Pretty Things
Victorian Sunset
Posted by Terre Mavix Chartrand (Kitchener, Canada) on 10 August 2008 in Abstract & Conceptual.
This is not manipulated. I love the fractured scene... I suppose it is an allegory for modern Canadians who can't get enough of destructive technology, yet escape as often as they can to wild places, so long as they can still keep many of their comforts.
There is a romance in being in places devoid of culture, like the great parks. It allows us to focus in on ours, which so often feels like a weak replica of the culture that invades us from the south. Truth be told, we are different, and it doesn't take a microscope to see the difference or to radicalise them. That being said, we aren't that much different from any other people on the earth. There is a universality that common amongst us all because we are all made the same. We have the same basic requirements - our culture has only made us think that the "basic" lies much above where it actually is.
This isn't one of the great parks, but only a large city park located just off the downtown. It is beautiful and picturesque, yet odd and very man-made. Even the forested areas are kept in a deliberate way. Not a single shrub is untouched. Man's attempted control over nature rules supreme in these settings. In fact, you can see an old chimney from one of the old factory buildings just right of centre in this photo. City parks are places where culture is created for us. There are statues of people we are supposed to admire (Queen Victoria here), peculiarities (there used to be a statue of the Kaiser in the park, but he was toppled over during the second world war, now all that is left is the pedestal and a plaque explaining the event), greens, "forested" areas, playgrounds, memorials (in this case a clock tower... I will post it on a future date), and gardens. Everything here dictates to us what we are "supposed" to be - dictates to us a culture.
I am babbling a bit... :)
Please feel free to comment or critique! It is through critique that we learn how to improve. I like to hear about the artistic impression, the sense of the image even more than the technique, unless the technique is somehow disturbing from the overall emotion communicated in the image.
Thanks!!!!
