Surrealist Photography

DownUnder said:
These images are - amazing. Initially they scared the living daylights out of me. Then I revisited them and I saw so much more, very strong messages came to my mind.

Please can you either post here and tell us how you did them, or maybe even start a new thread? Well worth recording for posterity, I reckon.
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You know where I see similar things, João? Here in the U.S around the time of Halloween, some homes place body part models/imitations in the ground in addition to skeletons hanging from trees or just lying around. But because these things are expected during Halloween, they are not as surreal as what you posted in your location. I guess when you expect the weird or bizarre things as a matter of a celebration, it's not as surreal or dream-like? The other celebration that comes to mind with surreal imagery is Día de los Muertos - Day of the Dead as celebrated in Mexico.
 
🎼 "There's a somebody I'm longing to see
I hope that he, turns out to be
Someone who'll watch over me" 🎼

Not an image the Gershwin brothers had in mind for their song.

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DownUnder said:
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but what I see in this exceptional image is more Dada than Surreal.
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The description of the image as surrealist works for me because the distorted reflections hint at randomized, dreamlike, alteration of reality; but I can see how the drowned leaves in a bowl could be seen as Dada. I enjoy this thread a lot and keep coming back to it over the years. I think images like the one you discussed are perfectly suited to its theme, but I sometimes wishe there'd be fewer of what I'd define as abstract images without any colorations of the Surreal.
 
ellisson said:
Isn't considered that Surrealism had its roots in the Dada art movement? From what I've read.
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You are correct. Dada was an earlier movement that emphasized a nihilistic rejection of Westen values and particularly the West's art traditions. Surrealism put a more positive spin on things; it grew out of the period's strong embrace of Freudian analysis and the exploration of dreams and the unconscious. Though, like Dada, rejecting much of the art traditions, it nevertheless rejected Dada's nihilism by emphasizing the potentially liberating results of embracing our combined creative and sexual impulses. Like most art ideologies, things didn't go quite as planned.
 
To DownUnder and Ellison :
Thank you again for the kind words.
These photos were taken in a “Garden of Arts” where they grow plants used in fabric dyeing and in the artisanal manufacture of artistic inks and paints. School students frequently hold workshops here.
In this case, an artist handcrafted images of leaves and stems onto fabrics – reminiscent of darkroom work, except that it is done in full light, and is much slower. She calls them “phytographs”. The fabrics are used for clothes to dress mannequins, as in here


Some parts of mannequins were left on the ground, producing this unusual effect.style
Regards
Joao
 
Some more random images from my archives.

I admit to having rather odd notions about Surrealism. As much as I admire the esoteric images taken by the very talented photographers who have posted in this thread, the architect in me demands precise compositions. I agonise over correctly vertical verticals and I want everything razor sharp. I'm now working to change all this, but old habits die hard.

On to my photos now. I hope you enjoy them.

Ballarat, Australia, 2020. Queens large and small.

2020_07_16_47 Ballarat queens large and small.jpg

Surabaya, 2023. Captioning this one is difficult. The odd wheeled thing is a becak, a uniquely Indonesian three-wheel passenger transporter pedaled by a (usually Madurese) driver. In Java, almost every vacant lot quickly turns into a garbage dump.

2023_02_23_02 Surabaya becak in vacant lot.jpg

Ballarat, Australia, 2020. At least he admits it.

2020_07_16_76 Ballarat at least he admits it....jpg
Two views taken in 2020 from train windows. I like aimlessly wandering around our state (Victoria in Australia) by rail. Views from the windows can be mysterious, even strange. Surreal, well.

View 1. Near Ballarat. Early morning on a cold winter day.

2020_09_17B_69 On a train near Ballarat.jpg

View 2. Near Ballan.

2020_11_28_25 View from train window 4.jpg

Technicals - Nikon D800, 28/2.8D and Panasonic Lumix GF1, 14-42 zoom. Both eternally set on f8, ISO 200.

(The images from my now-ancient GF1 truly amaze me. A greatly underrated camera.)
 
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