Summerfling

This piece is a blog bomb.

I was sitting in my Beer Garden (everybody has a beer garden, right?) over the weekend, fire going in the fire box and the fountain in the garden pool gurgling with clean water changed that very day. I looked over and saw these Black-Eyed Susan’s (no, I’m not sure that’s what they are either) and thought, “Well, that’s a nice shot”, so I reached for my camera, leaned over, and captured it. five minutes later it was on Facebook. I’d no intention of exhibiting it on this blog.

Here’s how much work and artistic effort went into this piece:

Doodley Squat.

As I look at it, the white balance is off, the sharpness could be better, and the vibrancy and color curves need work. It could also use some lighting tweaks. And that’s just from a photographer’s point of view – I haven’t begun to consider how the artist might attack it.

Now, in the past six months or so I’ve posted works I’ve spent hours on and that I’m quite proud of, like this one, and this one, or this one, and all of them were posted to Facebook via a link to this blog.

This little snapshot into which no work at all went has more ‘likes’ on Facebook than all of them.

What have we just illustrated here? Is it a commentary on the futility of the creative process and the irrelevance of the artist? Does it reveal humanity’s preference for simple vs. complex? Obvious vs. abstract? Pretty vs. thoughtful?

Does it bother me that people seem to so enjoy this remarkably simple piece? Not really, I’m glad people enjoy it. Heck, it’s because of this there are so many florals in my portfolio. But, I tell you, if this were all I ever did I would go out of my freaking mind.