2015-russ-widstrand

Form and contrast are my contributions to today’s Daily Photo Game. I played with several directions, a face made of transmission parts and a “shift gears” play. Neither of which made the grade to follow Robert’s dramatic image. I like the way my photograph plays with similar forms and subject, but with a twist of bright contrast to counter the moodiness of Robert’s play. The simplicity of the composition helps to objectify and glorify the object while the black background glues the two images together as a strong pairing.

My wife often brings stuff home from the Goodwill, things I might like to make photographs of and the like.

Recently, she came home with a light fixture cover which had a myriad of mini-lenses embedded in the glass. As soon as I saw it, I thought that would make for an interesting photograph some day. That day has come.

I like the way the image turned out, though I am not even going to try and count the number of “selfies” in this shot. Perhaps it makes up for my historical avoidance of the self-indulgent art form. With the current trend of the game leaning toward self-portraits and reflections, I thought I would add refractions into the mix and see what develops.

As it so happens, I also have an assignment in this category of photography for my students at AAU called “analog manipulation”, and I thought I would shoot my version of this assignment for today’s Daily Photo Game. The premise is to put things… glass, mirrors, plastic between the subject and the lens and see what happens. This real world manipulation was of course, the precursor to Photoshop, but it is more fun.

For those who might ask, no there is no digital manipulation in this image, it is pretty much what it looked like through the camera, though in color.

Today’s daily photo game finds me in Montana, a place near and dear to my heart, but sorely lacking in anything resembling a photo studio. So I am left with available props and light, a challenge I am up for. This image requires some time spent gazing at it to fully see what it has to offer, an illusion. If you spend sometime with it, the hoop does this curious inversion thing where the inside of the hoop becomes the outside and it appears as though it is standing on edge (hint focus on the black edge of the hoop). There are many relics of yesteryear on our property, this is one I always was curious about and when it might show up in one of my photographs. It is a 42″ diameter metal hoop, for what purpose, I have no idea. I seemed like a great subject to follow Robert’s tire and wheel with it’s radial nature.

I woke up to this sight a month or so ago, a 22 degree halo around Sol. It looked like a giant eyeball staring down at me. The halo forms as sunlight is refracted in millions of randomly oriented hexagonal ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere, so says Wikipedia. The circular form was so perfect, colorful and striking I immediately reached for my iphone and made several captures. It was so massive that a single frame would not fit it all, so I switched to panorama mode and was able to capture the full circle. I played with several approaches and chose this one for today’s Game image, attempting to “touch” our local fusion reactor with my finger. My photograph seemed a natural transition from Robert’s image both in form and subject, adding a connecting narrative from his “Time Tool” to the actual source of light for the sundial.

Four men and three days on a fishing boat in the Pacific Ocean. This is what faced me for my play at today’s Daily Photo Game. Not many children, let alone women around these parts. Never the less, I persevered and attempted to bring some meaning to the place and time as it was presented to me. The purest notion that occurred to me in referencing Robert’s photo of pregnancy was eggs – the source of most life – but how would I pull this off given my location? I thought of the bright color of salmon roe and believed that would make an interesting conceptual pairing, but unfortunately, we were not able to catch any salmon this trip. However, while we were cleaning our rock fish, a gentleman bellied up to the cleaning station and brought out a beautiful Coho salmon. I immediately approached him and asked if I could make a picture of the fish IF it turned out to be a female AND it had eggs. As luck would have it, both came true. I made some spontaneous images at that location and the fisherman also said I could take the eggs with me, so the drive back from the beach gave me some time to consider my approach. I landed on this “your in good hands” treatment, it seemed to fit the sentimentality of Robert’s image and cradled the roe in a protective way. I suppose the two images can show that all life is precious and that we all start from humble beginnings.

