When I'm photographing these stickers, I usually do my best to make them the sole focus of the image. Like a portrait, I want to draw your eye to the details of the sticker and let it's story speak for itself. But occasionally I do like to explore the environment the sticker is in. It often changes the way you see the sticker and it also serves as a bit of a reminder of how small these things are. It also creates a nice change of pace in the collection.
Today's image is a bit of a "Where's Waldo" for people who aren't fully initiated to my sticker hunt but if you look at the white pipe on the right side of the screen you will see the sticker. It's a cyclops Mickey Mouse, which brings up an interesting collection of images in Google but nothing that is definitely this sticker. But digging a bit into the hoard that is my collection, I did find another exposure I took that was a bit closer to the wall and the sticker. On that one you can clearly see the web address, obsoleteimages.com under the word obsolete. Now I can't say I was really sure what to expect going by the sticker, which is the logo for the site, but I was a little surprised by what I found. Before I go on to detail my thoughts on the site, I will quickly apologize. I'm not sure what platform this individual is using to host his site, possibly Tumblr, but when I opened it up using Firefox only a small portion of the site actually loaded for me and it did eventually cause me to force close Firefox. So I can't say that I know what exactly you will be seeing, if you end up seeing anything, but I don't think that should completely deter you from checking the site out. Now that my disclaimer is out there, what I found was a photographer's personal website/possible portfolio. As you can probably deduce from the choice of logo, Christopher Thomas Moore is not your typical photographer. He does seem to specialize in portraits, but he aims to create portraits that defy conventions and are far more artistic. He likes to explore the more intimate nature of his subjects, often having them expose portions of their bodies or focusing on elements of their bodies that are not their face. But even with images where you can't see the model's face you can feel how comfortable they are with themselves and who they are. The juxtaposition of the model and her surroundings are often beautiful and keeps the eye engaged throughout. He is clearly a photographer who understands how to balance the ideas we traditionally hold with portrait photography and defying those conventions. I think that the location of his logo works really well with this photo. Sitting on the end of a wall covered in such colorful graffiti, there is definitely a chance for it to become swallowed by it's surroundings. But with the added benefit of being a truly white image on an off-white pipe, it stands out and catches your eye. And like his photography, it causes you to really be engaged with logo and still be enthralled by the background.
1 Comment
This is my favorite one so far. I loved going on the journey of following the sticker's URL to a different website, which was also a photography website. He would probably be super delighted that another amazing photographer has created a whole blog entry because of his sticker and turned it into a wonderful photo of its own.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Maggie Ondrey
An amateur photographer and writer capturing a small portion of the city. Archives
August 2017
Categories |