Laura Miner: San Francisco

Traveling is an excellent way to change your artistic perspective. Normally my photographic comfort zone is in the studio, but in July I went to San Francisco for the first time. For that week in San Fran I had the challenge of doing lots of street, architecture, and nature photography; generally unplanned photo moments. Though, my advantage was that everything was new and incredibly interesting to me.

Living Roof: California Academy of Science (CAS) 2012 © Laura Miner

It was my second trip to the west coast (my first time being Los Angeles). San Francisco is unique in that it's a west coast city that has held onto an majority of historical buildings; not just government buildings, but homes as well. There is a similar breadth of styles and eras as east coast cities contain, but with a focus on the Victorian era and lot more purple in the color palate.

Sea Lion: Nob Hill / Saturday Afternoon: Dolores Park 2012 © Laura Miner

 It was an incredibly busy week hitting all the landmarks possible. The Golden Gate Bridge, the Mission District, Dolores Park, Nob Hill, Twin Peaks, Alcatraz, China Town, and California Academy of Sciences are some of the areas I photographed. San Francisco didn't just give me excellent vacation photos. Unlike other trips, the images I brought back were inspiring to me artistically. It's September and I still get a buzz looking at these photos. Moving in this different direction recharged me, and I am looking forward to getting back to the studio (and taking more photos on-the-go).

Can't Find That In LA: Golden Gate Bridge 2012 © Laura Miner

Cafeteria Floor: Alcatraz / Buddah: China Town, SF 2012 © Laura Miner

Fence: The Mission 2012 © Laura Miner

Frog Back: CAS / Golden Gate Fog 2012 © Laura Miner

Plastic in Vital Fluid: By Laura Miner

Laura Miner ©2012

 Continuing with my project titled, Vital Fluid, which features miniature sets of ominous gore, I decided to experiment with changing the subject of the terror. In the previous series animals were casually living amongst puddles of blood with an unknown origin. In this series I took a couple of the most dynamic looking animal figurines, and inflicted them with bloody wounds.

Laura Miner ©2012

The running boar could have harmed someone, be harmed, or both. The rooster has an alarmed look, yet does not spread it's wings.

Laura Miner ©2012

In between shooting the last series and this one, I photographed details of the animal figurines simply to explore their texture. How did the manufacturer represent common animal skins in plastic? It was fun to find the failures, like the plastic mold knot on the back of this reclining dog below.  But it was also interesting to see the skilled workmanship, such as the detail in the crane feathers pictured above.

Laura Miner ©2012

Laura Miner ©2012

The way the blood reacts to the imprints of fur and feathers highlights the plasticity, which may or may not be working for this project. It was worth a shot.
My next move will be to add more inanimate objects such as cars, and explore terror without blood.

Laura Miner: Fear and Indifference

The new direction in my current project, (in which I am actually going back to older interests) takes the blood and terror I intended from my previous images, and gives it a context with miniature sets.

Laura Miner ©2011

Thinking of the philosophical query, "If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?" one might reason that there must be other living things besides humans, and of course, those things would hear it fall.  I ask in my current series, "If something bad happens to you in the woods, do the other living things care?"
After trying to come up with subtly gruesome scenes, I came to the realization that a huge stimulus for fear is the idea that if you were in trouble no one would be able to help you. I admit, it's one facet to my own issues with bodily integrity.  There is nothing scarier than knowing that the only living things around you are indifferent to your situation, and may even munch on you. Thus is the inspiration for this series which depicts random pools of blood being curiously investigated and casually co-existing with animals.

Laura Miner ©2011

 Blood, being a tried and true catalyst of fear, and animals, being symbols of peace but also savagery, the images evoke an eerie feeling of dread, but could also contain a twisted and blunt expression of acceptance and returning to the Earth.

Laura Miner ©2011