Revealing the hidden might best describe my post for today’s Daily Photo Game. This shot, taken from a moving car, reveals that which is normally hidden, or that which someone hopes is hidden. The stroboscopic motion-blur of gaps in these trees is what unveils this clear cut in the forest. As a passenger in the vehicle, I was struck by the shallow curtain of trees that separated the road from the “woods”. Our leisurely drive gave me an opportunity to watch the flickering of a wounded forest, winking briefly in and out of existence as the foreground trees occasionally thinned. Like Oz says “…pay no attention to the man (clearcut) behind the curtain”. The ploy is revealed here and the Oregon woods are shown for their true nature, a patchwork of quilted rainforest, dotted amongst too many clear-cuts. The vista along the highway tries so hard to put its best scenic foot forward – pretty on the surface – but ultimately it is an illusion when one takes the time to really look. I like that Robert’s play “Liquid and Light” and my image share a flowing horizontal connection. But I am mostly intrigued that a similar visual form can present two very different subjects and editorial points of view, and still “play” well together.

Satire is a fun thing to play with in photography. It’s something I think about all the time. My image, shot for today’s Daily Photo Game play’s with this notion on a couple of levels. Our new streetcar in Portland has these cycling “warning” signs along the line, when I first saw them I thought it was a joke (those crazy Portlandia’ns). The implications struck me as ironic, that is to say something that is supposed to be healthy – bike riding – might nearly kill you. The sign is so explicit, its hard to believe its real. I was reminded of these road signs as I mulled on Robert’s bicycle image “The Joker” and the lightbulb went off. At first I was content with my image straight out of the camera, however, upon closer inspection of the image, I noticed the corse dot pattern used to print the sign. Another flash of inspiration… that dot pattern, the strong primary colors and ironic subject reminded me of Roy Lichtenstein’s work. My Lichtenstein treatment of the photograph adds yet another layer – a type layer that is – to the original image, taking the piece in a more satirical direction. What struck me in the pairing of these two images was another implied message, that in playing this photograph, I became the joker as well. Apologies to Mr. Lichtenstein… Please like, comment and share below, thanks.

On a recent walk with my wife here in Portland, I couldn’t help but be inspired by all the “stuff” laying on the sidewalk from the latest windstorm.

I was immediately taken with the Chestnut tree seed pods, the yellow spiky balls I used for eyes. They looked so expressive, kind of furry and empathetic.

After connecting with the “Chestnut eyes”, one thing lead to another. A branch for a nose, a leaf for a smile and some animated twigs for brows, voila, a face is born. About mid-way through this playful and creative exercise in street art, I found a thin rubber belt in the bushes and looped it around the elements and it began to take on even more humanistic qualities. What fun!

It took an hour or so for the face you see in this image to emerge. People stopped and stared, laughed or scowled. Not sure what to make of the whole thing.

It wasn’t until I saw Robert’s image “Mrs. Potato Head” that it occurred to me that this was the perfect opportunity to share my nutty image with everyone via the Daily Photo Game.

I always see faces in things, this time I was able to create a face right there on-the-spot, on a city sidewalk. Other facial form seekers may wish to view another of my photographic creations: “Rasta Dog“, shot for the Game as well.

We left “Mr. Nut Case” on the ground for others to appreciate, or not. Please share this post with your networks and comment below. Thanks!

In considering Robert’s beautiful still life “4 Poms”, I faced a dilemma. How would I take the conversation further and not be repetitive in the process?

Robert reveals the inside of one of his pomegranates, and that idea took hold during my morning brainstorming. I also liked the notion of impressions/depressions, rather than dimensional objects. I executed several tests along this direction, but none were quite what I was looking for.

However, one take-away that I did learn from those tests was the optical illusion that took place with the impressions of my subject, walnuts. In some cases, I could not tell if the walnut was coming out of the surface, or going into the surface. This illusion intrigued me.

So I simplified the set, narrowing down the elements to two, the yin and yang of it, the inside, and the out. Which do you see, the walnut coming out or going in?

The background is clay and I kept the support pin, it added a somewhat scientific and purposeful reality to the set.