21 Comments
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Shital Morjaria (she/her)'s avatar

Interesting post and photos Alex! I have not attempted photographing hands as such expect maybe a couple of times.

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Framing-the-Story w/AK's avatar

Thank you, Shital!

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Patris's avatar

What an exquisite essay.

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Framing-the-Story w/AK's avatar

Thank you, Patris!

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Poetry Symposium's avatar

Hands definitely tell a story ✍️

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Framing-the-Story w/AK's avatar

Thank you, Lori.

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Right Twice a Day's avatar

Often I love the challenge drawing hands (or carving them in wood).

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Framing-the-Story w/AK's avatar

I wish I could do that, Jeff. Carving anything in wood, for that matter.

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Right Twice a Day's avatar

I'm sure with a knife, a hunk of wood, and a practiced tolerance for getting your fingers cut, you'd bring your talents to it.

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Framing-the-Story w/AK's avatar

Thanks for the words of encouragement. I'll give it a whirl.

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Right Twice a Day's avatar

My father, as he whittled an amphibian out of red cedar, perhaps paraphrasing Michelangelo, advised me thus: "Just whittle away everything that doesn't look like a frog."

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George Appletree's avatar

Erwitt made a work on that: “handbook”

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Framing-the-Story w/AK's avatar

Wow. I had no idea. Just looked it up. https://www.magnumphotos.com/arts-culture/art/elliott-erwitt-handbook/

Thanks for the tip, George!

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Mark White's avatar

Well done essay. 👊🏼

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Framing-the-Story w/AK's avatar

Thank you, Mark. Your hands photos take the cake, though.

It's pretty uncanny that both of us dropped posts on hands independent of each other.

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Mark White's avatar

I thought of incorporating historical pieces like you did. Lange was the most obvious for me, though I would have chosen a different photo, and I had not thought of Stiegletz. But in the end I'm not a historian of the art and have decided to stick with what I know. I've done a few overview pieces, but they make me feel like a fraud. So I stick to what i know, Which ain't much beyond what's in my catalogs! 😢 I let the smarter ones here go in that direction. And...I can't tell you how many times I have found myself writing through an idea for a post when that same idea popped up in my feed! The Substack community is too small sometimes!

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Framing-the-Story w/AK's avatar

I'm no art historian either, but venture into that territory once in a while, and don't mind embarrassing myself.

And yes, the Substack community is small sometimes, but that's the beauty of it. It has the energy of a thousand points of light. :)

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Xavi Buendia's avatar

Great post Alex, I love your attention to detail even with your phone pics. As a food photographer, I pay special attention to hands working with ingredients. I like to think that without them, there's no food as we know it.

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Framing-the-Story w/AK's avatar

Thank you, Xavi! Good point. I've always loved photos of people's hands preparing food. Some day I'll make it my photo project :)

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Depswah's avatar

Lovely - Blessings

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Framing-the-Story w/AK's avatar

Thank you, Depswah!

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