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Nick Karagiaouroglou
{K:127263} 3/31/2009
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I can only second you again, Andre!
Cheers!
Nick
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Andre Denis
{K:66407} 3/26/2009
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Schiller knows what he is talking about. :)
If we stop playing, we might as well stop living.
Andre
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Nick Karagiaouroglou
{K:127263} 3/24/2009
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Why, you don't need any excuse for that, Andre. Just get that old matchbox car and the lego bricks and play. Oh well, some few guys may look astonished, but no problem. Soon they take some lego bricks and do something with them too. ;-)
To tell you the truth I never really understood why some toy is said to be for kids from 5 to 10 or so. To me many of them are still as exciting and interesting. They somehow turn the own mind on, in the sence of mental activation. So, you just sit and think a story, or some object that does this and that. Why should that be limited to some specific age? I guess that staying a kid is a different way of saying that ne is still able to proceed beyond the already existing things. Something like that.
One should never forget about the more "serious" or "grown-up" activities: We still *play* an instrument, we *play* a game of football, we *play* roles in theater, and we also *play* jokes and tricks to each other. To me that *play* is the same as in the case of playing with the matchbox car, for it allows to have a vision of what isn't there yet.
As Friedrich Schiller once said: "Der Mensch ist nur da ganz Mensch, wo er spielt”. (The human is only there completely human, where it can play.)
Cheers and listen to good old Schiller! ;-)
Nick
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Andre Denis
{K:66407} 3/22/2009
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And one of the things you miss when the kids are all grown up is that you don't have any excuse to play the kid's games anymore. Or, watch a kid's movie.
I plan on staying a kid forever myself, so I won't let that bother me.
Andre
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Nick Karagiaouroglou
{K:127263} 3/22/2009
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Oh well, video games are good witnesses of the raising complication degree of anything, Andre. Sometimes I wonder how the young kids can learn and use about 300 different key combinations for doing this and that while having a game. I never had a game of more than 3 seconds on new game consoles. I was dead before I could press any button and the youngsters were laughing. ;-)
Something that jumps into my mind is that the world was happy with much less back then, than with what it is happy now. Perhaps this has also to do with the fact that you already mentioned, namely sharing space. I have the feeling that sharing itself was completely normal and nice back then. Now it seems to be more the possessing of things.
Still I think that your kids will have more than enough to find nostalgic about their childhood too. At least their father still playing "Space Invaders" will surely be a good thing to carry in mind, that is. ;-)
Cheers!
Nick
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Andre Denis
{K:66407} 3/22/2009
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Hi Nick,
It's hard for me to imagine what my kids (who grew up in the 80's and 90's) will find nostalgic about their childhood. But then, just today, I started playing "Space Invaders" on an Internet game site. That was probably the first video game I bought for my boys. It brought back a few memories of simpler, less complicated times.
Andre
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Nick Karagiaouroglou
{K:127263} 3/21/2009
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Hi Andre!
Well, I had to really smile in joy with that story of the tv set! What can I tell you? Exactly the same with us. We had one of the very first tv sets, you know, those old black and white things that looked like some kind of furniture and had the almost spherical screen. The whole kid population of the neighborhood was right there in our "living room" and we had unbelievable fun with old bugs bunny and duffy duck. I remember little Mimis, the youngest of the "company" opening his eyes wide, starring with a mixture of joyfull surprise but also a bit of fear, and asking us all: "Are there real people there in the tv?" Now, who can say that those times weren't special..
Anyway, it seems that much of it went lost and other things replaced that. Times come and go. Still one can remember the good things and try to keep them along.
Cheers!
Nick
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Andre Denis
{K:66407} 2/18/2009
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Hi Nick,
I can relate to a lot of what you say. I was also in the position of never having a room of my own in my parents house. Sharing living space was completely natural in those days. I also remember a time when we lived in an apartment in Montreal, when I was 6 years old. My parents were lucky enough to be one of the first to buy a tv set. Every Sunday evening, we must have had at least 12 kids from other apartments coming in to watch tv at our apartment. Again, it just seemed the natural thing to do.
