
Some Other Blues

tobias m. schiel
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Toy photography and flights of fancy: it almost seems like a defining combination. Wouldn‘t it be nice to just have a huge wall with a couple of tiny windows and a backlit „Tickets“ sign? Then I could show a long line of people waiting to get one. And can I translate the jazz music played at a concert into a picture?
Flights of fancy indeed, and when I build these 1/87 scale dioramas or set up scenes, it often seems like they will remain just that. Other times, things turn out quite well (if not always the way I would have expected). These two pictures are from my jazz series. The titles are Broadway Blues and Jumpin’ at the Woodside, after the respective songs composed by Ornette Coleman and Count Basie.
This week’s contribution for the Lens-Artists’s Challenge #219: Treasure Hunt: two reflections. Originally hunting for a picture that would somewhat illustrate the Beatles’ Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds and be photographed through things (for yet another challenge), I first tried what I could do with this figure and a glass vase. The pictures turned out to be nothing like what I’d had in mind. However, I came to like these ‘test’ pictures better than the one actually showing “the girl with kaleidoscope eyes” through a piece of cellophane. So always hold on to your test shots! They may turn out to be treasures you found without immediately realizing.
The picture above, named after a song by Vernon Duke, is part of my Jazz series. I asked myself if the situation was too surreal, but then I saw the Lens Artists’ challenge, which is Surrealism. And I decided this amount of surrealism was all right. After all, the fun of working with toys is that you can push everything towards Surrealism as much as you like.
Continue reading “April in Paris”Music by Duke Ellington. This is the first in a series of Jazz pictures I have not yet quite finished. It is also an entry for Paula’s “Pick A Word in July” in which I have not participated in ages: Here’s a window.
A contribution to the lens-artists’ photo challenge Seeing Double.
Noir | part 11
Today, I also have the pleasure to participate in the photo challenge at Lost in Translation.
Noir | part 7
“She was nothing special. Every head in the bar did not turn, dazzled by her length of leg, flaunt of bosom or swing of butt. But to him she was everything. He emerged from anxiety like a butterfly to the sun.”
The quote is from Larry Beinhart’s, No One Rides For Free, the first of three Tony Cassella mysteries, one of my all-time favourites. The picture is part of my Noir series, though probably not part of the narrative; this is my contribution for Paula’s Thursday’s Special – this week, it’s female.
Noir | parts 4 and 5
When I posted a couple of these pictures before, they appeared in a slightly different context. Adding a new picture today obviously changes the narrative. So I feel I can live with the repetition – and I hope you don’t mind.
Tip: Clicking on the NOIR link in the header menu will take you to a page I set up to present the pictures on a darker background, which looks more ‘cinematographic’ to me. At least, it seems to highlight the scarce lights.
Noir | part 2