Minuscule Doors

Tobias M. Schiel8 Comments

“Going back” is this week’s Lens Artists Challenge; Sofia Alves takes us back to an old doors challenge. In the light of these two ideas I’d like to start this post with some back doors.

As far as toy photography goes, I love to build and photograph doors because of both their architectural and narrative potential. They are simple means of definig a building and evoking an atmosphere – back door or main? Factory or bar? Welcoming or forbidding?

A door is a passageway. This function evokes narrative. The door is closed: what’s happening behind it? The door is open: will someone walk through it? And then, what will happen?

The inside and the outside can stand for a before and an after. Thus, narrative – or the paasing of time – can be hinted at in a single picture.

Gran Torino

Tobias M. Schiel2 Comments

Building this gas station from scratch took a lot of time. A couple of details are still missing – among other things, a sales counter and maybe a sign by the road. However, I could not wait to see how the lighting works, so I set up this picture. It comes very close to what I had imagined.

Graphic

Tobias M. Schiel11 Comments

This week, John Steiner of the Lens-Artists came up with a challenge that really got me thinking: John prompts us to pick a word “that fits your topic and select three or four appropriate photos to share.” In view of my toy photography years and the time before that, would I find any common denominator? I used to be very intersted in abstract photography, exploring real space and pictorial composition. It also seems I like showing affiliations or connections, both spatial and social.

One way of doing so was employing neagative space and stark contrasts – which is something I’ve also been exploring with toys lately. So here’s a little retrospective: three toy photos, and three photos showing memorials.

The latter date back to 2012-13, while the picture with the three deck chairs is no older than a week.