2010-08-19

Southern Romantic (with a ferrous perspective)


I used to be a determined Landscape photographer. 4x5, chromes, color neg, Polaroid... Not so much these days. At least, I rarely go looking for the ironic vista anymore, although they are increasingly hard to avoid.

In hindsight I find many of my landscape images to be absurdly romantic, like any good love affair.


What I think set them off from more traditional photographic renderings of the Southern landscape was a paradoxical fondness for the deliberate disregard we pay the very land which defines us. Like a bad but lasting marriage, the landscape is littered with relics of past transgressions and episodes, which I enthusiastically dredged up and re-contextualized with a mat and frame, like tales told at a cocktail party. “Remember that 1000 acres they clear-cut for The Scenic Highway near Grayson…? Hooboy!”

2 comments:

Percy's Day said...

I love this photo...and I don't know why:)

Peace...

Grace
(a friend of Jeane George Weigel:)

T.W. Meyer said...

Thanks, Grace. I neglect this blog, to my chagrin.

The image is one that is hard to love. At print size (16x20ish) the artists psychosis becomes more evident (not mine so much as the guy with the spray paint). I found this place by following little signs painted all over the surrounding landscape... a red "DZ" inside a yellow triangle, spray painted on the rocky out croppings. Extra creepy.

Thanks for visiting here, I need to be more active at it, as is our inspirational friend, Jeanne.. t