photo 25 Jan 2007 01:43 am
Utata: Unsubscribed
Utata: unsubscribed
I don’t remember how I initially stumbled upon Utata. I believe it was on Flickr. I found this group that seemed to have really amazing pictures. They had their own webpage and seemed to have a very active community. Their information page says this:
Utata is a collective of photographers, writers, and like-minded people who share a compelling interest in the arts. We began (and continue to exist) as a salon-style gathering of photographers who came together on flickr. As a group we are continuously evolving; Utata is more of a process than a final product.
Wow! It sounded great to me. The have a picture of the day type of thing, and I subscribed to it, eager to see the best of this group of good photographers. They pick a picture from their pool (which has already stringent guidelines: can’t be in more than 5 other pools, you can’t add more than one picture at a time to the pool, etc), and then display it along with some text inspired by the picture. The photographs were always great. But I couldn’t stand the text that went along with it. For instance, here’s one from a few days go. The picture is absolutely gorgeous. The writing makes me want to gag.
Water and sky barely separated by an opaline horizon. Sustained scalloped ripples of a boat’s wake barely disturbing the calm waters. Quiet, delicious hiss of the hull slipping across the cerulean surface of the sea. Soft, feathered wind. Solitude.To sail and never arrive. To sail without destination. To sail and be complete in the act of sailing. If heaven exists, it must be free of tides. If there is a paradise, it must caress us in blue water. If one can attain nirvana, it must feel like this.
Here we are. There we were. What lies ahead, lies ahead. But we are here now. We are here now.
The guy that wrote this, Greg Fallis, always writes like this. He’s got a stream on Flickr, and I really like his pictures but his flowery over the top poetic writing just bugs the heck out of me. Perhaps it’s because he’s a mystery writer and an ex PI that all of his work comes off as noir. The writing isn’t really about the picture at all, it’s a fancy that is inspired by the picture. It’s entirely possible that I’m just a philistine who doesn’t appreciate it, or that I’ve just been looking at the writing all wrong. I tried to tolerate it for the sake of the pictures for a while, but I just couldn’t do it anymore. I was sad for a while, but then I remembered that I could just subscribe to all the new Utata pics on Flickr quite easily. I did that for a few days, but that feed is just too active for me. I can’t keep up with 200 pictures every day. There’s just no time. So I unsubscribed again. Perhaps, someday, I will go back. What it boils down to is that right now, Utata just isn’t my cup of tea.