Michael_Stones
Member
I'd much appreciate comments and criticism on this image. Cheers, Mike.
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Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!
It's been Swell!
- Thread starter Michael_Stones
- Start date
Doug Kerr
Well-known member
Hi, Michael,
I don't get it!
I don't get it!
Michael_Stones
Member
Hi Doug. Outside of the reportage fields (photojournalism, forensics), death became an almost taboo topic in still photography during the twentieth century. The emphasis in reportage is on horrific, usually violent death rather than dying in bed, which is what happens to most of us. I'm sure Freud (Anna if not Sigmund) wrote about this interplay between fascination and denial but that's another story.
It wasn't always like that. Photographing dead relatives was common in Victorian times with the pictures displayed on mantle shelves or in albums. Death was a less offensive part of everyday life then than now. A recent example within this tradition is Renee Byer's 2007 Pulitzer Prize winning series that got attention in this forum last year http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2007/feature-photography/works/byer02_jpg.html.
If one purpose of art is to comment on contemporary culture, the aim of the image was to resurrect the topic in an associative Neitzschean sense of 'going under.' Hence the snowman going back into snow and the shrouded human figure montaged into the scene. The image is symbolic without linear meaning (except for the title), at least to me.
It wasn't always like that. Photographing dead relatives was common in Victorian times with the pictures displayed on mantle shelves or in albums. Death was a less offensive part of everyday life then than now. A recent example within this tradition is Renee Byer's 2007 Pulitzer Prize winning series that got attention in this forum last year http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2007/feature-photography/works/byer02_jpg.html.
If one purpose of art is to comment on contemporary culture, the aim of the image was to resurrect the topic in an associative Neitzschean sense of 'going under.' Hence the snowman going back into snow and the shrouded human figure montaged into the scene. The image is symbolic without linear meaning (except for the title), at least to me.
Georg R. Baumann
Inactive
Very clever Michael!
However, it is probably my lack of english fluency, I still do not get the "Its been swell" thingy.
Let me ask you, to my eyes the snow is too crystaline, is that sugar?
However, it is probably my lack of english fluency, I still do not get the "Its been swell" thingy.
Let me ask you, to my eyes the snow is too crystaline, is that sugar?
Michael_Stones
Member
Hi Georg. The snow really is snow in our back garden. It looks more crystaline than powdery because there was brief thawing followed by freezing soon after it fell. "It's been swell" is slang for it's been great, but in a prideful way. Seemed like an intriguing epitaph for a gravestone. Cheers, Mike
Georg R. Baumann
Inactive
VERY kewl, hehehe! I really like it, what an idea...
The person laying there is real, right? To my eyes the montage fails to convince on the right hand, where the edge of the white cloth is under the snowman, his/her left shoulder/arm.
The snowman looks like made from ceramics (hat, nose and so on).... then again <grins> I was wrong on the snow already.
The person laying there is real, right? To my eyes the montage fails to convince on the right hand, where the edge of the white cloth is under the snowman, his/her left shoulder/arm.
The snowman looks like made from ceramics (hat, nose and so on).... then again <grins> I was wrong on the snow already.
Michael_Stones
Member
Right on both counts Georg: the person is real; the snowman ceramic. I'm not sure what you mean about the right side of the photo. Sorry to be dense, but would you explain further.
Georg R. Baumann
Inactive
What caught my eye was the area, as I tried to describe, where the cloth of the "dead", particulary the left shoulder "transitions" to the snow.
I < sorry> quickly mousemarked the area above the transition in question.
Then again, hey what do I know, but this, and more, like the fluff right bottom, or the vertical stripes, just distracted me from the otherwise really lovely composition!
Did you print it? Would you mind elaborating how you made the picture?
I < sorry> quickly mousemarked the area above the transition in question.
Then again, hey what do I know, but this, and more, like the fluff right bottom, or the vertical stripes, just distracted me from the otherwise really lovely composition!
Did you print it? Would you mind elaborating how you made the picture?
Michael_Stones
Member
Hi George and thanks for the clarification. The image was a composite of two pictures shown 'straight from the scanner' below. The leftside one, taken with a baby Rollei in a hotel room at night, used only the bedside light. Hence the yellow cast. The 'fluff' you mentioned at the bottom right was because scanning from the print (due to late arrival of slide mounts needed to scan 127 negatives) picked up texture from the paper. That should be eliminated when I scan the negative. The snowman picture was in our garden using a Nikon F4 and 80-200mm zoom.
I played with the image over the weekend to reduce discontinuities between the two component pictures, including the rightside join.
The picture won't be ready for printing until replacement of the lower image with a scan from the negative rather than the print.
Cheers
Mike
I played with the image over the weekend to reduce discontinuities between the two component pictures, including the rightside join.
The picture won't be ready for printing until replacement of the lower image with a scan from the negative rather than the print.
Cheers
Mike
Georg R. Baumann
Inactive
Interesting Mike! Thanks for sharing....