Toshio Shibata studies the way that water exists in harmony with man-made structures and landscapes. His exhibit was at the Laurence Miller gallery. I appreciate his muted color palettes, and I love the pictures in which nature is more dominant than the man-made structures. I think his use of color and subject matter really highlights how the way that man-made structures can take something fluid and beautiful, and transform it into something rigid and ugly. I wanted to study the way that occurred in the city via spaces that I found to be particularly beautiful or ugly because of the way man interacts with nature.
I tried to
get a range of detailed and landscape shots. For the ones that show an
uglier side of the way that humans interact with nature, I wanted there
to at least be some humor involved. This can be seen in my photo of
Coors Lights cans in a patch of dirt. Some of them are very subtle
interactions, such as a vine growing on the side of a house or the
playground in the background of the spikes that had fallen off the tree.
Shots in which there is great emphasis on the detail become more direct
in the way they address the viewer. I tried to counter that by having
my details be subtle. For example, the random medley of object I
photographed was somebody's garden, but you might not be able to tell
upon first glance. The rocks turned out to be a wall that someone built,
and a groundhog inhabited. While the detailed shots were more
compelling upon first glance, I much preferred the ones that lead the
viewer through a space.
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