Written Statement

When asked to dream up a landscape it's hard not to imagine vast hills, lakes, and skies all rolled into one perfect, harmonious image. In my project, I tried to take this idea of what is commonly thought to be a landscape but manipulate it in an unexpected way.

I have been drawing these dead trees with human legs for several years now. I cannot remember exactly what sparked the obsession, or how I even came up with the idea. One day, it just seemed like the right thing to do. When told about the assignment, I couldn't help but imagine the common landscape: a forest ... only instead of roots to connect the trees to the forest floor are limbs, ankles and toes. This clustering of my tree legs and the interaction between the forms of their branches and limbs led me to my final image.

As a photographer, I am fascinated in people and in the mystery and complexity of nature. Through my tree legs, I sought to combine these two elements as one ... connecting the fate of man to the inevitable, yet prolonged fate of nature. After hundreds of years, a tree may die. It may contract a disease, may be cut down. Humans face the same circumstances- they may be cancerous, murdered. This relationship between the organisms created a basis for my thoughts about this project. If we all live to die, and realize that this is the inevitable truth, why and how do we thrive? I wanted to show that we face our own mortality with creating useless activities and rituals to waste time in all the nothingness we call life. I suppose it's pretty depressing, but I don't think of it that way. Life is something that, supposedly, we did not choose to participate in. We were formed by our parents, a coincidence between that specific egg and that specific sperm and we arrive with no warning of the possible coming of misery. And even though there is misery, we find pretty amusing things to entertain our existence, that in hindsight seem pointless, but when you think about it are perfect. Expected. They seem a natural and progressive wasting of time, and the more you forget that you're wasting time with rituals and games, the happier you are. Sometimes, life is to forget. When you can't remember, it's great.

I drew out all of my tree legs on paper. I did about 7 or 8 variations of legs and dead trees, some with one branch, some with holes. I then scanned them into photoshop, adjusted their size, color and placement. I arranged them in ways that made them seem like they were interacting with or reacting to each other. Some are alone, some are dancing, some have laid down, some are running. Each figure seems to have their own method of living, or "wasting time". They all exist in this cluster coping with their existence in any way that they can, that they see fit for themselves. They are a congregation, a village. And we all are. We're all just trying to get along.

Mati Klarwein doesn't consider himself a landscape artist. That's fine, I like him better this way. We don't need the labels. I looked specifically at these images of his as my project relates to the trees I've introduced in my image. He's shown this dense forest, a quiet moment subdued in blues. Does a falling tree make a sound if no one is there to hear it? Who the fuck cares, there is always noise and just because you can't be there to witness it, it probably made a sound to some squirell somewhere or something. I don't know. I like moments like these-still and natural, Like its been this way for a long time. I like the lines around the image as well. They really energize this little precious moment somewhere out in the woods for no one to see it but Mati. He knows where to go for the most beautiful trees.

Kerik Kouklis - I found this photographer through Ansel Adams gallery. I really like the use of object as landscape. For instance, this photographer used trees, as I have and other still lives. There is a strange atmosphere about them that i also liked and wanted to achieve in my piece

Landscape Artists

Gregory Crewdson is a brilliant photographer who uses HDR to make hyper real, hyper detailed "landscape" photographs. I like that he uses people in his shots because, as a photographer myself, I have a deep fascination in photographing people interacting with each other, the spaces around them, and objects or elements within the spaces. Here are a few examples of his work: 

Presenting, the 5 versions

Digiscape version #1: I was thinking at first that I just wanted a few of these tree legs interacting with each other. I envisioned a lot of negative, white space to evoke a sense of nothingness surrounding the figures. 

Digiscape version #2: I decided after not being satisfied with all the empty space that I should create a forest of the figures. I just didn't know how dense of a forest I wanted. This was too few, but I still kind of liked the sense of nothingness the white space gave. Nowhere to go, but be. 

Digiscape version #3: I wanted to try giving the enviornment a defined space. I found an image of a sunset, which almost gives a mood of dusk, end. But I think it's too straight forward. Too ... obvious. I wanted the forest to define itself- a strange space made up of the space in between the branches and limbs. i wanted the mood of the image to exist between the interactions of the stump people. 

Digiscape version #4: With this version, I decided to overcrowd the image, make it complicated and hectic. It began to look like the trees were involved in some strange ritual ... I tried to enhance the sense of movement to also evoke this feeling of chaos. Senseless chaos because there is no enviornment. Only themselves. 

Digiscape version #5: This is the final, touched up and tinted version. Its a pretty dense forest: a place only defined by the figures and their interactions within the rectangle. What they do,  and how they react are what makes the atmosphere. The confusion, the dance, the ritual... there really is no reason for this to  be happening. But it is, and they must go on. 

