Comments on "Cowboy in the Car" series View this series from erik maldre: the picture of week is pretty nice. however, I think that the top part of the picture should be cropped out. There is not enough definition in that building. If there were more definition, then it could be included. I like going through your photos. I envy your palette of being downtown. It is a bit more challenging in the western burbs. Though, there are tons of people taking photos downtown. How many people are taking photos of the western burbs? That's an interesting question. I wonder just how many people go around the burbs taking shots. I really enjoyed your series of the plastic cowboys in the car. I took a couple shots like that before the digital camera age. Though I put the soldier upside-down between the windshield and the fabric roof and I opened my sunroof. I took some shots with trees in the background. I took the photos more for the color. (tinted blue windshield with green trees and pure white figure.) It's interesting to see the plastic figures interacting with the outside traffic. It brings up the social topic of driving. Socially speaking, the only means of communication between drivers is through the horn and their manner of driving. Occassionally you can communicate to the other person, not verbally, but through body language. But that only happens when you are at a very specific relationship with the other driver: next to them. Even then, you can only communicate through body language for a limited time because you are driving after all. You have to pay attention to the road. With all that said, it is an unusual way for humans to communicate. I mean really, Toot Toot means, "I being polite reminding you the light is green." But TOOOOOOOOOOOOT means, "What the hell are you doing!" That actually brings up another weird oddity in social behavior only found in automobiles. People are more likely to do crazy things like whalling on their horn and cutting you off. But you are in a normal setting, say a restaurant, and you are less likely to yell your head off at someone and perform a physical activity to get your point across. Now, the plastic cowboys touch on the oddities of socializing through automobile travel. What's cool is that they have guns and are pointing them at other cars (perhaps representing road rage). And what's even more cool is that they are cowboys. A 19th century cowboy has no idea what a car is. It brings up notions of a wild cowboy hunting down these mysterious wild metal predators. I'm glad you went with cowboys, not soldiers. And visually it's interesting. The scale of cowboys to the cars. But you photograph the cowboys very close in the foreground and the cars are further in the background so it almost makes the monotone cowboys look life-size...almost. I like how you started to match the color of the cowboy to the car, another visually-stimulating presentation. I'm not sure what to make of the rain on the window. In some ways it prevents the cowboy from looking life-size. But then it's another layer in the image: cowboy, window, other car. ================ from matt: the concept of borders is interesting. People don't see the borders, unless you live on the border. Andrea and jenn live on the pennisula of Carol Stream. That is their street is Carol Stream. You go one street west, you're in Glendale Heights. You go one street east, you're in Glendale Heights. We've had some friends move a street away and it's always a topic for discussion when we talk adult-talk (how much is your mortage?... how much did you pay for appliances?.... da da da). But very very few people know the actual borders of entire city they live in. That's interesting. Aaah. I never thought of the fact that the photos were taken against an open landscape. That is the secret ingredient. If they were taken in the city, you would lose some of the dynamics in concept (open space suggesting wild west) and visualization (too cluttered in city) I really like that the figures were photographed in a car while you were driving. There's so many more variables going on that way. Though it might be an interesting spin off to take the figures and photograph them in a full parking lot. That could be nice, but your original work is probably better. ===== from erik: Here's my votes http://www.geocities.com/artdude75/20011216-1/pages/120-2079_IMG.htm http://www.geocities.com/artdude75/20011216-1/pages/120-2083_IMG.htm http://www.geocities.com/artdude75/20011216-1/pages/120-2084_IMG.htm http://www.geocities.com/artdude75/20011216-1/pages/120-2090_IMG.htm http://www.geocities.com/artdude75/20011216-1/pages/120-2115_IMG.htm I guess favorites are: http://www.geocities.com/artdude75/20011216-1/pages/121-2117_IMG.htm http://www.geocities.com/artdude75/20011216-1/pages/121-2130_IMG.htm but i didn't review my selections. ===== from erik: at first, it thought that your mirror refection / lake thing wouldn't work because 2002 is not a true palendrome. (1001 is closer to being a true palendrome. 8008 is a pure palendrome.) so I played with it really quick in illustrator. The number 2 looks cool backwards. I also noticed the font i used made the 2 look alot like a z. So i replaced the 2's with z's. It spells out ZOOZ which is cool. Maybe you could go to lincoln park zoo or brookfield zoo. Or maybe I'll do it! I'll hold up a sign that spells out ZOOZ. and somehow have the animal interact with it like your cowboy in the car series. Then in photoshop, I'll flip some things around so the sign reads ZOOZ and 2002. Or maybe the animals could be "jumping through the zero hoops and getting caught on the z. I attached the file with z vs. 2 experiment. The more I think about it, the number two is an interesting thing. you got the z vs 2 thing going. There's also the two vs. too vs. to comparison. Though two vs. too is more interesting than two vs. to. And there's that song, "one is the loneliest number". I assume two is a much happier number. And 2002 has two twos and the sandwich two zereos between them. that's rather curious. I was really looking forward to 2002. There's alot of potential visually in that makeup. Even more so than 2000. Sure 2000 was a big leap from 1999. But 2002 has so many different intricasies. I feel like a bad professor with that lengthy tanget: the bad kinda professor who cannot look at students work within its own value. I had to apply a completely different idea to the original idea which really doesn't approach or critique the original idea.