Viewer,

The goal of DA from the deviant's perspective is less than altruistic. Deviants want faves, comments, pageviews, validation, attention, a pulpit, a pound of flesh. I'm not speaking from on high, but down in with the rabble. Comments and discussion are the manna I crave.

A norm within the art community is to express everything in the piece itself. Any comment from the artist post release into the public view for a given work is shunned. To speak of a work after it is revealed implies that the artist acknowledges they did not properly express themselves or their opinion of the audience's ability to find a thread of meaning in the piece is abysmal.

This is called a fallacy. Cop-out. Hack excuse. Gutless. The real reason is much more basic. The artist intends to impact in some way. Ideology, method, and purpose to varying degrees are packed into a work and made available. The less the artist says the more the audience can run wild. Attaching their own Ideology, method, and purpose to the piece actually expands the piece beyond it's origins. Art is nothing without an audience... the audience makes it art, beautiful, pornographic, intellectual, significant. Adjectives attached to a piece become attached to the artist. Which is the goal in the first place, that pound of flesh.

An artist who spills the beans fears loosing their shot at the pound of flesh. It boxes the piece in and alienates the audience from applying their filters to it. It is pre-filtered, packaged, what have you.

I no longer fear this. It is plain that the pound of flesh I seek is not coming given my current methods. I reject the silent artist. By changing my method I hope to obtain comments and discussion.

1. Cull the Gallery.
2. Repost pictures that had meaning to me. Draft that meaning in my comments and encourage dialog from those who will have it.
3. Pictures that lacked significance to me will be moved to the scrap section.

This was not brief. Thank you for reading.

DH

Edit: Joined a Daily Photo Group hosted by my blog community. here. blogs.