Unique

My ideas for the project are centered around communication and the ways we find to say something, literally or not. If my ashtray could speak, it would say many things but the look of a full ashtray, cigarettes half buried in ash, can say a lot too without using the words. This cigarette was burned under stress. Another cigarette crushed into oblivion with a growing rage, of pain.

I worked with a song by Wilco with the song lyric: "Ashtray says you were up all night". It got me to thinking about the ways we can communicate besides spoken word, as sometimes the verbal can make one uneasy. Suggestive speech is more profound.

My cigarette butts are stamped, where the brand name would usually be, with a words that might have been symbolized by the end of that particular cig. "Fuck", it could be. "Cock! TITS CUNT" etc, etc. Whatever might have permeated from that last lit ember on the tip of a dying cigarette may very well have been a speech bubble. A memory. Shit

The first few sketches i did were too sketchy for me.. too busy with lines organized into patterns. I scanned an image into photoshop and began painting over the pencil work and treating it as if it were an under painting. The effect i got made the image look like an ink wash with some line work showing through from underneath. I decided this light, watery feeling was interesting because it somewhat mimicked smoke clouds, like the cigarettes are made from the very stuff we suck down. I added some hints of brown on some of the filters to break up the white space of the cigs.

I guess its hard to understand the relief, the light headedness, the grounding, yet the freeing feeling of that first FIEND after drag if you don't smoke. Its sticky and dirty and warm warm warm! Even in the summer. It travels down your trachea to your lungs, which will probably curse you when you get older, but at the time, tighten up with joy!

Ok, last sketches for real. The bottom image (dress, clowns) were supposed to be screenprinted. Instead, I just printed it out with the digital part of the image (above, not primary colors). I also did one where I drew and colored the intended-to-be-screenprinted part with prismacolor markers. I think I like the colors of the digitally printed part better.

Anyhow, there you have it!

This was my final sketch. The colors of the children were reduced to the 3 colors of the dress in photoshop so my final image will look a little bit different than what you see here.

I'm pretty pleased with the whole thing, despite not getting to screenprint. I'll probably do that when I'm not sick/have more time. But for now, its all digitally printed. Oh, and I tried one where I hand drew/colored the parts that were meant to be screenprinted.

Yeah!

some more sketches

So heres the original image (left). Aren't they creepy looking???

Anyway, I outlined them in sharpie, then traced their body shapes and drew clown costumes around them. Hats included. I plan to overlap them onto the black and white image (only their faces and hands will come through)

Artist Statement-ohhh it gets ugly

The idea of manipulation can stretch far beyond more than one direction. It's used to trick, disguise, to attract attention or provide entertainment, awe, and criticism. It pokes fun, undermines or enhances, makes pure gold, shining brilliance. When manipulating images from the news, I turned to an activist, satirical state of mind. Here is a piece of information, now I must challenge why it is thought of as "news".

This is where The Duggars come in. They are a peaceful, god-loving (x 1,000) family of 20 - 10 boys and 8 girls, and Michelle and Bob- The source of all these children. They dress modestly, hardly watch TV, are homeschooled, never drink or perform any activities that might hint at unmentionable human desires. However, through all this devout behavior, Michelle and Bob don't know when to stop ... uh ... producing more prisoners to this liftesyle. They have left the growing numbers of children up to God's hand- Will they stop at 18? How far will this go, just because Bob and Michelle don't believe in using birth control? Hmm, seems like these unmentionable desires that God's children shouldn't desire have got the best of Bobby. Why would they have 18 children if he didn't like screwing so much?

And besides all this, which is just annoying, they're on tv promoting this idea that God should decide the course of our lives, which really only means: We don't want to use birth control but still want to fuck, so I guess we'll just have a kid everytime we have sex ... God will be pleased! I'm not a religion hater, though not religious myself, but this disturbs me. Who knows where this kind of thinking can go. Oh, I know: People who believe that that 9/11 occured because there are too many gay people displeasing God, therfore forcing him to punish us with thousands of deaths.

So, with all this disturbing information I cannot let the Duggars get off easy. I've decided to take a family portrait of them and turn it into a circus complete with Bob as the ringmaster, Michelle as the cross-bearing, bearded lady lifting up her overprotective and restricting skirts to let the little Duggar clown children play for a bit.

It's just one big circus to me- the cameras, the wedding of their oldest son at 20 years old. I'm not one to pass judgement usually, but all these things make my heart cry, and the only way to alleviate that pain is to make fun of them in photoshop.

manipulated images whooaaa

1. This is a completely ridiculous example of photo manipulation by Jerico Santander.
2. Michael Phelps seems to be on my mind a lot lately, so I like this image. Nuts. Its by Alberto Seveso, who seems to be very influential with this style.
3. Chris Haines is only 19 years old, and he kicks my ass in photoshop. This is bad ass.
4. Till Nowak created this last photo manipulation. Its hard to tell, but the little dots are satellite dishes overlapping ... kinda like ivy or something.

