(Above and below) Naturally, the best camouflage artists are found in nature.
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(Above) The Lockheed Burbank aircraft factory in California just prior to WWII, before the need for camouflage. (Click image for larger view)
(Above) Same factory, after the Army Corp of Engineers layered camouflage netting over the entire factory to make it appear to be just another subdivision with small farm fields. (Click image for larger view)
(Above) The HRMS Abraham Crijnssen disguised as a tropical island, April, 1942. (Click image for larger view)
(Above) From Playboy Magazine, the model Veruschka. Though beautiful and statuesque, Veruschka spent most of her life attempting to change the way her body was perceived by others. She was, by all accounts, a conceptual artist who used the modeling platform as a means to showcase her art.
(Above) Veruschka, for Playboy, 1971.
(Above) Emma Hack goes a step further by introducing a new object, in this case the owl, to further throw off our eye to the camouflaged woman. (Click image for larger view)
(Above) Emma Hack, an artist involved in fashion, again uses patterned wallpaper as a foil in which to hide her model. (Click image for larger view)
(Above) Dutch artist Desiree Palmen, who lives in Rotterdam, takes photographs of a particular place, then uses a person dressed in clothes she has painted perfectly to blend into the background. (Click image for larger view)
(Above) Desiree Palmen, Park Bench, 1999. (Click image for larger view)
(Above) Liu Bolin, camouflage artist, China.
(Above) Liu Bolin, camouflage artist, China
(Above) Liu Bolin, a “camouflage artist” from China, says that his artwork about “hiding” is a political statement. (Click image for larger view)
(Above) Liu Bolin, camouflage artist, China, disappears in plain sight. (Click image for larger view)
(Above) Liu Bolin, China. (Click image for larger view)
I STARTED OUT THIS MORNING INTENT ON DOING A POST about the Chinese artist Liu Bolin. Now, midstream in my research, I realize that I cannot do a post just on him without attempting to put what he does into some sort of context. What does the idea of camouflage mean? How has it been used and how did the process become co-joined with art? Without question, Bolin’s art is powerful stuff, but I will attempt to explore the whole idea of camouflage and how his art fits into the idea of transformation.
Liu Bolin’s art is about camouflaging himself as a means of political protest in his own country. His political protest against the Chinese government is a statement against repression (the authorities shut down his studio in 2005). He has written that, in nature, many animals, insects and creatures have the ability to alter and adapt their physical appearance to their surroundings. This is a defensive measure to protect themselves from predators.
Chinese artist Liu Bolin desires to survive in a country that is a predator to him. Creatively, he is saying, “I must blend in to survive, I cannot be different.” His art is telling the western world about the repressive state in which he attempts to survive.
As an artistic statement, you have two things at work here. One, is the actual process and performance of creating the illusion. That in itself must be carefully orchestrated for the next and most important part—the photograph. In the end, it is the photograph that carries the weight of the process.
At the same time, Emma Hack is a talented Australian make up artist, stylist, hairdresser and artist who paints on the human body. No political statement here—just a way to work with fashion directors in a new, creative and fun way. Visually, the viewer must take extra care to disentangle the human being from the surroundings.
And, Dutch artist Desiree Palmen, is doing a thing that is quite akin to Liu Bolin’s art—except her art has more to do with being unseen and undetected. Palmen’s prior study was involved in biology and geology—so her work stems from her understanding of the natural world.
Mankind, on the other hand, even with his superior intellect—cannot alter his appearance naturally without creating a new physical covering of some kind (like ordinary hunting camouflage, etc.) And therein lies the connection between these images. With man, camouflage is an artificial thing, something brought in and applied. With nature, it just is.
“We live among its people now, hiding in plain sight, but watching over them in secret, waiting, protecting.” Optimus Prime, from the film “Transformers.”
(Above) B&W Photograph by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
Steam Engine Kompaund with a Shmidt Super-heater, ca. 1910
Digital color rendering. Click on image for larger view.
© Library of Congress
(Above) Same photograph after digital color (digichromatography) added to match original early process. © Library of Congress
Image © Library of Congress
Prokudin-Gorskii created albums to serve as photographic records of his trips across the Russian Empire. Each album is composed of contact prints—created from his glass plate negatives—which were mounted in the order in which he traveled. The album page shown here was created in 1915 during his last known documentary trip.
(Above) Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
Cotton textile Mill Interior, ca. 1907-1915
Digital color rendering. Click on image for larger view.
