For this essay I chose Camille Seaman’s Crumbling Iceberg
1. This piece was part of a large body
of work Seaman created, primarily based out of the Arctic and Antarctic. These works consisted of varying landscapes
throughout this area, giving a beautiful and still feeling that seemed to emanate
from each piece.
When I first saw this piece, and this show in particular, the shear size
of all of the works done by Seaman was amazing and very immersive. Easily 5 feet wide, each image gave the
viewer a true viewing experience, inviting him/her to go closer. This is where the issues occur. Upon a closer inspection, the image was
extremely noisy. This seems like a
trivial issue for an image with so much going for it aesthetically. The composition is phenomenal, as well as the
vingetting, which added a really nice feeling to the horizon in
particular. The image was shot on
panoramic medium format film that Seaman later discussed as being high speed
due to the boat she was on during the trip moving a lot during some of her
photographs, however this one in particular was shot off of the boat on a still
surface. It may seem as if I am harping
on something that could easily be overlooked, but if an image is printed at
such an enormous scale, it asks the viewer to go closer and examine it in fine
detail.
In terms of interpretation, the
image conveys a sense of pure cold beauty.
A king of stillness occurs that displays the isolative and quiet
qualities that surround the areas. There
is also a large environmental aspect to this piece, bringing the viewer to the
front row of climate change, literally watching the glacier depicted almost
wither away in its fragility.
In conclusion, Seaman’s Crumbling Iceberg
1, is an inherently aesthetically appealing image. However the lack of attention to detail
becomes detrimental to the work and distracts the viewer from the conceptual
basis and meaning.
No comments:
Post a Comment