Posts Tagged ‘surreal’
Rated ‘Triple S’: A Stroll on the Strange Side
Lara Zankoul & Naeema Zarif (Photo credit: CC Beirut)
We get the week underway with our weekly Stroll on the Strange Side with this ‘Triple S’ post, beginning with the . . .
Spooky!
Yesterday, ‘confirmation’ of ghostly activity was reported in a tavern in New Jersey. The connection to this blog is that you can view it! Click the link to read about and see an ‘orb’ bounce around and run down a hallway. Make that two – you can see two different videos of orbs on the move.
The writer of the article, Kelly Roncace, is a professional ghostbuster of sorts (“paranormal investigator,” to be politically correct) and she says: “a certain traveling, flashing ball of light that was captured may be the real thing. . . definitely an energy orb.”
We’ll take that with a pinch of something else beginning with ‘S’ . . .
Surreal
Lara Zankoul ain’t no ghostbuster; however, she must be a devotee of Dali and Magritte, for she’s that rarity among photographers: a Surrealist.
Lebanese newspaper Al-Shorfa ran an interview with the winsome Miss Zankoul but, unfortunately, they do not do her talents justice: only one photograph adorns the interview.
Not a problem: Zankoul has a portfolio online and it’s a Surrealist sensation.
She has a whole section on ‘Tea cups’, a bigger and better one called ‘Expressions’, and a few images of levitating persons and one of a very unfortunate girl who woke up in the wrong place.
Amazingly, Zankoul does all this as a hobby – and, man, that’s just surreal!
Shadowy
Transitioning from colourbursts to shades of grey – make that shades of black, shadow black:–
Photographer Romain Laurent says that his “series is about the ‘surreal impression’ he felt while walking around on pitch black streets for hours over several nights,” in A Study of Shadows in Manhattan During the Blackout.
This third element of our weekly ‘triptych’ of a kind unites the first two elements: not only are Laurent’s photographs about ‘surreal impression’, they are downright spooky, showing the ghostly side of what appears to be a modern-day ghost town.
A couple of the photographs here, such as this one, are genuinely top-class, evocative, well-balanced images in their own right and that should not be overlooked as a consequence of their novelty appeal or because they are part of a themed set.
Enjoy our ‘Triple S’ Post!
Of Quirkiness, Popsicles, and Colour-Blind Film
We go off on the wayward, weird path, pointing out quirky happenings in the world of Photography no more than once a week. Well, there’s so much weird, quirky stuff going on that we just have to follow up The Good, the Mad, and the Chuckly from earlier this week with another post treating you to off-the-wall news from yesterday and today. Aquarius in his first week must be a joker!
Quirky Cerise
PetaPixel even starts the title of a photo-article with the word ‘quirky’: Quirky Portraits of People Surrounded by Swarms of Hanging Objects. (See how bad things are getting?) It features the photographs of Cerise Doucède.
Doucède’s photographs are truly, well, quirky, ranging to weird. They are also reminiscent of surreal painting. Perfectly natural portraits of persons are offset by a variety of objects in midair in front of and around the subject. Some persons are clearly put out by said objects while others find them amusing! Which are you?
Colour-Blind Film
Aquarius is such a bad influence that even staid BJP makes one of our weird-and-quirky posts! Once upon a time, King Kodak used to produce and “infrared” film called “Aerochrome” that was “intended for various aerial photographic applications, such as vegetation and forestry surveys,” and similar serious applications. It had the endearing trait of turning cool greens into popping purples.
Now, Lomography is bringing out their “LomoChrome Purple 400 film” which is neither infrared nor meant for aerial and/or serious applications. It does retain Aerochrome’s endearing trait of converting greens into magentas and purples, however! Click the link to see a few sample shots and to access a couple more links if you’re into The Colour Purple.
Popsicle-Stick Cameras
It’s the height of summer and popsicles would be most welcome. What’s more, we should save the popsicle sticks because you can . . . build a camera out of them.
Maxim Grew used a Polaroid film holder, card stock, duct tape, and aforementioned popsicle sticks to build a working camera! Grew even demonstrates how well his camera works with a photo or two. In case you’d like to build one, he freely shares his fabrication process and trade secrets.
May Ronen Goldman ‘Live in Interesting Dreams!’
Let’s pay a visit to the René Magritte of Photography: an unique photographic artist, Ronen Goldman.
Goldman is not, per se, a great photographer; he’s a great creator of situations, sets, scenes, tableaux, most of which are, let us say, ‘dreamlike’. How does he do it? All he does is translate his dream into reality – and then photographs it! Haven’t you always wanted to do just that?!
The slumberous inspiration for the photographs gives rise to the project’s name: The ‘Surrealistic Pillow’. Here is where you’ll find fishbowl heads, iguana-laden beds, balloon’ish lanterns, apple barrages, fruity hail, guitar-filled woods, a bench with Kali Ma’s multiple arms, and other photographs that are just too weird to even describe!
The images clearly look like photographs but, even without any special effects Photoshopping (as opposed to the obvious combining and accumulation of discrete photographs and photographic elements), some have a painterly, feel. This arises no doubt because of the nature of the image itself: one is accustomed to seeing ‘unreality’ in paintings whereas one is equally accustomed to seeing reality in photographs.
There’s more to these photographs than immediately meets the eye: though the origin of these images – dreams – suggests a novelty project, these photographs are more than a novelty. That’s because Goldman concentrates his attention and shifts the emphasis from creativity in-camera when making the shot and creativity on the computer when post-processing to ‘creativity a priori’ – well before making the shot. What a concept in the Age of Photoshop!
Also, a few photographs are truly good enough to decorate a lobby. Consider the photograph of a girl lying on a pathway leading to an ivy-covered castle with hands emerging from bushes along each side, trying to reach the immobile girl. Leaving aside whatever Freud or Jung may have to say about this particular scene, this photograph is superbly executed and stands as a work of art.
Ronen Goldman had a really good idea and he has been executing it equally well. Let’s take a twist on that Chinese greeting and wish that ‘he lives in interesting dreams’!
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