Dissection 007
Vases, transformed.
Original post: These Viscous Realms Aquatic
Vases.
I was a weird child. I spent almost an entire summer sitting up a tree one year, just...imagining stuff. There were friends and all—I wasn’t completely out of it—but retreating into an alternate reality, on my own, was always part of my make-up. I’d stare at rooms in our house with my head upside down and wish I lived there: with windows stretching all the way to the floor, lamps dangling off the ceiling and doors you had to step into. Same space, same objects...re-assembled.
Forgive the reminiscing: I just think it’s a case of this explaining that.
Transformation is our human superpower, whether it’s literal, shaping and reshaping the land we were given; or interpretive, through the arts, through the way we choose to observe and reclaim the message as our own.
This is probably too many words to simply say the following: I saw the light hitting those vases one morning, the Aloe Vera roots floating in murky water...and I felt like diving in.
So I did.
Outtake.
That flaring…
I don’t use the XF 60 mm lens very often and mine is particularly loud and prone to flaring. But it’s small and easy to shoot handheld, which is what I needed here. There was no big setup: this was about looking, moving back and forth, finding the frame that felt right.
Glass and water provided natural distortion and when selecting the final images, I steered away from anything too recognizable.
Nice but much too easy to identify…
The processing is simple and mostly identical across all images, with slight variations in toning (using the Tint Wheels) depending on the initial colour and how each would best fit into the ensemble. You’ll notice I’m adding yellow to the highlights, which is rare.
Looking back however, I believe the link isn’t so much visual as conceptual? Each picture could originate from a different ecosystem, really. The accompanying words and organic nature of the subjects are what binds this all together.
One last thing: the framing. It’s an outlier and it kinda messes with the blog’s layout. But I’m always looking at “framed” images while I’m working (using C1’s Proof Margin feature against a white background) and I wanted to “bake in” that view on this series.
EXIF details below.
