Project 5: Muse

The Calm Before The Storm - My Critique on Pipo Nguyen-Duy

This is Lazyboy by Pipo Nguyen-Duy from his East of Eden Series and it is a C-print mounted on Sintra framed with a simple, less than one inch black frame. It was exhibited in the Light Factory as part of the show entitled The Calm Before The Storm which displays the humanistic imprint on environmental landscapes. 

The image fills the frame with no mat. I feel that this method of filling the frame with the image adds to the visual affect of the photograph. It enhances the impact the image has on the viewers eye and I find that very appealing. To me, the classic white mat, black frame is overplayed and Nguyen-Duy  made a good choice by deleting the mat and allowing the image to fill the frame. The subject of the image is the lazyboy chair which is placed in the lower center portion of the frame. It is also oddly placed in a forest of some sort subdued partially in the middle of a body of water. The medium is a a C-print mounted on Sintra, in various sizes. 

Nguyen-Duy's main concept in his work is "man vs. nature" and I feel that this image defines that concept very well. It is a natural scene of a forest landscape which is interrupted by a man-made object; oddly placed in the scene, it seems almost abandoned and out of place yet the color palette matches it's wooded surroundings. Also, the repetition of forms and reflections is a strong feature of the photograph. To me, it symbolizes the history of man and his influence on nature throughout time. It seems that as generations come and go, the same scars reappear in the natural landscapes of our time. 

Nguyen-Duy captures this idea not only with this image but with his entire series. However, specifically with Lazyboy, I see the relationship of man vs. nature is more evident for the fact that the chair is a man-made object that was made of things that could be found in the forest similar to the one of which the chair sits. The trees, and even the non-apparent inhabitants of that forest, are essentially the materials that were used to build the chair. That idea is a hidden message behind the piece that I feel makes the whole photograph successful to it's overall intention and concept. 

In conclusion, Lazyboy is my favorite image from the Calm Before the Storm exhibition at the Light Factory for it's conceptual and physical beauty and intelligence. It has a strong concept that displays itself to the viewer as long as they allow their eyes to view it. The full-frame image is blunt to the viewer and forces them to question the image. Through this questioning, they find the hidden concept of man's affect on nature through time. 

Muse

Alastair Magnaldo

Im doing this. 

Formal Qualities

• Surrealist
• Square cropping
• Saturated color palette
• Relationship between human, nature, and light
• Emphasis on landscapes and the horizon
• Play on depth of field
• Juxtaposition of size relationships. 

Alastair Magnaldo is a french artist with a passion for photography. He studied science and consideres himself a "qualified physics and chemistry scientist with a Ph.D." He uses science in  photographic approach. He creates these surreal and almost dreamlike landscapes. 

Photoshop will help me fuse several images together to create a surreal and dreamlike landscape.

"A landscape goes well beyond it's strict representation. It is an invitation"

                                              -Alastair Magnaldo