Andre
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Nick Karagiaouroglou
{K:127263} 2/17/2009
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Same like here, Andre. People can't even imagine that we grew up having at least 20 mothers and 20 fathers as all doors were completely open and we just went to one's or other's home for lunch or just for fun. I never had any kind of my own room, and things like that as a young boy, which of course today is almost "unthinkable". Who can imagine in the "western" world to sleep at night on a divan in the kitchen of a house with 4 rooms for 6 persons? But it was huge fun to wake up in the morning and see my grandfather and my grandmother starting the jokes of the day. Nowadays we seem to need much more room for ourselves.
So, you seem to have grown under similar conditions, and so you understand perhaps also my question about that. What changed? When I compare myself to the past then I see that I took much less things as granted back then, which I really expect to have now, like for example more room etc. Was that the times that changed, or was that our own selves, or both, or what?
Cheers!
Nick
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Andre Denis
{K:66407} 2/16/2009
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It looks like a great place to grow up Nick.
You have to get to know your neighbors in a town like that. :)
There is a very large difference in the living space here in Toronto over the last 60 or 70 years. I can't believe how small the house was that I grew up in, in the city core, compared to the monster houses that grow up like mushrooms overnight in the suburbs. Then, if you go back to South London where I was born, the houses are smaller yet again.
Andre
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Andre Denis
{K:66407} 2/16/2009
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Thanks again Ray.
I like trying for the "cute" titles, as you can see. ;) I agree with you on the sepia. Definitely a candidate for a dark brown/bronze. The junk and detritus wasn't there a few weeks ago though. They work men were dismantling the outside finish of the house to get at the original wood underneath. The house will be carefully taken apart and moved to a safe area and put back together. This is a township restoration project.
Thanks again Ray.
I have some catching up to do today. :)
Andre
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stingRay pt.4 .
{K:250401} 2/12/2009
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Great title for the shot Andre. The whole composition just screams out with the building's old age. All the debris in front of it and on the surfaces speaks of the lack of care and just adds to the aging. I just hope when the move is completed they transport all the detrious as well, it will lack character without it. I love the mono tones, though I might have tried sepia to increase that wonderful atmosphere. I love too the details in the wood and the open window shot revealing a glimpse of what was. A lovely lovely piece of photography my friend. Be well, all the best.....Ray
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Nick Karagiaouroglou
{K:127263} 2/10/2009
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"Resurected", ey? ;-) Oh well, hopefully without white wings. ;-)
The tight packed town is surely the trend nowadays as the avaliable place gets less and less. A serious problem since the average "expected room" for the own privacy seems to also be growing in the minds of people. But it is not necessarily this way only in recent times. I remember, back when I was young, it was quite normal (and good) to live in houses that were built so near to each other that we could speak with our neighbours from the one window to the next. The widest street in the old city of Kavala was perhaps 3 meters. And that place looks still the same since it was put under protection as cultural legacy. Nice to see that those old houses still stand there.
http://www.nefeli.com.gr/images/info_images/kavala5.jpg
Nick
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Andre Denis
{K:66407} 2/8/2009
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Hi Nick,
You touched on something there with the idea that we associate our own mortality with the destruction of something like this building. After all, I passed this little house in a field every workday for the last 10 years, and now it is gone. At least, it will be resurected somewhere nearby in the not too distant future. :)
It is true that some buildings are not cost effective to repair or bring up to current standards. Some are very much worth repairing, but just plain get in the way of tight packed town home developments.
Andre
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Nick Karagiaouroglou
{K:127263} 2/7/2009
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You are right about including at least a small piece of the ground, Andre. I cropped it off for getting a direct look and the image became rather flat. It was no more standing right there in front of a once full house but rather... an old wall collage or something similar. So, you did well to keep it.
