Zonda`s Quest

Post Facto is the king of light. A great master of colors and composition. Post Facto is a slice of my personality that appears after any creative success. In my head, I imagine Post Facto dressed as one of the ancient Greece philosophers, using a chiton, one of those leather slippers and a beard.

The primary function of Post Facto in what I call my own “self” is to convince me that every success I`ve had was the result of a process that once played backwards would show nothing but pure mathematical logic.

Today I got pissed on that. At two in the morning, about half an hour after shooting Delicate Balance I was entering the shower when Post Facto appeared in what he thinks it`s the Agora (but that in reality is an amphitheater made of my patience):

• Well, he said, you could see that the chromatic objective of Delicate Balance is to show a gradient that starts on the models legs, filled with light, passing through her body already filled with dark because of the clothes, and ending in full darkness, when her head almost blends with the couch. Another thing we must consider is the balance between the massive solid on the right and the delicate pillars shown by her legs on the left. You really though it through! Congratulations!

No, I did not.

I saw the pose in a picture from Playboy. While I liked the pose, and the theme, I thought I could do it without the nude and creating an alternate interpretation to it, with light and a different angle.

During the shooting, however, I did not think of any of the issues raised by Post Facto. I just felt it, shot it, reviewed it and shot it again. The resulting photo is nothing more than something that made me feel good. If it shows a “light gradient”, nice, than probably it`s because light gradients make me feel good. If it shows a “contrast in balance”, than, again, it`s because it`s pleasing to my eyes. It`s not a rational process. It`s something that can be factored, post facto, but it`s born alien from the concept of logical reasoning.

In the end, it makes me think about the true range of art critique. If the result of a work of art is nothing more than a subjective statement of the artist (and not a something generated as a blend of rationale and technique), what is the purpose of rationalizing and explaining art it in a general way?

I`ll sleep on it, but I, honestly, can see none.