© Library of Congress
(Above) Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
Factory Interior Showing Turbines, ca. 1907-1915
Digital color rendering. Click on image for larger view.
© Library of Congress
(Above) Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
Cotton. In Sukhumi Botanical Garden, 1910
Digital color rendering. Click on image for larger view.
© Library of Congress
(Above) Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
A Sart Old Man, 1911
Digital color rendering. Click on image for larger view.
© Library of Congress
(Above) Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
Melon Vendor, 1911
Digital color rendering. Click on image for larger view.
© Library of Congress
(Above) Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
Mills in lalutorovsk Uyezd of Tobol’sk Province, 1912
Digital color rendering. Click on image for larger view.
© Library of Congress
(Above) Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
A Zindan (prison), ca. 1907-1915
Digital color rendering. Click on image for larger view.
© Library of Congress
(Above) Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii
A Settler’s Family, ca. 1907-1915Digital color rendering.
© Library of Congress
(Above) Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
Austrian Prisoners of War Near a Barrack, 1915
Digital color rendering. Click on image for larger view.
© Library of Congress
In the early years of the First World War, Prokudin-Gorskii photographed a group of prisoners of war from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The men are probably Poles, Ukrainians, and members of other Slavic nationalities, imprisoned at an unidentified location in the far north of European Russia near the White Sea. This image escaped being confiscated by border guards—the fate of the vast majority of politically sensitive images—when Prokudin-Gorskii left Russia for good in 1918—probably because what is being represented is not immediately obvious.
THE PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVES OF SERGEI MIKHAILOVICH PROKUDIN-GORSKII (1863-1944) offer a vivid portrait of a lost world—the Russian Empire on the eve of World War I and the coming revolution. His subjects ranged from the medieval churches and monasteries of old Russia, to the railroads and factories of an emerging industrial power, to the daily life and work of Russia’s diverse population.
In the early 1900s Prokudin-Gorskii formulated an ambitious plan for a photographic survey of the Russian Empire that won the support of Tsar Nicholas II. Between 1909-1912, and again in 1915, he completed surveys of eleven regions, traveling in a specially equipped railroad car provided by the Ministry of Transportation.
Prokudin-Gorskii left Russia in 1918, going first to Norway and England before settling in France. By then, the tsar and his family had been murdered and the empire that Prokudin-Gorskii so carefully documented had been destroyed. His unique images of Russia on the eve of revolution—recorded on glass plates—were purchased by the Library of Congress in 1948 from his heirs. For this exhibition, the glass plates have been scanned and, through an innovative process known as digichromatography, brilliant color images have been produced. This exhibition features a sampling of Prokudin-Gorskii’s historic images produced through the new process; the digital technology that makes these superior color prints possible; and celebrates the fact that for the first time many of these wonderful images are available to the public.
We know that Prokudin-Gorskii intended his photographic images to be viewed in color because he developed an ingenious photographic technique in order for these images to be captured in black and white on glass plate negatives, using red, green and blue filters. He then presented these images in color in slide lectures using a light-projection system involving the same three filters. He did this by using a single, narrow glass plate about 3 inches wide by 9 inches long that was placed vertically into the camera by Prokudin-Gorskii . He then photographed the same scene three times in a fairly rapid sequence using a red filter, a green filter and a blue filter.
You can read the entire method for converting Prokudin-Gorskii’s B&W images to color by clicking here. As well, you can see many more images.
All copy and images above are copyright © Library of Congress.
(Above) Baby elephant in womb.
(Above) Baby dolphin.
(Above) Baby shark. Yikes!
(Above) Baby penguin in egg.
(Above) Baby penguin #2.
(Above) Baby penguin #3.
(Above) Puppy in womb.
(Above) Puppy in womb, #2.
(Above) Puppy in womb, #3.
(Above) Puppy in womb, #4.
(Above) Puppy in womb, #5.
CHECK OUT THESE INCREDIBLE EMBRYONIC ANIMAL PHOTOGRAPHS OF dolphins, dogs, sharks, penguins and elephants. They are previews are from a new National Geographic documentary called “Extraordinary Animals in the Womb.” The producer of the show, David Chin, used a combination of three-dimensional ultrasound scans, computer graphics and tiny cameras to capture the process from conception to birth. Amazing!
Via ThisBlogRules.
Images © Copyright Norman Rockwell Museum; Click images for larger view.
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Images © Copyright Norman Rockwell Museum
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