blood promise

I've been looking at this image since you posted it. I see that it has a lot of viewership with no comments. So, I will try to say something (by the way, I visited your website and viewed your other images). This is really avant garde photography and clearly over my head (and apparently most others). This type of image is very difficult to critique in this kind of a gallery. The only thing I can say is that I cannot find the relationship between the title and the image. I don't understand how someone (I believe a nude female) bending over relates to a "blood promise"... actually it looks like she is "mooning" someone !

Moreover, because I don't understand the image, it is difficult to critique on the usual concepts of composition, printing, contrast etc. Presenting this kind of photography is a huge challenge and a burden on the photographer because the image alone should communicate what is in the mind and heart of the artist. To that end, I don't believe you were successful. By the way, I'd love to understand the image and specifically what it is communicating.

After all that, I would like to thank you for sharing and thanks for printing rather than negative scanning. I am sure that this required a lot of hard work.

Thanks for taking the time to comment. I'll give it my best:
All of my images are based around subconscious activity and are not intended to follow a logical reasoning process. The ideas come from dream material and writing exercises (mostly automatic writing). They are intended to stimulate metaphorical thinking in the viewer.
I don't (like most of us) really feel comfortable analyzing the content of my own images, but here goes:
The pomegranate in the foreground has been cut in half. A parallel can be drawn between the fruit as an organism and the human as an organism. They are both fragile and eventually fail and die, as when cut in half. The woman is "cut in half" by the pain in her body (pain like a knife), which is why she is doubled over. Like the fruit, she'll die from her body's failings eventually. The title is meant to suggest permanence, or something definite; a promise which must be kept and cannot be avoided- in other words, death. Blood in the title is also meant to connote pain (the spilling of one's blood), the reducible human (we're just made up of blood and meat) and the importance of blood to the functioning of the body (lifeblood).
My goal is essentially to make the viewer feel something vague that only their alpha-wave type thinking processes can understand, if that makes sense. In other words, I want to appeal to the imagination rather than making an image that is recognizable. I like surrealism.
You are correct in saying that most of the photographers on here are interested in realism, but heck, I thought I'd give it a go anyhow. I'm not really trying to make images just for the art crowd, I hope it doesn't appear that way. It's good to have an insight from someone like yourself.

Oh, yeah, I wanted to say something about the technique I use. They're composites. I scrape up negatives and use different parts of them, "sandwiching" them together. I use soft focus (as you can see) and I sand/scratch all the acetate support with a 50 grit sandpaper.

Thanks,... Now when you explain it, it comes together. This is the kind of thing that would be interesting for you to discuss in a live presentation. Clearly, I think your images belong in the standard gallery because any critique would not do it justice. In another part of my life I used to read about things like automatic writing. I was sufficiently frightened by the concept and never wanted to pursue it. Nevertheless, what moves us to photograph anything is often unexplainable. I have had instances where the things that I chose to capture seemed to picture themselves... That's when I am really in the zone which is very seldom....

thanks, I knew that your technique required a great deal of work.