Bust Lust (not for everyone)
For well over two thousand years, if one were wealthy or well-placed enough, it’s been a large part of human nature to leave behind a likeness of oneself. Before there was oil paint and brushes there was marble and chisels and an available someone who possessed the God-given skill to satisfy that urge. Now, instead of the local artisan we have folks like Annie Leibowitz and her gang of enablers. But that complaint really has little to do with my current and perhaps final obsession.
For after a half century of being an art director, a photo editor and/or photographer I’ve chosen to shelve my equipment and not produce another image using a camera. For we are choked, smothered, drowning in images. It’s like the monkey typing Macbeth, not once but over and over and over again. Very personally, I’ve found there is now little fun and no reward in taking photographs. Because that photo I need, or I want has already been taken. It’s just a matter of not ripping it off but reapplying it for a completely different purpose.
You’ might laugh at that , thinking, smirking that even if one were so inclined, the cost would be prohibitive. And, if just grabbing it from the web, how does one use an image that is only 72dpi?
And my answer? “Just take a gander.”
