When you stop to look at them, hands tell a lot about a person. Do you work? Do you play? Do you paint? Are your hands soft and caring or hard and defined? Young or old? There’s a lot you can tell about a person from just looking at their hands.
When I took this shot, I wanted it to look like an old painting. I wasn’t going for the photographic look, but wanted the softness of the light and the softness of the setting to define the image, even though I knew the hands in question were not all that soft. These are obviously a man’s hands, and I wanted to show that too, but I wanted the result to look like a very old painting, rather than a modern photograph.
If you’ve ever done life drawing you’ve probably realized how difficult it can be to draw hands well. Hands are complicated. They are these complicated appendages stuck onto the ends of our arms, flapping around for all of the world to see.
It’s funny how we have an entire body to play around with, yet we put our clothing over our torsos. Our faces, feet, and hands probably tell more about us than anything else, yet we sometimes leave those uncovered for all to see. Isn’t that odd in some ways? Leave open the face, the most vital and distinguishable part, but cover those hips, baby. Yeah, it doesn’t make a lot of sense when you really stop to think about it, but that’s how we live.
Check go ahead, check out your hands. See where your hands will take you today.
Until next time…
Author
A trip to a nursing home is where you find some of the most ancient and interesting hands.
Author
Oh you're so right about that!
Now that would make for such an interesting project. Photograph hands at a nursing home and then write a small story about each of the people there. See if you can match up the hands with the people telling the story.
Mythopolis, you are like a fountain of creativity. Please do not bubble over the top as we don't have a mop here at Carol's Little World to contain you.
–The Management