square

limitations

/ mobius faith
LEFT RIGHT HAND DIPTYCH
It's been said, "necessity is the mother of invention".   No one knows exactly who said that but some site Mark Twain.   That quote evolved from, of all people, Plato who said, "Our need will be the real creator".  

I would like to further modify that and say limitation is the mother of invention or the real creator.    

Often we think of limitations imposed on us by others (i.e. parents, authorities, governing bodies, social norms etc.) but there is another self imposed limitation and that is the direction I'm moving in with my image making.   Before my camera work has always been shot in the 3:2/4:6 frame format and if I wanted something different I would crop that raw file before moving further in the editing phase.   

I've decided to upend that by only shooting in 1:1 frame format.    Yesterday and today were my first days limiting myself in this way.   It's interesting how looking at the view screen and seeing only a square image changes how you think about seeing.    In some ways it's changed my subject matter.  In other ways it's changed how I photograph the same old subjects  that I would photograph before in the more familiar landscape/portrait format.  I'm still interested in the same things it's just that I am seeing them differently.    And it's not like I see them one way and they deliberately change how I want to see them via cropping.   I'm actually forcing myself to see them squared.    

I don't know how long I'll do this but it will be for some length of time to see how this will change the way I see and perceive things over time as I get more used to this square format.   

Todays images are of palms of my left and right hand.  An abstract, inverted presentation that I find interesting.    Again these images were shot square format /raw.   Editing in Photoshop.

CCCXXXVI

/ mobius faith 
***fyi since I'll be posting more than one image a day you will be able to click on them individually to view larger.***
Hello everyone who might see this post.  December is the last month of the year and halfway through my 64th year of existence.   After the insanity of the US general election in November I sunk into a deep depression and I lost all hope for a better future for my lifetime.   Picking up on a quote from November by artist Paul Klee, "the more horrifying the world becomes, the more abstract art becomes".  I knew to cope with and survive the mental/emotional "funk" I was in I needed to do something.  With all that in mind I decided I wanted Decembers images to be abstract, even minimal.  And I wanted to do something with the number 64. 

I got to thinking about Chess.  The playing board is square made up of 8 rows and 8 columns of alternating squares for a total of 64 squares.   I started doing color studies on my computer.   Just simple square blocks of color with 2 stripes of alternate or variant colors.  The stripes had to be in different locations on the solid block.    I wanted to see what moods or feelings might be created by color relationships.    On top of that I could imagine that all 64 squares could be displayed on an interactive wall where patrons could rotate the squares or even rearrange the order.    The possibilities of rearranging and rotating 64 squares seems almost limitless (but I'm sure there is a mathematical limit - I just lack the ability to determine what that is LOL).

The soundtrack for this series is (perhaps unsurprisingly) the musical CHESS.   
For this first post here is track "Opening Ceremony" sung by the character known as the Arbiter who "knows the score" and from "square one, he'll be watching all sixty-four".  It also has the prescient lines "no one can deny these are very dangerous and difficult times," which seem suitable for everything that is happening around the world  right now.
****if anyone knows how to create an interactive page where I could simulate the "gallery" experience of  a viewer rotating and moving blocks on the computer/tablet - let me know****