"Tough" and "Sweet"
I'd like to try out an idea on you. You know, kinda throw it at the wall and see if it sticks.

If you've studied philosophy or read Nietzsche, you probably had to learn the terms "Dionysian" and "Apollonian." Those might be very useful terms, if more people could remember what the heck they meant. They describe a classic dichotomy. That's from the Greekdikhotomos, a splitting in two. Or, as the old joke puts it, "There are two kinds of people in the world. People who always divide everything up into two kinds, and people who don't." Ba-dum.

Well, for some time now I've been trying to put together a book of amateur color photography culled from web exhibits, so I've looked at internet picture sites until I'm bleary-eyed. It occurred to me a while back that I really do see a "split" of sorts operating in the photographic Universe. A real live dichotomy.

I think I have a clear understanding of the two sides of my dichotomy, and I think I can describe what I...