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©2006-2010 *Isquiesque
:iconisquiesque:

Artist's Comments

I spent a long weekend on St. Simons Island, off the coast of Georgia. I'm beginning to fall in love with the place, as it's full of good restaurants, quiet walks, and good photography.

One of the activities I enjoyed yesterday was searching for the tree spirits of the island. The 'spirits' are carvings created in some of the island's massive old oaks by artist Keith Jennings. These commissioned carvings were made to immortalize the sailors who had lost their lives at sea aboard ships that were made from St. Simons oak. The spirits are scattered across the island, and I've brought together four of the five spirits in this piece. The fifth spirit, though very interesting, doesn't photograph so well - it's been nearly engulfed by the tree in the years since Jennings carved it, and looking into the bark you can only just make out the bridge of the nose and the eyes. Surreal, wonderful, but unfortunately difficult to capture in a meaningful way on film. (If anyone's truly interested in seeing it, I'd be happy to post an image in my scraps.)

I'm very interested in thoughts on this one, as I'll probably make it available for print at some point. Even if no one else wants one, I'd rather like to frame this for myself.

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:icontoadsmoothy2:
wow! how intriguing! nice composition here! love the sepia too! :+fav:

--
Life is just waiting around for the next disaster. The only consolation is, one of these times it'll be fatal.
:iconyouliedanyway:
OMG that so cool!

--
... and the fave-whore strikes again... :mwahaha:

"don't touch my pom-pom, kupo!"
=WordoftheWeek
:iconbarahirofladros:
Hmm, I see we've got some very advanced critique going on, there. ^

:p

Well, I find the composition of all four images together to be very interesting, and how the bottom right photo is the only one with a different perspective; it's carved out of a stump, looking up, where the others are carved out of the side of the tree, rather. The sepia is a good effect on this style.

--
All this time
I never thought
----
That all we had
Would be all for naught
--
:iconedelweiss26:
An interesting picture! :nod: :)
:iconkidscruff:
good choice in the sepia to unite the shots....i think it might benefit from switching the frames around a bit, as it seems top-heavy on texture. maybe swap the two on the left over? its such a wonderful concept and i don't know why anyone hasnt done something similar before.

--
forever was over ages ago.
:iconthehalestorm:
very original idea, both the original artist and your photography, I like it alot.

--
:flame: I have read so many bad things about drinking, smoking and sex that I have given up reading :flame:
:iconmagadog:
We spent god knows how long debating over swapping them about. My big concerns were:

* the two very circular shapes - now top-left and bottom-right - should be diagonally opposite each other;
* the beardy guy obviously needs to be on the right, preferably at the bottom, because of the way the tree bisects it;
* the bottom-left one is the weakest - it's the smallest face and has the most indistinct textures. It shouldn't be at the top-left, which is where the Western eye tends to go first in a series like this.

I didn't think about texture weight. Goddamn it. No right answer, it seems.
:iconmagadog:
Gah. I just worked out something which I hadn't when I initially saw these. These are drowned sailors. The way the faces were carved into boles, with the tree-boles already forming a ring around them, constricting the face (not to mention the way that the trees are naturally swallowing them)... it's meant to be a visual echo of water closing around drowning sailor's faces.

I only twigged to this while admiring the circular ripples on the bottom-right one. Makes 'em a lot more sinister.
:iconisquiesque:
I really was remiss in not thanking you for all your help with decisions on background and which tree to put in which position. You're wonderful to put up with me sending you so many files.

--
"Ce qui fait la nuit en nous peut laisser en nous les étoiles." ~ V. Hugo

Please visit my landscape & nature photo gallery and let me know what you think.
:iconwaleed-dp:
wow
i think it would be Great with B/W

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January 17, 2006
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