The Day After the Day of the Dead...

Is my procrastination showing? So yes, i had intended this post for yesterday, but the day just got away from me, first with an artist's talk i needed to participate in since my work is in the show, then a 10 year anniversary party of the old CiN Weekly staff (still the best job i've ever had even if it did end 4 years ago with the sudden shutdown of the entire publication) followed by movie night with the neighbors (Cloud Atlas, which i highly recommend).
So, in honor of Day of the Dead, belated, here are some images from my Future Fossils project. If you have been following me for any period of time you may have seen some of these before in color, but i have made the editorial/artistic decision to present these particular images in black & white for the first time. I never make these choices lightly and certainly the entire project will not receive this treatment, but these were images that just made more sense to me in monochrome. Color should add to the story and deepen our appreciation of the image, but sometimes it distracts from or even hides the compositional structure in the photograph. Certainly this is not the issue with this photo in the series where i believe color plays an intrinsic part in the over all impact of the piece, nor with this one, where the red spot color is an important part of the storytelling aspect of the image. But i think the skeletal structure of the images below call for a B&W approach, to simplify them down to the bare bones.

©David Sorcher 2013

©David Sorcher 2013

©David Sorcher 2013

©David Sorcher 2013

©David Sorcher 2013

©David Sorcher 2013

©David Sorcher 2013

©David Sorcher 2013

©David Sorcher 2013

Recently a past student of mine directed me to the work of a Mexican photographer i was already familiar with, Enrique Metinides, who spent years capturing crime scene photos that are both brilliant and horrific and often feature dead people and rather macabre poses. It was presented to me almost in a challenging way, but i think my friend has missed what i am trying to explore and accomplish with this particular body of work. It is not my intention to shock or horrify, but rather to document and honor the cycle of life and death and the process of decay which replenishes and enriches the earth so the new life might spring forth from it. I suppose that some may find me strange that i find beauty in this process, but then i guess that all of my work will never satisfy all of the people all of the time (didn't Lincoln say something like that once ;-) ). I hope you find this project as interesting as i do, but if not i am sure i will be presenting something soon that you might find more to your liking. :-)