Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Landscape & Nature Photography => Topic started by: DaveRichardson on November 14, 2015, 06:52:20 am
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This is an art installation which is touring locations the UK commemorating soldiers who lost their lives in the first world war. In this case the ceramic poppies were installed over the workings from a coal mine (now a museum) at Windhorn. I felt the subject suited a partial conversion to black and white.
Dave
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I like it. Without the colouring I think it would still be a fine image.
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The story is quite remarkable. 888,246 hand building pottery poppies. The breadth and scope of the work is inspiring, and while your image does not bring the enormity to me, I am grateful to you having placed it on our radar.
Story here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azos1H0CEuw&feature=player_embedded
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The full 888,246 were at the tower of London. The regional tours, like this one, had less poppies but were still moving.
Dave
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Below response from our UK son... (poignant especially to me as I also lost the middle finger on my right hand due to a mechanical "crushing" accident. Over the years I have come to deal with mine in times of stress by saying quietly to myself "Read between the lines"):
"I watched it being constructed and was one of the people crushed in to see the final display
I have one of the poppies mounted on the living room wall !
He lost a finger making them...
It took 300 people just over a year to make all the poppies using as little machinery as possible. “It was the electric machinery that took my hand,” Cummins says, referring to the accident he had in April. “I was rolling clay, my top got caught and my hand went in – one of the guards wasn’t on so my fingers were flattened, like in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?.” The middle finger from his right hand had to be amputated – which, as an artist, must have been devastating. “I’m not sure what I felt about it at the time – I didn’t actually feel any pain because it crushed all the nerves in my fingers. I’m still making things, I just can’t throw a wheel yet until my ring finger’s been fixed.” (Later, he shows me the type of machine that did it with a chuckle, as if pointing out a mischievous child.)"
On 14 November 2015 at 15:50 to psheley
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I like it. Without the colouring I think it would still be a fine image.
I agree, but I feel the color effect works well here.
And thank you, Pat, for the background story.
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Thanks all for your comments.
Pat - I didn't know about Paul Cummins losing a finger during the making of this - thanks for the background.
Dave
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I'd not realised the display was touring: I thought all the poppies had been sold. The cascade mirrors the one from one of the Tower of London windows in the original installation. It was moving.
Last year I posted a shot I'd taken here (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=95561.msg781001#msg781001). The display was being dismantled at the time.
Jeremy
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I like it. Without the colouring I think it would still be a fine image.
Or perhaps with the other colours muted discreetly.
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Good image and story.