Work 15: Paper Players

This is a first, but it is something I have been thinking more about lately. Between Michel Gondry's crafty sets and Wes Anderson's recent animation, I have been wanting to make my own little worlds and snap them in a photo. For my first attempt I have grabbed a ready-made story line and cut out some images from popular news. Content-wise I am not likely to continue much further down this path, but process-wise, this is just the beginning. A very sloppy beginning. Here, I had an idea of what would be going on, but not a sound grasp of layout. I would like to think this out more for future builds. Its a start.

Work 14: Sameness

A new school year has just started and I am watching a fresh batch of kids getting accustomed to their new routine. They look buried in their oversized mandatory school outfit. I wrote this piece while sitting in the office watching a little one squirm and shuffle waiting for a teacher's help.

Work 13: Call to Worship

While looking through my digital photos for a separate project, the preview feature flashed a bunch of my orange images in rapid succession. I then paused my current project to make a video with my orange series instead. I took the whole file of 36 images, loaded them into my video editor, and let them repeat a number of times. The order seen is the order the photos were taken in. Every other cycle is shown in reverse. Some places are sped up and other slowed down. The only manipulation to the images, was in adjusting the contrast of the video as a whole. I edited the clip until it seemed right, then I dropped some music on top. Music borrowed from Architecture in Helsinki. Titles are hand drawn.

Work 12: Angkor Again

Last summer I traveled to Cambodia and visited the ruins of the Angkor Empire. A few days of temples and I left with hundreds of photographs. I felt as though I had experienced the ancient city through my viewfinder, and less with my eyes. Visiting Angkor truly is a once in a lifetime event, and a couple of weeks ago I returned for a second round. I wanted to see the temples differently so I decided to shoot Angkor only in black and white. It was a difficult call to make. I popped in a B&W Secure Digital memory card, and committed to a colorless journey. I have not embarked on such a path since graduating college, and thus, sadly, graduating from the darkroom. As soon as I returned home and loaded the images onto my computer, I knew the decision was solid. It has been some time since I have been so pleased with a photo series. Having seen both, I think Angkor has some fine subtle colors to show in the stone and dirt, but B&W is hands down the best for ruins. Here is one of the many passageways in Angkor Wat.