Sin and Sims

Really, it was an accidental mistake! In my previous one I wrote 'sinplicity' instead of 'simplicity'. No need to call Dr. Freud to help; it really was just a matter of hitting the next key on the keyboard. But the error may come in handy: simplicity without sin is not beautiful. Sinplicity makes a photograph good (and this time the 'error' is on purpose).

That is of course a bold statement. What do I mean? Karel van het Reve (professor in Russian Literature, the brother of novelist Gerard and one of Holland's greatest critical rationalists) once said, if I remember well, that humour relied on surprise. I guess a good picture does too: it must surprise the viewer. For instance by breaking the apparent simplicity of the composition in clear lines by a baroque wildness of a cloud's line. Yesterday's picture was an example of that where the balance was very much on the clear lines. Today, I add a picture with more balance between architectural lines and clouds (also from our trip to Almere).



So I am advocating sinning against the rule of simplicity. Breaking the rules is the thing missing in computer environments like the world of the Sims--and that, I maintain, is why pictures of reality can be beautiful, and screenshots of Sims never are.