An exercise to examine objects, their animation/ personality and engaging with nature. The constraints were simple, carry a piece of clothing along on my walks and photograph it in a way to anthropomorphize or create a portrait within nature. Inception of this exercise began on a walk in the woods in late March, thinking to myself, could I use trees as my models for future work? I took off my coat and snapped a photo with my phone. It made me laugh to see a face emerge on the tree, a nub for a nose and a trail marker for an eye. Then I started to bring clothing with me that connected to a particular person in my life, a gift or a garment that they might like. Sometimes I dressed trees and standing signs. I watch scarves float in water. Sometimes I hid the objects to be found.
Initially, the garments were the subject and the photos were their portrait. But as I continued to pose and shoot these clothes I found that sometimes the subject of the portrait was nature itself, the garments were just another person in the frame. Rocks and trees become bodies and friends. The society of nature comes to the forefront. Both film and digital photography was used.
Questions: Is there a hierarchy or specific way to present these images all together? Should they be titled? Arranged along a time line? Which images resonate more strongly with the audience?
Things Learned and Future Work: This project has strengthened my photo and composition skills. By eliminating the person, the face, the body–I’m forced to build an image in a different way. I would like to continue to collect images through the seasons. I think watching the landscape change will fully introduce time as an element in the work. Would like to use Photoshop to present these images evenly together to create a uniform space between images. I would like to play with order and time between images. When I look at the images collected I’m reminded of memory games where you try and match like with like. In future progress of this work I believe quantity will play a large role in the presentation.