[ ], 2002-2006

_size: 74" x 25"
(thiocarbamide / gold chloride silver gelatin prints)
Location
somewhere in the landscape
these three images are simpley outstanding. Well done. I'm at a loss. they are very well executed, dramatic presentations of the iconic. I love these prints!

did you use a panaramic head so that the horizons matched or did you go through the pain of aligning them on the easle?
 
thanks for the good words... these needed some

_ as for the panoramic nature of the work, it has more to do with my methodology of these pieces than simply lens choice. What i mean by that is that each piece is assembled with prints of different negatives sometimes taken hundreds of miles and years apart. I spent years simply collecting images of these empty billboards and do most of "the work" in the darkroom and studio printing a piece of one neg here, another panel from that neg over there, and another billboard from yet another neg. I will eventually find that "datum" or starting cohesive and consistent element such as the light of the cars from a group of negs and painstakingly print them in approximate 30 x 40 inch panels so that density is the same and that that one element "aligns" correctly to give the appearance of uniformity. This kind of explains the wacked sense of perspective in some of the images.

My ultimate goal was to create work that when experienced would at first glance give an appearance of documented "reality" only to find something "off" about them - not that fully illuminated empty billboards aren't "off" enough - giving the viewer a somewhat uneasy or unsettling or to use my favorite word, "deterritorializing" experience of this world. and yeah, it also helps that they are huge!

i wish it was as simple as using a panoramic lens!

thanks again and hope that you find my workings the slight bit interesting - i come into photography by way of a VERY traditional and historic fine art painting background and think i work quite differently than many other photographers -- i guess it's the alchemist in me!
 
Actually, I suspected a panaramic (like a quicktime VR) tripod head, not a a lens. None the less you answered the question and my "good words" were well deserved -- The work is great.
 

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Critique Gallery
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matthewbetcher
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