It is always a mixture of sad and "time-travel backward in mind" to see demolished places of human activity, and especially of course if that human activity was simple everyday life itself, like cooking, eating, being there as you say. I always have very discomforting thoughts when I see how it goes and that kind of acceptance in the sense of saying something "Alas! So it goes" and getting over doesn't really work for me. It works perhaps as a method for getting used to steady change of this kind but not for being also always happy with it. I guess that it is that vague idea of an abrupt end to something which we think it has been good and nice when it was there. (Perhaps it never has been as nice as we imagine.) In a sense perhaps it is identified with "death". No more kids there, no more noises, dreams, fears, no more life as it evolves through the years. And perhaps we associate such a fate with our own existence and limited time.
On the other hand I don't really understand even the "practical" reasons for demolishing already existing houses. In the western outskirts of Lucerne there are many older houses that get ripped down for building new ones there. The main reason for that seems to be that it is much too expensive for the owners to keep them in shape, or so they say. I don't have anything at all against the more modern architecture or against the making itself. (Actually I like modern architecture very much.) The thing is, as I think of it, it would cost less money and take less time to repair the already existing ones and have some people living there, than to demolish the old ones first and to build new ones in their place. So it seems very strange to me.
BTW, I guess it could be a good thing for me to do, to go there and get some shots of the old houses before they disappear.
Cheers!
Nick
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Andre Denis
{K:66407} 2/6/2009
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Thanks Nick,
I was a bit apprehensive about including the detritus around the bottom of the image. It appears to be dirty snow in the B&W version. But, it is actually a lot of dirty grey plaster that has been scraped away from the house. I felt the image needed the bottom 10% for some balance and it wouldn't have looked right if I cropped it up to the bottom of the door.
I really liked the idea of having that voyaristic look into the "private kitchen". there is something very sad about seeing an old house stripped to the bare bones, Yet it wasn't that long ago people were cooking in that kitchen. Kids were growing up in that house and life was going on for several generations.
Andre
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Andre Denis
{K:66407} 2/5/2009
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Thanks Shirley,
I included a little more information in a reply to Dave. I like what they are doing with some of the old buildings in the area. Mid 1800s is not really old by some areas standards, but it's as old as we have in this area. :)
Andre
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Andre Denis
{K:66407} 2/5/2009
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Thanks Dave,
A crew has been carefully taking this place apart and labeling the sections. I'm not sure where they are going to rebuild it. Somewhere nearby, I suppose. About three years ago in the same area, the developers moved a huge, old, historic brick building to a position on the corner of a new street. The street was not built at the time. They built the new development loosly around the architecture of the old building. I thought that was a pretty good idea. That way, they get to keep a little history in the town. The building is being reconditioned and will open soon as a Montessori school.
As far as this one goes, I have no idea what will happen to it.
I sort of wish the snow was a bit heavier for this image, or none at all. Anyway, I can't go back now for more shots. It's almost gone now.
Andre
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Nick Karagiaouroglou
{K:127263} 2/5/2009
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Very very good details on the wood on the facade of the house, Andre! I find your tonal range quite nicely fitting the textures and details too. The exposure was totally well balanced here. Except perhaps for the bottom part that looks too strongly exposed but this is not the main part of the image, and in addition to that it somehow adds a contrast line for the wood to look better. The inclusion of the window through which the interiors can be seen is a big plus for me. Actually I also have the parallel impression that I am inside the house and look at the mirror that reflects the kitchen.
And you see what I mean? Here the focus is very good and still it conveys that "aged" look and feel. So, I'll have to examine that a bit closer.
Cheers!
Nick
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Shirley D. Cross-Taylor
{K:174136} 2/4/2009
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Interesting capture and about, Andre.:)
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Dave Stacey
{K:150877} 2/4/2009
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Glad to see it's going to be re-assembled elsewhere, Andre! I hate to see these historical buildings torn down to make way for other things, but it's pretty hard to stop progress. You've got a good atmosphere in the shot, especially with the falling snow.
Dave.
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