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.