Sunday, December 27, 2009

Location, Location, Location

Sometimes I'm drawn to the same location time after time to see what I can find. One of my favorite places to stop by is the parking lot of a local community center. It's a large open area and the architecture of the buildings amuses and interests me.
     I didn't set out to create three separate images within several feet of each other, it just happened that way. It took several visits to see the opportunity and explore it with imagination but I like the way I keep finding something new to shoot.
    Starting with the most recent and working back, it's easy to see the progression of abstraction in the elements.




Sunday, December 20, 2009

Overhead Projections — Part Two





Spaceship
©2009
Larry Torno

Famous-Barr was a department store in St. Louis, MO that opened in 1948 as a beautiful example of architectural modernism . . . its facade and interior following the curved shape of the street it occupies. In the mid-90s, Washington University took over ownership of the building and now refers to it as part of their West Campus.
     I've always been fascinated by the building's simplified, graceful lines and recently spent some time looking for photo opportunities. My favorite image was this one, shot looking upward with the oversized eave and single, square window looking like a menacing UFO hovering over the city.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Overhead Projections — Part One



Macys Tower

©2009
Larry Torno


I like creating images of real elements that, when taken out of context, have a completely different interpretation.
     This image of the dome of a Macy's store reminded me of the Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming. I carefully cropped it to have the same visual effect as the rising tower, which was popularized in the movie Close Encounters. The positioning of the tower in the lower left-hand corner against the expanse of the massive cloud bank, lends a feeling of the wide open spaces found in the Great American West. Shot from the parking lot of a Midwest shopping mall, Macys Tower bears little resemblance to its urban setting.
     A little known historical fact about the Wyoming monument is that when the proclamation establishing Devils Tower was published, the apostrophe was unintentionally dropped from "Devil's" — and this clerical error was never officially corrected. It seemed fitting that I should also delete the mark from the title of my image, Macys Tower.

Macys Tower is available in a limited edition through the Bruno David Gallery.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Trees - Part Two


(Click image for larger view)

Handball Tree
Missouri
2007
© Larry Torno

I found this tree not far from the first photo I posted last week but on a different day.

I'm a graphic designer by trade and often create photos, as a result of my career, that appear layered. The flatness of the black, tree skeleton sits atop the horizontal chain link fence and balances between the two white handball courts. It seemed natural to me that you could peel apart this landscape and move things around if you wanted.

The crisp angles of the shadows on the white walls follow the angle of the branches on one side of the tree and lay in the reverse direction of the branches on the other side of the tree. This was a very balanced image to shoot.