LAST UPDATED 14 November PM.
I signed up for this photography course which turned out to be a mistake. Partly because, as it turned out, it is more about paper and cutting and pasting and glue than about photography. Now, I don’t use the word hate lightly, but here it is: I hate paper and cutting and pasting and glue, for any other purpose than purely practical. And collages. They are too messy. And partly because I don’t have a creative, let alone artistic streak in me, and during the first class it became clear that those are required (although it is still not quite clear to me, what is expected of us, which is perhaps just another proof that I am out of my depth in this class).
However, I have always liked surrealist painting and sculpture and will try to dive into surrealist photography during the coming weeks. I did visit the Max Ernst exhibition in the photography museum, but came out totally uninspired, so he will not be on my list of favourite surrealist photographers :-).
Whether this post will turn out to be suitable for presentation in the class is doubtful, though.
Talking about collages, this, from 20222, is the closest I will ever get to making one:
Incidentally, going by some of the synonyms offered by the various dictionaries – “strange”, “dreamlike” – the above is from what I can safely say was the most surreal time of my life (described elsewhere on this site). Even surpassing the first Covid19 lockdown, AND 5 November 2024…..
I guess I have always found life, and the world, surreal (and not in a good way), and now more than ever. We are living surrealism, and humans – the most disagreeable species on earth – constitute surrealism personified.
In order to disperse all those dark thoughts (by the way, I was stunned to see how on 6 November, everyone else continued chirping and lah-di-dah-ing as if nothing had happened) I went to see the Sony World Photography exhibition, not looking for surrealist photography particularly, but to see if I could find something which I could juxtapose or otherwise use together with my own photos.
The first one is from the exhibition, the second one is my own (I call it “The Dingo ate the Baby”). But naah, they work better separately:
Having barely finished destroying Planet Earth, we are now looking for other planets to go and destroy, including, unfortunately, the moon (though strictly speaking not a planet, but we’ll still do what we can to ruin it). Personally, I prefer to enjoy it from afar with no signs of human interference. The first photo is from the Sony exhibition mentioned earlier – the second is a triptych I made of the setting full moon some time during summer 2024:
The day after, I went in search of some splashes of colour on a grey day, literally as well as metaphorically, and was also hoping for photos to illustrate the contrast between the abundance in this part of the world, compared to the abject deprivation in other parts. I have to say I was unprepared for so much distasteful ugliness, as well as the obscene food waste. But yes – the geese go well with pumpkin – in more ways than one.
On 9 November, Germany celebrated the 35th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. In Berlin, a wall of posters was put up along the trajectory of the wall from a little north of the central station to a little beyond Checkpoint Charlie. Impressions from the day are in a separate post. This is one poster that caught my eye with surrealism in mind – I don’t really understand what it is referring to, but the photo looks like it fits the category of surreal:
The next day – birdwatching (a bit of a joke in thick fog) on Tempelhofer Feld. There was definitely a dreamlike atmosphere and again – more photos in a separate post):
Earlier this autumn, I was experimenting with ICM to see if it might make already strange photos stranger, perhaps even creepier.
Sharp or with motion blur – what works best? :
Some more ICM:
Other previous attempts at making photographs look “surreal” – not sure how many of those actually work:
A couple of older triptychs. The first one is what can happen during a pandemic lockdown – the second while walking along a beach somewhere in my favourite part of the world: The Wattenmeer:
I am compiling a list of favourite surrealist photographers – to be added in due course.
On 22 November, I suddenly found myself doing a tiny bit of cutting and pasting:
Considering that 40 g of botox can kill all life on the planet, it is not surprising that 2 ml can kill all life in a face.
(The sculpture (minus lips) is by Stephan Balleux).
