Although it’s delayed a week because life gets busy sometimes, the third in what’s becoming a regular project series is Propaganda. (Prior ones were Projection and Common.) What’s also becoming a usual thing is to think of an idea that might work, but then later thinking/finding another, better idea.
Huxley
It took a week or so for the ideas to start coming, and most of them where excruciatingly uninspiring. Metaphors were very difficult to capture on camera: lying, misleading, misrepresentation, hiding (could be done, but not in the spirit of Propaganda), etc. An idea I thought might be interesting with a (semi-) intellectual backing was something I’d read years ago in the Aldous Huxley book The Doors of Perception (trivia tidbit: where Morrison got the name for The Doors). The book is — not surprisingly — about perception, the purpose of our brain, and how psychedelic drugs can enhance certain perceptions, etc. The passage talks about how absurd cars looked while he was on mescalin. I suppose the actual quote might be in order:
We walked out into the street. A large pale blue automobile was standing at the curb. At the sight of it, I was suddenly overcome by enormous merriment. What complacency, what an absurd self-satisfaction beamed from those bulging surfaces of glossiest enamel! Man had created the thing in his own image - or rather in the image of his favorite character in fiction. I laughed till the tears ran down my cheeks.
The cars are like propaganda representing our images of some–tripped out–ideal. So how does it relate to a photo project? Perhaps a stretch, but the idea was to take pictures of parts of cars, trying to focus on absurd aspects. I specifically had in mind my dad’s behemoth Ford F-350 V-10 pickup truck, which is a perfect truck for propaganda metaphors (or jokes about compensation). One picture might be half of the front grille, include the headlight and maybe the V-10 decal. Another might be a wheel and wheel well showing how jacked up the truck is, with a 4×4 decal above the wheel well. But I decided not to bother shooting it, both because it was somewhat of a stretch but also because I remembered that also at my parents’ house was my dad’s World War I and II memorabilia.
Okay, Fine: Propaganda
As you can see, there’s some intense stuff in his memorabilia! (Because the Nazi stuff is such a touchy topic, I feel like I need to qualify the image: it should be obvious that the Swastika and Skull Cap are only parts of a neat picture of intense historic symbolism and not something I support etc.; I’ll leave this note as my only qualification).
Nazi Flag and Skull Cap
The above was from a US soldier who was in Germany during WW2 and took home some memorabilia. My Dad’s family had a cabin in a mountain range in Pennsylvania when he was growing up, and one of the neighbors was a shut-in old man named “Ori” who had taken this stuff as a soldier. Ori gave the memorabilia to my Dad at some point because my Dad was interested in military memorabilia as a kid. He didn’t marry until he was really old - I think my Dad said he was in his 70s - and even then it was to his best friend’s widowed wife. Fascinating, the lives of other people!
Since the Nazi stuff sort of weirded out Marianna (a Russian Jew), I decided to instead take a more mocking approach to Propaganda: dress up in an American WW2 uniform and pose in a military-esque pose like you might see in a Marines commercial that touts the bravery of The Men That Serve. Only not as serious. Here’s what we came up with. Thanks to Dad and Marianna for being good sports and looking at my finger when I waved it around.
Model Soldier
Target
Marianna’s War Face
Technical Info
The setup is in my parents’ living room in front of a white door. You can see shadows from the TV (left) and the tripod (right) blocking ambient light in a couple photos. A doorknob is cloned out of the lower-right corner of Target (it’s obvious now that you’ve seen it, huh?). The tripod is less than 5 feet from the door with the camera (a Canon 40D) at eye level. See Marianna’s Surprise (the previous entry) for a series of images of Marianna surprised by the camera taking pictures - I’d told her I just wanted her to stand there so I could focus on a person standing a few inches in front of the door, but then started snapping. It’s genuine surprise. There are a few other out takes below, mostly for humor value.
All of these were shot with a Sigma 30mm f/1.4 prime lens at f/2.0 and ISO 800 (click the images to see more EXIF data). Normally I try to keep the ISO at no higher than 200 to avoid noise, but I forgot to bring a flash along so the ISO had to compensate. (It must be said: the 40D creates really great low-noise images - practically not noticeable even at ISO 800 until you start cranking the curves and levels around a lot).
Outtakes
What Am I Doing? (Marianna Improvises)
Holding Remote Shutter Release
Stoned Soldier
