Tag Archives: fabricated landscape

Altered Horizons 82

Altered Horizons 82 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops fabricated landscapes in dealing with depression and coping with loss.

Sometimes, when I look out over my pond, the sky above is so full of clouds it seems heavier and more solid than the water below. The scene was gloomy the other day, but lovely enough before I dropped the image into Photoshop and brightened the horizon line. I flipped the whole thing upside down. And the rock from Finger Lakes Stone became a frozen, angry sky. Most likely Seasonal Affective Disorder is affecting my fabricated landscapes these days. Must search out some color. Soon.

 

Altered Horizons 82

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Altered Horizons 81

Altered Horizons 81 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops fabricated landscapes in her efforts to deal with depression and loss.

It must have been one of my rough days, the day I photographed this huge pile of discarded building materials and then turned the image upside down in Photoshop. “The sky is falling, the sky is falling,” is what I imagined at the time. Later, I added a photo of a chipped rock ledge for the “sky” to land onto. And, to contain the chaos, I framed the scene with rebar, rods used to reinforce concrete. Unfortunately, now when I regard this fabricated landscape, I’m reminded of media images of floods and rivers swollen with debris, carrying off people’s homes and belongings. Creating these fake landscapes is not always an uplifting endeavor. But I get to control the devastation and disturbance in this one small scene.

 

Altered Horizons 81

 

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Altered Horizons 78

Altered Horizons 78 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops fabricated landscapes in dealing with her depression.

There was rock all over the place at Finger Lakes Stone. Boulders. Slabs of sliced rock. Piles of stones of all sizes. Maybe it’s a gift—I don’t know— to be able to go to a rock quarry and imagine mountains from stacked pieces of rock, to see things as much bigger and grander than they are. Then, the challenge is to convince others that the mountains in your mind are real. In Photoshop, I maneuvered my images of rocks to make a fabricated landscape with a rocky frame. I added hazy white scattering between layers of rocks to make the sky and horizon more believable.

 

Altered Horizons 78

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Altered Horizons 65

Altered Horizons 65 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops fabricated landscapes to deal with depression and cope with loss.

Being fully present. Listening. Reflecting. That is my job now, as a grief facilitator. I recognize that the griever’s pain is theirs, is necessary, is beautiful, is now. It is not forever.

Giving the grieving ones the dignity of experiencing their own pain, I must be a respectful witness to that pain, not a participant. Not a sponge. Not a healer or fixer.

Just being there is everything.

The ragged bark of a tree I upended in Photoshop and the still pond reflecting the deep sky. Combining these two images, I was reminded of sitting with a person in the throes of heartbreaking loss.

 

Altered Horizons 65

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Altered Horizons 63

Altered Horizons 63 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops fabricated landscapes in dealing with depression and coping with change.

Not all landscapes are calming scenes. Last week I combined contrasting textures to create a peaceful effect, but this week I chose two different scratchy textures to highlight the tension. This kinda reflects my rough week of dealing with the heat, loss of the internet and then power, my dog falling and failing, and the television breaking. Nothing earth-shattering. But it all added up to an uncomfortable edginess.

The foreground of this fabricated landscape is a pile of dried grasses that I tinted blue in Photoshop, and the sky is the negative image of a Shagbark Hickory tree trunk laid on its side and turned bluish as well.

 

Altered Horizons 63

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Altered Horizons 58

Altered Horizons 58 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops fabricated landscapes in dealing with depression and coping with change.

This is the hosta plant that faithfully, magnificently, takes over a good portion of my garden year after year even though I do nothing to help or encourage it. In late summer, if left on its own as it always is, the hosta will sprout tall shoots topped with pale lavender-colored flowers. This is the hosta as photographed in early June before something nibbled its leaves down to bare little stumps. I’m not at all sure what this means for its future. So I decided to memorialize the poor plant, in a fabricated landscape, making it into a golden hill. In Photoshop, I added a picture of the sun reflected in my pond, along with a negative image of tangled straw-like weeds to make an agitated sky.

 

Altered Horizons 58

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