I like the idea that all these artists took something that was photographed, then added onto them, making fantasy worlds out of something that might not have been so exceptional without manipulation.

manipulated images: found!

The first image is a photograph using a paint with light technique by Michael Bosanko. I like the use of manipulation here to make something appear that was not there before to translate the images' message into something that wouldn't be possible without that element of light graffiti.

The second is nuts ... this girl was made in photoshop and some other 3d modeling software by Viki Yeo. Its completely ridiculous. Photo realism at its finest. I like the use of manipulation here, as it has not been used to manipulate anything existing. The manipulation takes place in the viewers, tricking us into thinking that this thing we're looking out is a photograph.


sweeeet

4 more sketches

So, these are some sketches i did using Photoshop. Since then, I've learned that I am NOT good with this program at all. But I'm trying. I think I'm just impatient...

Anyway, here we have michelle as a pregnant hussy. I'm thinking about giving her a beard so that she'll play the bearded lady in this little Duggar circus (see complete sketch below). We also have Bob, the ringmaster douche of the circus, an example of what a Duggar child might look like as a clown, and then the plan next to him. The parts that are drawn in photoshop will be drawn by hand, as well as the clown costumes that will be worn by the kiddies. We'll see how all this works out ....

Ok, so here are a few of my sketches about what I want to do so far. I've been gathering images online to use for the bodies of Michelle and Bob. The children, I plan to just draw on their clownsuits, to give it a little more handcrafted feel. I may even decide to draw the bodies of M and B too. If i cant find what I want.

So, there. yes!

Manipulated Images

ok, so number 1, really scares me. I'm terrified of sharks and pretty much all large fish that live in the sea. So this is also a very convincing image, compiled of 2 seperate photographs. Lance Cheung for the US Air Force took the image of the copter, and the shark was taken by South African Photographer Charles Maxwell. Scary dude.

Number 2  Sarah Palin is really funny to me, and the fact that somebody found this photograph and decided to put her big dumb head on it really makes me giggle. It's especially convincing as well, which deservers a "job well done". 

Manipulation is often about trickery- making one think that what they're are seeing is real. And why? Because they can. because it makes them giggle. or it just makes them feel good about being cool enough to know how to use photoshop. Either way, its an interesting concept to think about-being tricked is actually fun! (until it goes too far, and people cry and what not)

These images were not manipulated for popularity or personal gain, just to have a little fun. Make us have a little too.

Jill Greenburg is Funny as Shit

I decided that Jill Greenburg has a pretty hilarious sense of humor. I mean, come on. Anyone that takes perfectly happy, cute little babies, gives them candy, then takes it away so that they cry.
Add salt to the wound, take pictures of them and then tell everyone they were crying about the poor state of America. Babies don't even know what America is, Jill Greenburg. You really are funny! She also used photoshop to make their nostrils large, distorted their eyes, to make them look sadder. Full of more sad sad tears. Good work. They really look like you abused them now!

Note: I like Jill Greenburg. Just letting you know

Anyway, I also loooveeee what she did to John McCain. Talk about FUNNY. She told him that she was going to make him look glamorous (like she did to Gwen Steffani ... PFF HAHA) and put his picture on the ocver of some magazine. Well, she lit him very scarily on purpose, made him look evil as fuck, then without showing him, put it on the cover of this magazine. HAHAHA

Funny! and manipulative. Jill Greenburg, you whore! I love you!

Michael Phelps eats a popsicle! Everybody look!

So, I decided to manipulate the recently found picture of our favorite Olympian, Michael Phelps, taking a huge rip off a bong in his cool, backwards facing hat. How scandalous! A college kid smoking pot? We should probably hold it against him when he's really popular and doing well for himself, because what you do in college should follow you foreverrrrrr.

Tsk Tsk Michael Phelps!

Shut up. Listen, I don't really care for the guy, or even know if he's even a good person. But just because a picture of somebody hitting a Roar (I approve of this, anyway) back in their early 20's doesn't mean shit.

So I gave them something else to talk about. He's sucking on a huge Popsicle now and what are you going to do about it? Talk about it on the news? Make a huge fuckin deal about it? Have everybody in the country (most of which probably smoked in their college days) talking about how irresponsible Michael Phelps is for being a human being and wanting to not be such a tight ass? Ruin the poor guys career because he smoked up a couple times, had a little fun, had a few ego challenging experiences? Huh?

I'm all about commenting on the absolute nonsense our country becomes infatuated with. I'm pretty tolerant of most views, attitudes, personalities, etc. But when it comes to crossing the line of stupidity, I get a little pissed of. In my project, I plan to comment a little bit about the big family on tv craze. One big family in particular who are especially annoying.

Well fuck this shit! Michael Phelps buddy, I'm on your side. Its orange flavored for ya man! Lick up!