able to discuss what's wrong with a qualified audiologist.
So time to dig deep and pay a private practice.
Recommendations? Ideally personal recommendations.
There is always the wonderful Franco Fontana who was an early adopter of colour film and innovative in his use of it. If in doubt look him up.
Fine art?
Something to strive for?
I have tried four times to post this.
By the wonderful Bill Brandt courtesy of The Atlas Gallery London.
This is fine art without question.
No tissues required.
I'm properly deaf and even with my hearing aids I have very little high frequency in one ear and both ears are much reduced through the whole range so having a conversation with me without aids is tedious at best.
You don't wear hearing aids when sleeping.
So what do you hard of hearing folk do about alarm clocks?
It's not high production but it's quite high effort in post.
I tried very hard to capture this with clean lines, contrasting textures and colours. I have the strip of sky as a reflection of nature in an otherwise totally man-made image.
It's nothing big or dramatic but I feel it has some lovely colours, textures and balance. It's very much me.
I forget where I took these either California or Nevada, someone will know as I think it's actually an iconic stop on Route 66 which I didn't realise at the time.
I just love the blue sky and that pink.
Shown individually they are, in my opinion, very nice but as a group they support one another and make a consistent set.
Was it high effort? Well not the taking. I think I took 5 shots in as many minutes but I knew just what I wanted from experience. Post processing wasn't exactly extensive either but but my vision of what I wanted was solid and I got what I wanted. I had a big fight to get decent whites as I recall.
I like the composition in each. It's different each time but settled in each case.
Emotion - nah nothing doing.
Story - nah nothing doing.
I love these three as a set.
I think this is roughly how the eye/brain/lizard brain responds to images
First: Flesh (The Biological Scan) Our primitive brain instantly flags human skin or exposed flesh. This is an involuntary survival mechanism to identify a human presence before anything else.
Second: Text (The Cognitive Disruptor)The moment the brain detects a human form, it is immediately pulled away by written words. If there is text in the frame (like a billboard, a graphic tee, or a book cover), the eye will jump to the text before looking at the person's face. We are psychologically compelled to read words to resolve ambiguity and assess context.
Third: The Face After quickly reading the words, the eye returns to the human subject, landing on the face to determine identity, age, and gender.
Fourth: The Eyes Finally, the viewer locks onto the eyes to read emotion, gaze direction, and intent.
I'm pretty confident you can grade the flesh bit as well regardless of the sex of the viewer. And if this reads like AI that's because I simply couldn't recall the order myself so asked AI and it was I thought.
The reason I ask is that a lot of posts here use flesh as a trigger and exposed personal flesh at that so you get a firm response from most viewers regardless of sex.
Challenge these shots and you'll often get the reply but it's art and again in my probably blinkered view this is just a lazy way to trigger a response. Fine Art seems to me to be far more nuanced and subtle creating an image that does trigger a response through careful planning, thought and effort which may coincidentally use flesh but in a way that is above the simple lizard brain way.
I'm probably talking crap but I am so sad that this sub gets so many questionable posts some of which are simply scantily clad ladies. Others seem to be almost holiday snaps, nature shots or landscapes (all of which I accept can be elevated to fine art but ...). I just don't understand why you'd post here when there are so many other subs that are more suitable.
Mild rant over
This is a project over a number of weeks. In the kitchen we have a mug, a lovely mug that we bought from a pottery when we were first married fifty years ago.
The mug was used to store composting waste before it got transferred to the compost bin. I noticed how lovely the waste could look and took many photographs of it and these are some of them. As I recall a tripod was involved.
I see it as a celebration of colour and form but you might say it's a commentary on how food is wasted, as a documenting of the sort of food we eat and evidence of small luxuries.
It's not dramatic or exciting just gentle observation. Fine Art? Who knows, it's probably as close as I'll get.
I am very tentative to post here as much of my work is simply observed like this one rather than created which I suspect is part and parcel of Fine Art.
However, this was taken in India and for me summarises some aspects of the sub continent. The light falling through the branches of the trees common in all smaller towns. The rather scruffy walls painted in colours that seem to be prevalent in India. The suggestion of decay, lack of ongoing care but still the wall is there doing its job.
I also think it's a nice play of shape and colour and can be viewed just as a celebration of those aspects alone.
It needs a big screen or print to really work and it's been carefully processed so phones and tablets may well mangle the colours.
To continue a trend - is this fine art?
I certainly made the photograph rather than simply took it but I'm not sure it really fits.