Shay wrote:
>"Jim Charter" <jrc### [at] aolcom> wrote in message
>news:3ed78cf1[at]news.povray.org...
>
>I like the stated concept for this image, but unfortunately the picture
>itself did not convey that concept to me. I do not associate the man's
>homelessness with being cast out from society because "society" is not
>present in the picture for contrast. If I were making this picture, I
>would attempt to suggest that the old man's house of cards is a
>replacement for his place in home owning society. In order to show this
>connection, I would place the old man further from the brick
>architecture and change the camera position so that the old man's house
>of cards would appear to be the same size as the brick houses, thereby
>stressing the comparison. Your existing scene could be improved by
>adding a very clean, visible, warm interior to the brick houses.
>Everything looks so dingy and dark now that the old man appears to be
>perfectly at home besides the brick houses, rather than cast out from
>them.
>
> -Shay
>
This is kind of awkward for me, but I intended for the buildings to
represent "society" - they may be ugly and monotonous on the outside, but
there's definite strength and structure.  The door is open, but either the
man can't afford the rent or he prefers the unsanitized "outside" world -
or perhaps both.  Originally, I planned to put the trash in the back along
the fence, move the door closer to the camera and make a soft, comfortable
interior to the buildings.  I even thought about putting a well dressed
child inside looking out at the man.  But I didn't think I could do it well
enough, so I decided to move the door to a less prominent location and
block the window with a card from a "fancier" deck - sort of like in Monty
Python's Holy Grail where a scene is described by the narrator as being too
fantastic to be portrayed in that film.
I like the idea of using the camera location to make the cards appear the
same size as the buildings, but I was trying to portray the house of cards
as the
man's creation instead of his enviroment.  I wanted the man to come across
as sort of an eccentric artist, caring only about his creation.  He doesn't
need or want things like a fancy house or expensive car that many people
value so much.
I didn't intend for the image to be quite so dark.  I was using an LCD
display and didn't realize how different it would look on a CRT until I
uploaded it to my webpage so I could show it to some people at work.  When
I saw how dark it was, I tried to compensate by increasing the brightness
of everything, but I think it just gave it a washed out look - especially
on the LCD.
I chose the title thinking about the architecture of society and that people
like this man are often overlooked as many people seem to judge others by
thier enviroment rather than thier potential and alot of good but
non-mainstream art and music go unnoticed.  I was hoping it would evoke
questions as to who is suffering the greater loss - society for missing out
on the creation or the overlooked person for missing out on society.  I was
hesitant about entering as I thought it would be considered off topic and
too - well - strange, but a friend at work pretty much insisted that I did.
 I really appreciate all the comments and advice.  It's been really
facinating reading what other people think about it.

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