Joining the Dots Pt. 2- A dark irritant
Kia ora tatou:
A couple of weeks ago, while in town shooting for one of my clients, I made this image in a shop window. It has fascinated me how standing in a doorway and looking at the street through the lit window gives a different perspective,. The mannequins who stare out seem to inhabit a world of their own. At times it seems to me their reality is somehow more concrete than the surreality of life on the street.
This image has wandered around in my head since then. Today it signalled its intention to emerge.
Along with a song that has haunted me for some 30 years ( music and photography seem to be inextricably and increasingly interlinked for me).
I share them both and ask for your comment.
Ka kite ano
The Sounds of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel
Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
‘Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence
“Fools”, said I, “You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you”
But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of silence
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls”
And whispered in the sounds of silence.
November 29th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
OK at the risk of sounding complimentary I REALLY like this one…
November 29th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Only those two people have the gift for this song, I love it too, However it is the first time I have seen the written words. Now I can visualise what the words are really saying - very thought provoking.
What a challenge to make an AV with this as the background music !!. Yes photography and music are intertlinked. Often I hear a piece of music and say to myself, “That would be just right as background for an AV” To make the AV is the challenge
November 29th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
What a wonderful image Tony. The “sounds of silence” words are very apt here esepcially for those of us who know the SOL area. It would be very seldom silent in the real world - but you have certainly portrayed it that way in this image.
I know you said not to get technical BUT the image is perfect in monochrome with wonderful clean whites and sharp stong blacks - a full range of tones - even on my screen! May I ask what process you used - or is that a trade secret? LR - or the wonderful series of presets (or combination thereof) in CS3?
November 30th, 2007 at 6:48 am
Meg:
I am pleased you like it. No need to overreach your self.. (LOL)
Elaine:
Many thanks for your comments. The AV really is an art form in its own right. Doing it is not the easiest thing….
BB:
Thank you for your comments. As you can imagine, the original is in colour, and I like that too. Monochrome however seems to strip away the contextual layers of meaning that colour brings to a photograph. B&W abstracts and simplifies and I feel this is an image that has a deep meaning ( quite what I have yet to determine…)
As for the technique, well, it is a simple comversion using Lightroom.
Curiously, I have begun experimenting with Bibble, which is turning out to be a hugely powerful and sophiticated piece of software. It even comes with Perfectly Clear and noise Ninja included, remarkable value for $US 129!Speaking as a former darkroom guy, we now have a huge range of tools that at least equal what we could achieve with Rodinal, D-76 and Portriga ( OOh, that let a few moths out of the cabinet…)
LightZone is also very sophisticated and capable of great subtleties
December 2nd, 2007 at 6:30 am
Tony:
This image is intriguing. It contains a disturbingly asymmetrical symmetry, where the real world of the unreal woman is mirrored by a surreal world containing her ghostly counterpart through whose transparent draperies the viewer observes lighted shop windows and a tiny, indeterminate figure.
The question poses itself: where are the twice-times-three people who have stepped out of their shoes and hung up their clothes? They have escaped also from their own mirror image which lurks at the rear. Have they dematerialised into the fragment of surreality on the right?
The scene is static and silent: the mannequins maintain closed lips, the almost empty central-city street is noiseless, the lone figure (should it make any sound) is too distant to be heard. Is this image a visual metaphor, symbolic of Western society’s preoccupation with the shallow and ephemeral twins of Fashion and Appearance? Is the twice-reflected, silent, empty world of the mannequin indeed real? Rather, isn’t it just so artificially dominant that it masquerades as reality, and might successfully deceive if it weren’t for that significantly insignificant, solitary, walking figure, which is nevertheless sufficiently solid to penetrate the veil of confusion?
P.
December 2nd, 2007 at 7:27 am
P:
Wow! Your take on this image is both perceptive and insightful. What has intrigued me in the time that I have revisited this photograph are the shoes, and the suggestion that people have been and somehow stepped into another reality, as if I am looking at a gateway into another universe, that somehow it alludes to a reality that is quite existentialist. The departed have moved into a realm that I sense I want to know, but to which I am unsure how to proceed. It asks me questions of the limits of our perception and of the nature of what we perceive as reality.
I had not considered the concept of the metaphor you mention, and I suspect that for me it may well indeed revolve around the nature of Appearance and indeed the Material World. And, of course, my thoughts and feelings about that.
At the time I made the image, there was a sense of recognition, of an involuntary pressing of the shutter in response to a deeper truth I recognised, but could not articulate.
I am still examining that truth (may indeed do so for quite some time), and your comments are both valuable and valued.