Do you know what you are looking at? There are a few hints, but it is tough to know for sure. Uncertainty is a great jumping off point for a presentation on many, many topics.
Susan says, “Lucia took this photo at the annual Portland Winter Light Festival. It’s quite amazing to look at but before I could write anything I had to ask her what I was seeing. She explained that using a plain white building as a canvas, artists projected images on it to generate a cartoony illusion of a cityscape.They combined a gothic, noir series of high-rises that melt into a green and orange urban night sky and juxtaposed them with a turn-of-the-century brick building inhabited by gigantic ghostly figures rendered in garish pink and orange pop art colors. To add to the magic, Lucia photographed Festival goers silhouetted against the cityscape and linked to it across a rain-streaked street where crosswalks reflect the projected colors.
Ask Your to Speculate
“What would you, could you, do if presented with an opportunity to use this image in a presentation? Its strength lies in its mystery. If you don’t tell your audience how it was created, the uncertainty could lead to all kinds of discovery. It’s dreamy. It’s concrete. It’s real but it’s not. It’s cool. It’s hot. It’s all fakery. It disappears in the daylight. Once you’ve revealed how it was created you and your audience could engage in discussions about art, about urban landscapes, about color, about reality. But once all the hard work is over, it’s just fun, isn’t it?.”
So This is What Really Happened
Lucia says, “I very much like Susan’s description of this photo. She put into words what I was trying to capture. I did get one photo without people in front of the light installation. It was nice, but not as interesting. Including the silhouettes (and I especially like photographing silhouettes) in front of it made a big difference in giving this photo more depth. Now there are layers of illusion and reality that are connected by the reflections (another element I like a lot) in the wet pavement. I agree with Susan, that a photo like this could add a lot of fun to your presentation.”
