“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion” – C. Northcote Parkinson

Bit fraught this week (to say the least) … …

Being half a week behind schedule took some recovery and I’m still seeing, and feeling, the effects now.

“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong (eventually)” – Murphy’s Law

Sod’s law states that when (note when, not if) something does go wrong, it is always with the worst possible outcome – and that sums up my week!

… …

The “male gaze” – previously, this is something I have been unaware of, perhaps naively. Interesting theory, and enlightening.

Now I am aware of the “male gaze” and having searched the term “advertisements gaze” I was surprised to see just how many advertisements are sexualised and chauvinistic. This can, of course, be balanced by the “female gaze” theory. (This is huge area to explore). Nevertheless, eye-opening to see how ideologies can be manipulated.

… …

What “spare” time I have had this week, quite a lot of it has been spent contemplating what it is that makes an image appealing, using the work of Vermeer as a reference.

“Holy Trinity” … …

“It’s all right, Father, I’m just telling him about the Holy Trinity. You know it? Footwork, timing, and hitting!” – Liam Devlin, The Eagle Has Landed

(Touch of intertextuality there … keep it fresh in the mind, Philip, keep it fresh in the mind).

OK, so not that Holy Trinity.

It’s obviously a very complex issue which brings forth some highly subjective answers.

But what I have determined is that there are some common traits shared by, at least some, great images. These are:

A sense of familiarity

A sense of timelessness

A sense of ambiguity.

I won’t expand on these here, it’s not really the forum for one reason. Another reason is that I plan to write a small article based upon my research in this specific area.

“Sophistication” is a buzzword at the moment. Think it will be for the foreseeable. It’s so easy to assume we know the true, dictionary definition of words. Not wishing to fall into a trap of my own making (seem to do that often enough anyway), I thought I would check the definition of its root, sophisticated, and fix it in my mind:

Something to reflect upon as I look, over the forthcoming week, to the development of my project and the next round of assignments which are gathering like a black cloud on the horizon.