[Zig]

These are/were temporarily displayed outside the cathedral a month or two ago. I'd just got back from Italy, so I was photo'd out....besides, Gloucester might have its nice bits like the Norman, Roman and medieval architecture sailing majestically above the kebab shops, but(no dissing, mind) heck, not the most inspirational thing after Florence and Siena.
Mind you, after sitting on these for a few weeks, they don't look too bad.
Overcast day about 3.00pm, hand-held 21mm at wider apertures because I couldn't be arsed.

[Toad]

I am intrigued by your inclusion of people in most of these scenes. Historically, I have shied away from people in my photos and I would either stand and wait for huge amounts of time for a scene to "clear" or alternately fire up PhotoShop and execute their likenesses one by one like a fundamentalist censor. Lately, I have become more and more interested in people catching - so I am closely watching how others bait and set their traps.

I really like the person in #2 - beautifully framed in the doorway and with a purposeful stride that echoes the movement in the sculpture. The people in #1 are also fascinating in that their everyday humanity serves as an effective counterpoint to the grandeur of the architecture. The person to the right of #4 made me go "huh?" - but as I said before, I have only recently started working with people - and I admit that I just might be missing the *point* on that one.

Image-wise, my favorite is without question #3. The glaring metallic look of the processing here really works well with the metal man concept. I can totally see him as the master and conqueror of this domain. The superior POV of the metal man in relation to the viewer only emphasizes his dominance of the world in the image. He has constructed pyramids in honor of his escape and resurrection.

[Zig]

Brilliantly-read our Toad.
The lower viewpoint and processing was definitely to suggest that very point and sense.
In #2, I worked out in advance exactly how I wanted the human interest and waited stubbornly till I had a single person exactly framed in the doorway. Ideally it would be a nubile filly, I thought, but 'twas not to be. My arm ached and shook and I was turning blue, all from trying get the shot framed right whilst holding my breath!

Oh yeah: the inclusion of real actual people: I never used to do that...BUT, when I was in Fiesole near Florence(ahem) I cottoned on to the fact that viewers of sculptures were actually interacting with them...thus there was a kind of "freeze frame" as if the sculpture and the viewer were 2 sentient beings relating to each other.
Actually, it then sort of reversed, so that the statue appeared more human and perfect and graceful..with the human more stony and immutable.
Honestly Rob, try it...you'll be amazed and it will be a revelation! Promise! Your pre-Italy homework in fact!

[Irma]

Your pictures made me think about those exhibitions of modern art in places like this cathedral. I think both are great expressions of art, but to my eyes they don't match together to well. Maybe because I don't live there. If that were my place and I were used to see the cathedral all the time. This kind of exhibitions would give fresh air to the place.

Very interesting topic in your pictures, Zig.

[Zig]

You make an excellent point Irma.
When I was in Fiesole, just outside Florence, there was some stunning sculpture by Paddy Campbell. It was set outside, in a "medieval space"...yet a great effort had been made to relate these pieces to the topography and landscape. Beautiful.
I think with some of these around Gloucester, this has been thought through, so that occasionally one sees the sculptures working successfully because they are part of the cathedral space and its environs. However, often this is not the case...it is as if they've been just crammed into an exterior gallery space with no thought to the surroundings...thereby underachieving in terms of what their artistic value could be.
There is a reason for this: most of the sculptures, including the Damien Hirst, were cast locally to me in Stroud, a mere few miles from Gloucester; I can quite understand that the need to get art up and seen and viewable, can often outweigh concerns about whether each piece "resonates" or works for the best in a public space. I daresay many Florentine pieces, considered provocative eyesores by those who were down in the Medici pecking-order, are now considered to work perfectly in the space and landscape.

[matthew]

It's perhaps predictable that I prefer the third image. It's the only sculpture that's angular and mechanical instead of being rounded and biomorphic; it's fitting that it's also the only image that doesn't include people. While there's (one supposes) a different sentiment between it [the sculpture] and the cathedral behind it, they're both shown as complicated and detailed constructions that are overwhelming in scale. The inclusion of the scaffolding just adds to this similarity of mechanical construction, and forms an interesting conceptual link as well as the visual one. On the scaffolding there will be men with hammers, like the one that the construction holds, where they will work on the bricks of the cathedral, which are much like those that comprise the sculpture's lower body. The way that the shadows and light on the cathedral mirror the cloudy sky, and how that ties in to the lighting on the sculpture and the foreground, is both otherworldly and also ties all of the elements together.

[Toad]

Pretty good thread, isn't it?