Project "Good Weather"

Click here for a larger version - and here for a very large version of this picture!

"This is about difference and sameness. About variety and uniformity. About hunger and satiety. About repetition and change. About culture and tastes. About health and illness. And finally it's about the weather. Because a German proverb says: If you eat everything up properly we'll have good weather!"

That's written on the pic already - and because this blog is about pictures and the stories behind them, here some background.

The picture is designed to be a large poster - the impact is a bit different than here then, and because all the gory detail is there ;-), it can be viewed close up or - stepping back - in its entirety. You're invited to click on the two links below the picture to get a feeling how these different views could be.

It consist of 46 single pictures, taken in August 2008 during my midday work break. The challenge was not to ignore the stares of the onlookers - especially while photographing the "cleaned" plates after eating - but to recreate a look of uniformity. It's incredible how distorted the lenses even of rather capable cameras render straight lines (the pics were taken with a Fuji F810), and how minuscule differences in perspective contort an image. So without a camera mounted on a tripod and consistent studio lighting at hand all one can do is extensive post processing on each and every image to at least create some similarity among them.

But since this image is about sameness and difference, about uniformity and variety, I allowed for slight changes in white balance, lighting, and even went so far to cut off elements at the borders. In a future version of this pic those cut off elements might be eliminated.

All technicalities aside - the bottom line: For me it's a bit like minimal music. Variations, differences, repetitions, rhythms within a tight framework. In other words: Modern civilized life!