Art-ificial Zen by

Posted in Experimental and Abstract

For me, photography is a way of expressing what I am thinking or feeling through images. If I can go out into the world and find images that evoke the emotions that I am feeling, I've won. Sometimes, though, when I have something to say, I can't say it with a landscape or a pretty, bokeh laden floral image, so I find ways of "creating scenes". The idea for my "Artie" series came to me one day after I read an article about how to evoke an emotional response to an inanimate object from a viewer through posing, lighting, and perspective. I thought, "What better way to attempt to create human emotion and tell a story or make a point in a photograph than by using a somewhat 'void' human form". I had played with form subjects in art classes in college, and I immediately knew what I needed to get. So, I went out and rescued Artie from his cylindrical prison at a local store, put together a home-made light box and set out on an adventure to create a character that people would respond to in a human way.

Artie has had many adventures thus far...this one deals with the heavy topic of religion and spirituality. By nature, Artie is "Artificial", so I attempt to convey certain juxtaposed sentiments through him, and this is one of them. The world is full of different religions, races, creeds, etc., but at the most basic of levels, we are all so very much the same. Spirituality is nothing different...we can all believe in what we want to believe in and still have a "spiritual" nature - some find it through religion, some through family, some through looking to the stars, some just by taking a walk through nature, some playing baseball...whatever you do that makes you feel as though you are connected to this world and to something greater than yourself is your spirituality. You don't have to find this through meditation or in a church (though it is perfectly beautiful if you do), you need to find this in your heart and practice it in whichever way makes YOU feel the most connected to what you believe in.

So, that was the message, but how did I attempt to achieve it? Artie does most of his modeling in a 2 foot by 2 foot light box with black flooring and background and directional diffused light from the sides and top. I shoot most of my Artie images with my 70mm to 300mm telephoto, because it allows me to get the best overall perspective with the least amount of cropping (the idea is to not have to crop if possible, and I'll usually take multiple images in order to get a properly fit shot). Posing is really important; I will sometimes spend 10 minutes trying to create a pose that looks authentic; this one having the slightly dropped shoulder and conversely tilted head, as well as the bent leg and hands. Lighting is key with Artie...I want to make him look and feel human in a way, so I have to use the contours of his "body" position and shape to create shadows where I want them and highlights where I want them to give him character - here I knew I wanted the flat plane of his face to be a shadow for facial depth. It is best to shoot Artie (or most light box work) when it is completely dark in the room except for whatever directional lighting you have chosen. And that's pretty much it...he's posed, the lighting is directed until I'm satisfied, and then I take shots from multiple angles until I'm happy with what I've gotten.

Whether the image resonates with you or not, hopefully this helps you to understand the "reason" behind this series...it's not just that I like to play with stick men.
Tagged With: #storybehindtheshot, #artificial, #artie, #zen, #lotus

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Artie has had many adventures, you have made him live with your attention to detail and skill. Well done.
Posted by Snowdon Curtis, about 3322 days ago