Tag: Black and white

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.

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.

How to Make a Faceless Self Portrait (With Dog)

Tobias M. Schiel6 Comments

These miniature scenes do not happen out of the blue. I am an amateur photographer. I love wearing that type of cap. People have to wait for my while I take a photo. And yes, I have photographed shop windows before.

Scanning my photos for proof, I found some pictures that fit the bill. Looking back even made me realize I hid my face in my real-life self portraits as well.

I think when we photograph we always do it with thousands of pictures in our heads, even if we do not have them all before our inner eye in the moment we release the shutter.

Left: “A Picture With Me in It” (2012), right: “Junk” (2009)

Party of Five

Tobias M. Schiel8 Comments

Lens-Artists Challenge 312: Sense of scale. Photographing 1/87 scale (H0) worlds is in itself playing on our sense of scale, maybe even aiming at the viewer questioning her or his sense of scale for a moment. At the same time, most of the elements of a photo are applied in this small world, too: The objects in this picture, along with the camera position, should give a feeling of depth here. By employing these means, I hope to give the picture a real-life immediacy … a touch of streeet photography at best.

“Faceless Self Portrait”

Tobias M. SchielLeave a comment

“A field day for deconstructivists: Is it really possible to speak of a ‘faceless self portrait’? Isn’t a person’s face what we believe to be the essence of their portrait? And doesn’t – on the other hand – the abstraction called for by a ‘faceless portrait’ defy the purpose? Couldn’t anyone hence claim that this self portrait was more accurately theirs? Must, therefore, any faceless self portrait incoporate some irony? And if so, with all différence lost and some irony thrown into the mix, what does it show? Me? Nah.”