This entry: dualities.
For quite a long time I've held a rather cynical view of the frenetic consumerism which has so utterly removed the magical spirit from the Holidays of my youth: jousting for parking spaces, quid pro quo driven gifting, Muzak flavored carols and Santa decorations appearing before Halloween (!!!) all push back the tender notion of spiritual reverence and Good Will Towards Men to the realm of dim nostalgia.
As I wrote in a prior entry, virtually none of the surreal store front mannequins on parade in the local shopping malls conveyed anything remotely evocative of Joyeux Noël, but rather served only to reinforce the notion that a detached, Kafkaesque ennui is our modern collective condition.
For quite a long time I've held a rather cynical view of the frenetic consumerism which has so utterly removed the magical spirit from the Holidays of my youth: jousting for parking spaces, quid pro quo driven gifting, Muzak flavored carols and Santa decorations appearing before Halloween (!!!) all push back the tender notion of spiritual reverence and Good Will Towards Men to the realm of dim nostalgia.
As I wrote in a prior entry, virtually none of the surreal store front mannequins on parade in the local shopping malls conveyed anything remotely evocative of Joyeux Noël, but rather served only to reinforce the notion that a detached, Kafkaesque ennui is our modern collective condition.
Hence, the first tableau is another from a series of mannequin images I took during the recent Christmas season. Here the duality is ironic: inanimate objects sharing a secret communqué . . . and with a suggestion of vacant disinterest at that.
The second submission is offered as a humorous antidote to the first; this photograph's raison d'être is the delightfully surprising shadow which draws a smile across the surface and allows the old, deteriorating truck's door handle to be seen as having considerably more optimism than that held by plastic models.
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Sweet Nothings (Telling Secrets), #5827
(c)2010 James W. Murray, all rights reserved.
(click image for larger version)
Details: December 22, 2009; Canon 20D; f/8 @ 1/60 sec; -1 EV; ISO 400; 52mm.
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Man Handle, #5869
(c)2010 James W. Murray, all rights reserved.
(click image for larger version)
Details: December 25, 2009; Canon 20D; f/11 @ 1/600 sec; -2/3 EV; ISO 100; 55mm.
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I find mannequins strange, scary, and funny. They are these lifeless statues of humans dressed up in all sorts of different ways, sitting/standing behind the glass for people to look at. I often wonder what they are thinking behind those blank eyes...
ReplyDeleteYou haven't seen anything yet: so far, in deference to the ostensible Spirit of the Season, the mannequins posted so far are from the most benign end of the strangeness spectrum this series will offer up . . .
ReplyDelete