Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Creative License

Soooooo......today I went liberal artsy with pictures.  These are real photos that I took, but I altered them to match images from my childhood memories.  There is the realism and then there is that which clings to the dark edges of our minds.  Yes....some of them are scary, but I remember this bird in a book written from the 1950's at my Grandparents' house.  It was a collection of encyclopedias on a dusty shelf.  I was in love with dinosaurs but remember reaching a page with this bird on it.  It gave me nightmares from the eye color alone.  And it scared me so much that this particular encyclopedia would call my attention many times on visits that followed.
Then there were the peacock feathers in my parent's old house in Two Rivers.  My mother loved the feathers.  As kids, we loved tickling each others faces with the tips of them.
But they also scared me.  Why?  This picture captures the "eyes" that are watching me.  I enhanced the blue just to make my point. 
The design reminds me of the 1970's.  Talk about a decade of ugly fashion!!!  Bell bottom corduroys with butterfly collars.  Barf! 
Here is the photo unaltered.  The male really makes quite a statement in the wild with these feathers.
And here is the peacock again from behind.  The tail feathers vibrate so quickly that it doesn't look real. 
Victoria Crowned Pigeon
But this last photo is the one that haunts me.  Those encyclopedias were thrown out before I could get to them after my Grandparents died.  The book that had the weird New Guinea bird with the red eyes along with the scary dinosaurs might be gone, but that forgotten memory has be restored and recaptured once again. And I still stare at it with admiration, fear, sadness and nostalgia.

13 comments:

  1. Excellent therapy! I am sure you are feeling much better now that you have exorcised your haunting souvenirs!

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  2. A brilliant post - like the scary images! Its incredible the way things from our childhood can still affect us. I remember my grandparents had two massive books of fairy tales by Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen which used to really frighten me. I was especially scared by Snow White and The Little Matchstick Girl. Thinking of Snow White - to this day I still don't like red apples!

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  3. This was a fun post, Chris. I love what you did with the photos.

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  4. Always good to face our fears. Good story on how to do that. And nice images, which I don't find scary at all.

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  5. Isn't it amazing the things that haunt us from our childhood? I had a book about mysteries of the world. I would spend hours reading about the Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot and yes, dinosaurs. Such fun!

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  6. I love peacocks and you made some amazing art with those photos.

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  7. Something rather undignified about the proud peacock shown from the rear with scaffolding on display.

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  8. Gorgeous peacock, Chris... Love your creative photos.... Perfect specimen.
    Betsy

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  9. Wow, I love these peacock pictures, the colours look just perfect.

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  10. Nicely done, Chris. Peacocks are perfect to play with.

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  11. I love the way you wrote this piece. I cannot relate to them anyhow, nor to the photos, but i just love the way you wrote it!

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  12. OH i LOVE what you've done with your pictures!! especially the first and the last! awesome art...the haunting red eyes...against the deep bright blue...i love that!
    good therapy too...morphing your pictures into something that brings back emotion, memories...

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