On all our houses

An entry submitted in a competition (silly me) themed "Conflict".

February 2004.

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Here is what I wrote.

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Thinking more literally I decided to focus on immediate events taking place in the Middle East - the conflict in Palestine, the US led invasion of Iraq & Afghanistan. I drew from lessons of Robert Macnamara, as presented in the recently released documentary "Fog of War", reflecting on the folly of war and the terminal threat presented by Nuclear weapons.

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I used a US penny, dropped into a foiled plate of watered-down tomato sauce. The point of impact was layered with non-diluted sauce.

I shot in sunlight with my Canon G5 set accordingly -

Zoom 3x, MF 20cm, A 1/500, F 5.0, ISO 200

I shot 10 images (because my sister, assigned to coin dropping duty, was very quick to complain about the intense heat of the summer sun and retreated indoors)

I would have continued to shoot with a faster shutter speed to eliminate blur, had I not decided that the blur, grain and color distortion of the foil helped attribute to a rushed (war-correspondent-on-the-move), raw, viscious sense of... well... combatant conflict!

The original image was a lot less red and a lot more orange Levels, Gamma, Color Balance, Channels and Unsharp Mask were the tools of choice in Paint Shop Pro.

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Reflecting on the image I can conjur many interpretations - "Tidal Wave of destruction", Nuclear annhiliation, Western Dominance, Economic Oppression, the Leviathan Superpower - only I am unsure as to whether being open to interpretation makes it successful or a failure... the conflict.

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