The General Idea

This blog is about humor in art--especially humor in photography. I'm not sure where it's going. I am not a scholar of humor nor of art, though I have fleeting knowledge of those fields. I would be happy to receive reading recommendations.

But first things first: let's all agree that we know that humor is very subjective--that one woman's "funny" is another man's "bad taste". We know that. So--maybe you'll find none of my pictures funny. For instance, the background picture here makes me laugh. My housemate shrugged. "The woman could just as easily have been a buffalo," she said. So the picture falls short technically--it doesn't show the woman clearly enough. Also, I suppose it is mostly a "dog persons' joke". For me, the humor lies in the symmetrical balancing of the, apparently, laughing dog and the woman who stoops to pick up the dog's crap. It opens up questions like, "What do dogs think of our interest in their poop?"

Another--more pithy--issue is whether something can be both funny and "art". Is "funny" automatically "light" and therefore not "serious" art? There's light verse. My memory fails me now--are there any "great" poems that are funny?

But, in any case, as Maurice Sendak says, "Let the wild rumpus start!"













Close-Up: Always Wear Your Helmet






Here she is--cute little very young girl wearing a bicycle helmet. Well, it's a bit big for her--and we often find the cuteness of children enhanced by over-sized clothing. And we often laugh at babies in big hats. She looks pleased with herself. We--adult viewers--are maybe a bit arrogantly amused at her innocence. She feels she's doing the big girl thing--wearing her bike helmet.  I titled this shot "Always  Wear Your Helmet" because that's the crux of it. Worn this way, the helmet is bound to fail. We laugh at the juxtaposition of our understanding of the serious function of a helmet with the child's lack of knowledge. The helmet, on her, becomes merely a fashion accessory. But then, many supposedly functional items become freighted with fashion meaning: bike shorts, swimsuits, running shoes. My little neighbor here demonstrates this.

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