Great Yarmouth held a ‘Wheels Festival’ on the seafront which is an annual extravaganza. Enthusiasts display their classic cars which include the typical American flashy, tail-fin monsters. The cars are all lined up by their proud owners for the public to inspect and admire. I took a lot of photos, concentrating on the front of the vehicles full on, but only the grille, lights and bonnet (hood). I stacked the results, as you can see. I had to slightly distort some of the cars to fit in together. I then had the idea of ‘dripping’ the images individually, using a filter in photoshop, and was delighted by the result. I created the shadows underneath each car.
Medium: Reworked digital photograph
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Garment Rail
The Lord Mayors Procession happens every year and proceeds through the city. A lot of roads are blocked off for the route. It was at the bottom end of Exchange St. that I came upon these suited display mannequins. They were strung across the road to take advantage of the closure. They belonged to Leadenhall Tailoring who were taking advantage of the opportunity to advertise. I took some photographs and preferred the shots with the sun shining down the street and their backs to me. I have placed them on a disused wooden quay from Port Augusta in Southern Australia. The rail tracks were obviously for cranes and trains in the port operations. I have also overlayed a lattice frame modelling mannequin, stretched and semi transparent which I had used in another picture (see ‘Lattice Girl’). I sized and re-arranged the display mannequins and applied couple of filters. I liked the ‘converging’ composition.
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Red Yellow And Green
I usually take a healthy long walk from Wells-Next-The-Sea harbour to the Lifeboat station. There is a straight path on a raised embankment, which used to be a light railway track. The view looks out over the salt marshes and running alongside the East Fleet river.The estuary flows out to the North Sea via Big Gap, flanked by East Hills dunes. I admired the landscape and light that was presented. I perversely considered putting a giant bucket and spade in the picture. When I got to West Sands beach, low and behold, there was the bucket and spade (right colour!) with the extra yellow spade, which I photographed in-situ. I wanted something else in the composition. I remembered the Royal Engineers Bomb Disposal memorial at Mundesley. The very tall vertically placed bomb is next to the lookout station (QAVS) overlooking the beach. I placed it in the background at an angle (right colour!) to complete the picture and confuse the viewer…. I applied a filter for effect.
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Fahrenheit Four Five One
I replaced a couple of Chinese lanterns; made of PAPER and held together by thin wire concentric hoops. Instead of throwing them away, I thought “Why not set them on fire?!”. Pyromaniac. I got the help of two of my sisters. Janie held the lantern up with the aid of a clothes line pole, whilst standing on a domestic set of steps. Held up, my sister Anne then set fire to the globe from underneath. I took lots of photos. We did the same again with the smaller lantern. I selected the best of the shots and cut them out. I liked the exposed metal wire hoops that were left by the ensuing carnage. Finding an appropriate background eventually came with the photograph I had of the underside of the canopy roof of the bus station. It was then a case of arranging and sizing the lantern and blurring the background. The title is evident : PAPER.
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Cut To Ribbons
These Scissors were at my Mums in the kitchen. It struck me how they were casually arranged in the tubular wooden block. So, as usual I had to photograph them (zzzz) and thought no more about it. Later I returned to the two or three photos I took and thought what I could include to expand the dialogue. I had some previously taken photographs of some bunting at a seaside cafe in Yarmouth. They were basically coloured strips of cotton flapping in the wind. I montaged three different angled shots and placed them in the background. I cropped the scissor photo and saturated the colours in the resultant picture.
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Bicycle Spaghetti
Sitting outside Chapelfield Shopping Mall I noticed this sleek looking bike attached/locked to a cycle stand. With the loops of the stainless steel stand and the curves of the bicycle, there seemed to be a ‘flow’. I took a couple of photographs. The only problem was, the owner had covered the seat with a green plastic bag, to protect against rain. I noticed another bike on the next stand, so I photographed its seat. I cut away the bike and stand from the background and added the other seat. I cut away the spokes because they were a hindrance and too tedious to isolate. You can see the evidence of them on the bike and stand. I had some previous photographs of the same type of hooped stand, so I included them (one set upside down). I searched for a background and found a photo I had of a box with different angled squares. I kept the picture mostly black and white, except the lock and rear light.
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A New Home
Sometimes the cliched “Hold it right there!,.. Don’t move, Just give me moment….”, occurs and so it was with Betty. She is in her new house, in the downstairs middle room. It is, as you can see a panelled dark green. Her and Rob were going to keep it like that. I had helped decorate the house. The right side of the composition is the back bedroom upstairs. I have twisted and distorted the rooms to give the picture a surreal effect and applied a filter to soften the image. “Okay Betty…you can relax now…”.