Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
The View From Here
These are all images taken from bridges in Vancouver with a Leica M3.
To me they all have a small town feel to them, rural even, and yet they are all taken in the heart of Canada's third largest city, not that cities in Canada are that large, the combined populations of Greater Vancouver and Metro Toronto barely equaling that of New York City. Technically Vancouver proper only has 500,000 people in it. But still, it's a city.
Tilt-shift photography gained popularity as a means of distorting the scale of environments some years ago and while it can still be effective it's become somewhat of a parlour trick much like many of the effects that come stock with Photoshop. What I like about these images is there's no distortion of scale but simply a change in perspective but that perspective isn't unobtainable, anyone in Vancouver with a bicycle and an afternoon to spare can find these views with ease. It's a perspective that allows the viewer to understand scale better, juxtaposition of manmade and nature, or even manmade to manmade. They speak of erosions and evolutions, relationships, connections. And secret places, sometimes new and beautiful, sometimes with the sheen worn off but still loved, sometimes exploited, sometimes transitional.
To me they all have a small town feel to them, rural even, and yet they are all taken in the heart of Canada's third largest city, not that cities in Canada are that large, the combined populations of Greater Vancouver and Metro Toronto barely equaling that of New York City. Technically Vancouver proper only has 500,000 people in it. But still, it's a city.
Tilt-shift photography gained popularity as a means of distorting the scale of environments some years ago and while it can still be effective it's become somewhat of a parlour trick much like many of the effects that come stock with Photoshop. What I like about these images is there's no distortion of scale but simply a change in perspective but that perspective isn't unobtainable, anyone in Vancouver with a bicycle and an afternoon to spare can find these views with ease. It's a perspective that allows the viewer to understand scale better, juxtaposition of manmade and nature, or even manmade to manmade. They speak of erosions and evolutions, relationships, connections. And secret places, sometimes new and beautiful, sometimes with the sheen worn off but still loved, sometimes exploited, sometimes transitional.
Monday, October 5, 2009
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