Going Live, Coming Home

It's not often that I get to see my work in print, to scale, and properly framed all at the same time. 

Sure, there is the occasional book cover, but those are usually a fraction of any given photo's size. And then there are portraits, which most people prefer to keep around 8x10". 

As a result, seeing some of my local nature imagery along with photo art on a truly displayable scale and in a well-chosen frame, to boot, put a real smile on my face.

My Wanderer-esque landscape managed to retain its colors on canvas, to my surprise.

And my artistic triptych, Et in Arcadia Ego, turned out rather nostalgic rather than "morbid." I almost wished that I output it on an even larger scale, which was possible.

Man in late Modernity and especially in Postmodernity has largely been removed from the fruits of his labor. Countless paper pushers do not get the tangible perception of their work that has been the case for thousands of years in traditional fields like agriculture. Even artists and designers often see their work displayed virtually on the web exclusively. Thus, being able to touch and hold one's creative work is kind of like coming home.

Et in Arcadia Ego (Triptych Photo Illustration)

Finally, I've selected three components for my photographic illustration, Et in Arcadia Ego, individual images from which appeared here earlier.

Thematically, I've always been drawn to variations of memento mori, especially in the Baroque era, whether in the form of vanitas still-life paintings or Et in Arcadia Ego landscapes. After all, they stand as a reminder of life's brevity and mutability, Nature's cycles, the highest and the lowest points on the Wheel of Fortune.

That said, I've never particularly liked Nicholas Poussin's most obvious exemplar, which depicts shepherds finding a tomb, i.e., evidence of Death, even in a place like Arcadia, a kind of an earthly paradise. 

Yet, despite the radically different approach I've selected for my take on this subject,  there are some parallels.

I've shot these images in the Rocky Mountains, their pristine northern landscapes and small towns--not unlike the Hellenic Arcadia. Indeed, it is because I'm underscoring an analogy between the two that I've chosen to use animal bones found here in the wild rather than something akin to a tomb. 

The Classical sculptures are reminiscent of Poussin's shepherds of Antiquity. The latter being inanimate create a different kind of contrast to the bones, non-living versus the dead, visually emphasized through the usage of a shallow depth of field and consequent blurring of the former.

I welcome feedback from those with an interest in similar subjects and/or aesthetics.

Et in Arcadia Ego (III)

Here are three more images from Et in Arcadia Ego. (Previous photographs were posted here and here.) 

As you can obviously tell, each exemplar in this selection is quite different in style. I am still at the experimental stage in terms of which particular images and which aesthetic represent my idea in the most optimal way.

Also, I've already mentioned this in the past, but I'll do so again. I have personally found all animal bones used in this project here in the Rockies. I'm not an expert by any means, but they all appear to be the remnants of herbivores that perished naturally or thanks to predators. Consider it recycling in photography!