Fantasy Trip

[Ted Byrne]

How much of art is escape? Both from the perspective of the artist and the viewer? And is it an escape into what? Entertainment? Feeling? Thought? Interpretation? Psychotherapy?
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If your interested you’ll find the virgin photographs that went into this image and an explanation by clicking here.



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I've read that the second greatest fantasy of men and women is travel back into history. It's cool that we can do it so easily now as artists. Which at least partially answers my first question, eh?

Enjoy.... this play of a boy with his toys. And happy March...

Ted

[eob]

How much of art is escape? Both from the perspective of the artist and the viewer? And is it an escape into what? Entertainment? Feeling? Thought? Interpretation? Psychotherapy?

I like to think that escapism is a large part of a creative process - at least in some artists - introducing ourselves and viewers to all of the above destinations. Travel back into history is probably even larger, because that's where all our memories live. And I think that those two great motivations for creativity (escapism and travel back in time) very often merge and intertwine. And sometimes, they lead to a sharp insight into the future...

Great composition. Post-processing matches the title and general mood. I am reminded of works of some modern painters.

[habakuk]

Interesting fact about the past is, how it is changed in our memories. What we forget about the past and what we remember is a function of our wishes. So is esacpism. Everyone trying to escape will soon discover that he returns back into the same world. And same would be for time travelers. However, art can change the way you perceive the world and this has the potential to change your past, presence and future. So, I think the power to make people dream, make them look inwards, dig in their memories and also dream about the future is a gift.

Your work here has all I need in a very powerful starting point as a mental getaway. There's the composition that works so well, theres the ancient looking car and buildings which beams me into the past, there's the dramatic sky which adds so much intensity, there's the color shift from warm, even hot, to cold. The painterly feeling makes it easy for me to beam me into my thoughts, not wasting time contemplating how the scene you saw, when you shot this looked... it's all about MY scene!

I really love that postprocessing. Would you care to elaborate a bit about the planning and the process itself? Was it done based on gut feeling or did you have a plan? What tools did you use?

cheers
®

[aprilS]

This car definitely looks slightly crazed, to me[1]. Perhaps because of what it is escaping from; but it also looks to have a lot of trepidation about what it might be driving toward.

Trapped, with no clear way out?

Now, I'll read the other comments.

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[1] Referring to the suggestion of art as "psychotherapy".

[Ted Byrne]

Roland asks, "I really love that postprocessing. Would you care to elaborate a bit about the planning and the process itself? Was it done based on gut feeling or did you have a plan? What tools did you use?"

First off you have all been very supportive of this image. Thank you.

Now for Roland's question. You can find the individual components of the image by clicking on the link in my description. But that begs the question. I'm guessing that the 'ordinary' Florentine would pass this street by. Just as I pass through the streets of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Yeah our brain is a lazy piece of meet that takes shortcuts to conserve on its energy. So it simply does not see the commonplace. So when I saw the street with my fresh eyes, I knew I wanted to eke out its ghosts. Simultaneously I have a small collection of miniature antique toy vehicles. As I reviewed my pictures (as opposed to my images) it seemed to me that while the street was ancient, this old Model A, 1931 Ford truck was not. BUT IT WAS BEYOND THE MEMORY OF ALL OF US! At least in pristine shape.

So the discordant mixture of ages seemed interesting. Especially since each image was plucked from such a different culture... while each was before our living memories. In fact the streets of Florence do a similar mixture as their buildings are constructed around the skeletons of the considerably more ancient Romans. And their bones jut through walls, roads, and roofs.

Okay... with that idea of mixing polyglot cultures to create a strong pull into nostalgia... I carefully photographed the truck to match the lighting and dimensions of the street scape. I matched their dynamic ranges. Then hid the seams with masked texturings. The sky was the last element taken, I think from a photo shoot in New Orleans. Since all of the shadowings were in place, the sky was chosen to legitimate the scene's lighting. Actually it's all harder to describe than do, once the idea is in place. It's a matter of simply finding it on the plane.

But that's what we all do right? Search for a feeling in teeny tiny dots of light. 

[habakuk]

Thanks much, Ted. I am utterly amazed by the fact that this car wasn't there when you made the picture.

And once again it is a proof of how much we are lost when it comes to trust the visual inputs... to me, the whole scene feels totally homogenic, harmonic. Nothing gives me a clue as to the anachronistic aspects of the originals used to create this new "reality".

Thanks for this piece, Ted. Learned a lot today.

cheers
®

[eob]

And once again it is a proof of how much we are lost when it comes to trust the visual inputs... to me, the whole scene feels totally homogenic, harmonic.

This image - yet again - shows how important is the craft side to make the conceptual/artistic side believable and convincing. If this was a sloppy compositing using a wrong technique, we would not even bother to look for metaphors, allegories, hidden subtexts, symbols, etc. (at least, I wouldn't ).

[Ted Byrne]

Art without imagination is merely craft. --- Heh heh... that's my new mantra. But until VERY recently in the history of photography the critics could not separate the two and for them craft was both the necessary and sufficient condition to creating fine art photography. However the two have been broken apart and now we all agree that craft is a process... art is the result. There is no question though that high craft, all by itself, pulls a "WOW"! from me. But "WOW!" isn't any more art than tires are travel. I like to go "WOW!" I like to cause it. I imagine it's a lot like the pleasure a great beauty gets when she causes traffic to slow. However, the fulfillment of her beauty is what it accomplishes in the long term. Beauty, like craft is a tool. Resonance is the artistic result... um... at least I've begun to conclude that. I've gotta say though that an astonishing high percentage of the posts on this forum do indeed resonate. It's what keeps me coming back and spending so much time - imagining along with the artist and the commentators. Thanks everybody.

[eob]

I'm not sure whether I made myself sufficiently clear in that topic...

I don't see how craft can be separated from art. How can you get any result whatsoever without process? Result is directly connected to process - it is the last stage of a process. The more sophisticated the process is, the stronger the resonance. You can employ all your imagination and feelings in your creative brainstorm, but if you don't have the means of conveying them (lack of craft), you can't count on viewers reading your intentions that you hope to put into your images but in reality they only exist in your own imagination.

That is not to say that all that counts is craft. I am far from implying that, and I detest a great portion of so called "art" that relies heavily on a craft as a goal rather than means. That's why I hate the so-called "Wow!" factor. For me, the truly artistic experience is much quieter, much more involved and savored over a long period of time. Pictures that employ the "Wow!" factor are just a quick hit to my eyes, bypassing my brain and soul altogether...