It’s photo friday again and this is one of my personal favorites. Drowning solitude. A small boat floats towards disaster as an apocalyptic sky threatens annihilation. There is so much going on with this image I almost don’t know where to start. I guess the beginning is a good a place as any.

Way back in 2006 I spent a day at Mount Dandenong, one of my favorite places around Melbourne. I went for a hike in the rain forest, taking lots of photos. Eventually I came to a clearing with a completely unobstructed view, looking towards Melbourne city about fifty kilometers away. Not thinking I would get a view like this, I hadn’t bought a telephoto lens with me. So I snapped a few wide shots off, thinking they wouldn’t turn out particularly good.

When I eventually saw the shots, I wasn’t very impressed. The city was too far off in the distance, and because it was an overcast day, the whole image was flat and lifeless. I filed it away, with no intention of using it for anything.

Weeks past and I managed to get some free time on my hands. I wanted to create something but wasn’t sure what. I started flicking through my photos to see if any of them would inspire me. Sure enough I came to that crappy photo of the view and instantly saw a vision of the apocalypse in my mind.

I’m sure that’ll come as no surprise to those who know me and are aware of my fascination (actually it’s probably more like an obsession) of the apocalypse. Something draws me to that genre and I don’t know what. I love the feeling of impending doom. The melancholy that comes after a civilization is lost. I even made a post-apocalyptic movie called Lost:Black Earth back in 2000.

I started to build the picture. I replaced the sky and created tornados, then flooded the whole area up to the city (sorry for those who live in Ferntree Gully. It was nothing personal…) The final addition was the boat. It just needed that little something for a focal point. I toned the whole image in a deep sepia to create the sense of menace and doom.

I couldn’t really tell you where the name came from. It just popped into my head and stuck. I often wonder if the boat is called ‘Solitude’ and it is about to be drowned. For someone who has deep thoughts, I rarely have them about my own artwork. For me creating art is all about feeling rather than thinking. I do what feels right even if it isn’t. And there is plenty that isn’t right with this image.

For instance, take a look at the water. It is so still and reflective. With such a storm thrashing above, I doubt that this is possible. Where is the reflection of the lightning in the water? The scale of the boat is all wrong. I’m sure there are other things that defy logic or reality too.

But I don’t care. All of these things were done the way they were because they felt right at the time and still do now. When the image was completed, I was stunned at how the photo that I thought was crap, had turned into something I was quite proud of.

It’s also interesting to note that this was a very early piece of art that I created before I knew how to use Adobe Photoshop particularly well. When I look at the project file now, I cringe at the terrible techniques I was using at the time. I guess this is proof that all that matters is the end product and not how you got to it.

You can purchase prints of Drowning Solitude as well as other artwork I have created at RedBubble.com.

Tags: Apocalypse, artwork, creativity, melancholy, Photo Friday

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 19th, 2009 at 1:17 am and is filed under Apocalypse, Art, Photo Friday. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.