The Uncanny

I have been inspired by Dora Maar and her use of the surrealism term uncanny.  I think that the uncanny is intriguing because it is something familiar but the perspective it changed so that it becomes unfamiliar or uncomfortable.  In my images, I draw inspiration from Maar’s Pere Ubu image. I have tried to look at familiar animals in a different perspective. I also tried to capture surrealism by combining images. I have explored surrealism because it is not the kind of photography I focus on. Surrealism has been interesting to me, because a world can be created in an image. I also enjoy looking at particular objects, or in the case of my images, animals in different perspectives. I enjoy images that appear to be different.

Using the inspiration of Maar’s Pere Ubu image, I chose to focus on animals. I focused on using the light to portray the animals differently than a person would normally see them. I chose to focus on a specific part of the animal, mainly their face because people do not focus on the face of an animal or are able to get that close to them. I kept all of the images black and white to focus on the lighting of the animals. The last image has color, but I felt that the color added to the surrealism that had been created.

In my images, I attempted to focus on surrealism and different perspectives of animals as inspired by Dora Maar. I think that paying attention to part of an animal that people often miss is intriguing because it becomes a different image or animal altogether.

Mara Kenyon

In this image, I have concentrated on the face of a peacock. When looking at the male peacock, the most noticeable feature is the color. Since the image is in black and white the color is not the focus; the focus is what the face looks like and the texture the feathers create on the head. Without the colors, it is harder to recognize that it is a peacock.

The image focuses on the face of an ostrich. The large bird stands with the mouth open and usually the eyes are closed. Sometimes when the ostrich looks are you with its mouth open and eyes closed, it looks like it is laughing. In the images, it did not look like it was laughing. It actually looked disturbing, like it had blank eyes and its mouth was open ready to strike at you. This image, the eyes were open but still blank, providing a very unsettling feeling.

This image is not using the uncanny term, but it is creating a sense of surrealism because there are two statues of a giraffe; as if they are living with the real giraffes.  From the image, it seems as though they were placed in the exhibit, but any visitor to the zoo knows that they are not there.

This image focuses on the face of an elephant. The ears, trunk and tusks have been cropped out to focus on the texture of the skin. The folds and hair almost show a velvety texture to the elephant's skin. I thought that it was interesting that the light created a soft appearance, as if the elephant has that peach fuzz all over.

Giraffes do not usually stick out their tongues to everyone. Although they have long necks to reach leaves from trees, their tongues are almost like fingers. During feeding time at the zoo, the giraffes were in a line and would stick out their tongues to grab the carrots from the kid's hands.

It is not often that anyone can see turtle's teeth. The light makes the skin appear to be scaly and fuzzy. I thought that the teeth look like little black pearls or dots instead of teeth.

The last image, combined images to create a surreal turtle. It is the only image that uses color. All of the other images are black and white because I feel that the focus should be on the subject and the texture the light creates. For the last image, I felt that color was important for the surrealism. Everyone knows that turtles do not have blue backs, and they also do not have stars and a moon projecting light from their shells either.