beauty - nature picture library in the beast.pdf · my photographic work has always focused on...
TRANSCRIPT
Like lots of new ideas, it was an accidental discovery that led me to develop my photog-raphy into a new artform.I wanted to create a letterhead for my busi-ness and settled upon an image of an iguana I had taken. It had a beautiful and striking eye so I focused on that. The problem was, the image needed to span the width of the page, so I mirrored it on itself - and in the process, created a surreal and impactful picture.It won the 2007 Nature’s Best Award in the Creative Digital category and still hangs in the Smithsonian Museum, long after the ac-companying exhibit ended. That got me thinking - What further potential was there for creating digital artworks from my traditional wildlife portraiture? How far could I push the technique?
Beautyin the beast---- Text and Photos by Michael Kern ----
My photographic work has always focused on showing the “beauty in the beast” - snakes, spiders, lizards, creepy crawlies and more.For many, my traditional photographic por-traits of these animals are enough and serve that purpose. However, there are still a large number of people who cannot break through the barrier of fear and anxiety they have when looking at a spider or snake... no matter how beautiful. So I have experimented and evolved my work to help these people find that beauty.Through digital manipulation I have attempted to abstract out the reality of the creature, until all that’s left is simply nature’s color and tex-ture - or, as I like to think, the distilled “beauty in the beast”. There has been no color manipulation of these images, they are from nature’s palate. I believe the forms that are created work at two levels. From afar, the colours and shapes themselves have a spirit. They live and add personality to the space they are in. But when viewed close-up, there is an infinite amount of detail and hidden treasure for the observer to discover.
I call this work Abstract Reality.
Greenbottle blue tarantula Chromatopelma cyaneopubescens
Eyelash Viper Bothriechis schlegelii
Variable bush viperAtheris squamigera
Panther chameleonFurcifer pardalis
To technique I use to create these pieces is relatively simple. Start with an image, find the most interesting component, whether it is colour, pattern, texture or all three... crop out that part and, using the new image, experi-ment and grow the piece... mirror the crop, mirror the mirror, crop the mirror, mirror the mirror, rotate and crop... there is no formula, you just need to watch and guide the evolv-ing piece intuitively. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. Whether the end result is ‘art’ worthy or not, the creative process is fascinating to me.Once I get the piece to what I believe is an in-teresting point, I stop the abstraction and be-gin to work the edges, giving the piece more personality. To me, the outer form of the ab-straction is almost as important as the inner kaleidoscope.
Brazilian pinkbloom tarantulaPamphobeteus platyomma
Leaf tailed gecko Uroplatus lineatus
Patterns are not uncommon in nature, but they are often hidden. Even sounds have ge-ometry, as shown by the study of cymatics, where different frequencies are applied to sand or water to create intricate patterns. When I compare my abstractions to cymat-ic images, or natural patterns such as snow-flakes, I can see common geometric princi-ples. Even though I have complete freedom when I create the pieces, it is as if their con-struction is governed by the intrinsic harmonic fabrics of nature.
I love creating these pieces and watching how they evolve. The repetitive nature of the process makes it almost meditative. I am both the creator and the observer. My aim is to come up with something unique-ly different but the concept itself is not new. The cubism movement, pioneered by Georg-es Braque and Pablo Picasso in the early 20th Century, shared the same core principle of reducing natural forms to their geometric equivalents. In Cubist artwork, three dimen-sional objects are analyzed, broken up and reassembled in an abstracted form. The sub-ject, depicted from a multitude of viewpoints, is represented in a greater context. In a lot of ways, that is exactly what I am doing - with photography rather than paint.
Green and black Poison Dart Frog Dendrobates auratus
Spiny flower mantisPseudocreobotra wahlbergii
Rhinoceros viperBitis nasicornis
Pope’s tree viperTrimeresurus popeorum
A lot of people are unable to get past their almost primeval fears of reptiles, amphibians and arachnids, begging the question: how can we conserve these fascinating animals?The first step in any conservation effort is to engender an appreciation of the species and ecosystems that need saved. I use these im-ages to show the beauty of the animals, with-out the form which creates the fear. Perhaps, when the viewer’s curiosity is aroused by the abstraction, they will be more disposed to think about the reality. That way, these images can help build an appreciation and empathy for species, and a desire to conserve them, that might otherwise be difficult to encourage.
Cobalt poison dart frogDendrobates tinctorius
Waglers Temple viper Tropidolaemus wagleri
Rainbow millipede Aulacobolus rubropunctatus
Green tree python Morelia viridis
There is a puzzle aspect to these images, where the viewer tries to guess which animal the abstraction comes from. While the original frame is helpful in answering the mystery of the piece, I usually keep the pairs of imag-es separate, allowing the viewer to appreci-ate the abstraction anonymously and without bias. Their impressions may not be the same if the source of the piece is known from the outset - particularly if it is a creature the view-er fears.
Angle headed lizardGonocephalus doriae
Leaf tailed geckoUroplatus sp.
Bearded dragonPogona vitticeps
Common iguanaIguana iguana
Veiled Chameleon Chamaeleo calyptratus
My hope is that, once the viewer begins to re-ally look into the detail of each abstract, they will be able to see an edge to the piece; a kind of underlying tension or complexity…This is their subconscious detecting and re-acting to the primeval fear people have to the original images; they get the sense that there is something there, under the surface, which they are reacting to.
Feather of East African Crowned Crane Balearica regulorum
Feather of Victoria crowned pigeon Goura victoria
Feather of Blue crowned pigeon Goura cristata
Feather of Blue-and-yellow Macaw Ara ararauna
West African green mambaDendroaspis viridis
The images in this series will carry on evolv-ing as I continue to create them. Like the indi-vidual pieces, the overall process is a journey. I am now expanding the subject matter to oth-er areas in nature (most of my work to date has focused on my exotics images - reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates). I also hope to start experimenting with printing techniques for the abstracts…. fabrics, wallpapers and backlit Durable Transparencies.Where this journey may lead, I don’t yet know. But it is a path I can’t help but follow.
