While You Were Sleeping...

Confession:
I took a nap last Monday.
There, I said it. I know it is a cardinal sin of mommydom to take a nap unless all of your children are also napping. I was close, I had two out of the three who were at home napping with me, but David John didn't go down. I just couldn't keep my eyes open. You all know the story, my night ended at 1 AM, my day started at 5 AM and I had done 3 hours of driving plus a marathon doctor's appointment by 12:30. So, what did David John do while the rest of us were down for the count?
He took pictures with my phone. Frankly, I was surprised that he chose such an innocuous activity. Would you like to see his work? I am accepting bids from museums or private collectors who would like the rights to the digital copies and make giant life-sized prints. He took three series of pictures. I will attempt to explain to you the sophisticated meanings behind his photography. Series one is titled "Household Objects D'Art"

Here, we see a top view of a glass coffee table. Because the wooden frame is not in the camera's view, all that is visible is the wood that crosses beneath the table and supports the legs. By shooting through the glass, he achieves an almost under-water effect with blurring at the edges. We can also see the detail of toys under the table in the top left corner. These toys represent the parts of our lives that we think are hidden when, in fact, we are transparent.

Ah, the bathroom scale. He does something very clever here by setting the scale at zero- suggesting balance, while also taking the picture at an angle so that the scale is not square in the frame. Again, he is referencing the hidden. One may seem to have a perfect and balanced life but be inwardly askew.

I like the composition of this one with the backpack in the forefront and the chair behind. I think the backpack is a commentary on the burdens one carries in everyday life and a need to let them rest.

This one is very contemporary. I love how you can see the ceiling beams and brickwork reflected in the black laptop. Clearly, this begs us to think about the way our lives are inaccurately reflected by technology.

Finally, he confronts an object head on that we usually prefer to hide and tuck into a corner: the trashcan. Note how the can fills up the majority of the frame. Do we similarly allow our lives to be dominated by the emotional garbage we accumulate but try to ignore?

The second series is entitled "The Chair". These photographs are a social commentary about the obesity epidemic. He alternates showing chairs that are soft- just like our derrieres when we spend too much time sitting in them- with chairs that are hard and have bars reminiscent of a prison cell. I also find his picture of a highchair to be a bit menacing. I'll think twice before giving Tobias dessert in that chair again.

His last series bears the name, "I Know What You Read Last Summer" and features creepy pictures of children's books.

The way this picture is cropped, combined with the blurred edges and lighting make it look like "The Rooster Crows" is about a possessed girl with suicidal intent. In fact, it is a pretty innocent book of American rhymes. There is one counting rhyme which ends "Ten he tarries, Eleven he courts, Twelve he marries, Thirteen they quarrel, Fourteen they part, Fifteen he dies of a broken heart." Really, though, that's the worst of it. I think this creepy cover would be better suited to a book of old English or German rhymes. Here is an excerpt from a German classic about a boy who is caught sucking his thumb:

The door flew open, in he ran,
The great, long, red-legg'd scissor-man.
Oh! children, see! the tailor's come
And caught out little Suck-a-Thumb.
Snip! Snap! Snip! the scissors go;
And Conrad cries out-Oh! Oh! Oh!
Snip! Snap! Snip! They go so fast,
That both his thumbs are off at last.

More gruesome German rhymes can be found at The Haunted Closet.

Creepy book picture number two also uses a blurry style to create visual dissonance. In this case, the book really is kind of strange. It is entitled "Ten Little Ladybugs" and is strangely reminiscent of Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" which used to have the un-PC title of "Ten Little Indians". The poem in Christie's book reads, "Ten little Indian boys went out to dine; One choked his little self and then there were nine". The children's book in question reads, "Ten little ladybugs climbing on a vine, along came a butterfly, then there were nine." So maybe the butterfly doesn't seem that menacing, but on each page a different creature shows up (bird, fish, turtle, etc.) and one ladybug disappears. The first time we read this book Marc and I thought maybe this was an introduction to the food chain and survivalism. However, *spoiler* all the lady bugs get home in the end. No one actually gets eaten.

This book isn't scary at all, but somehow David John managed to make that bear on the front cover look rabid and despondent. Really, the bear is just afraid of flying on an airplane for the first time. He'll be okay.

This last picture is a doozy. I am going to have nightmares about that freaky looking space-monkey. The book itself is also nightmare inducing. The narrator of the story is a monkey (Albert II) who gives us a detailed and somewhat boring history of rocketry and space flight. He calmly talks about the death of several animals sent up in rockets including his predecessor- Albert I. Here's the spookiest part, Albert II DIES before the end of the story! Who's narrating? A ghost-space-monkey? I'm sorry, that is just too much.

As a whole, I think "I Know What You Read Last Summer" calls for an examination of children's literature and the messages it is sending.

Phew! Sorry for the epic post. That's what happens when you have to explain photographs. After all, a picture takes a thousand words of commentary.... or something like that. After all this typing I think I'm ready for another nap....