Tag Archives: upended world

Altered Horizons 57

Altered Horizons 57 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops fabricatesd landscapes in dealing with depression and coping with loss.

I was thinking of my father when I fabricated this landscape. All day yesterday, as I weed-whacked up and down my long driveway and then raked and pulled pondweed, I remembered how pleased my father was to do work around his house. He taught me that it’s a privilege to have a nice home and to keep it in good shape. He had come to the States in the early 1940s with nothing but ambition; he worked hard to build up his dreams. When I do yard work around my home I feel like he’s watching me.

In Photoshop, I turned the reflection of a bare tree upside down and “planted” it in a foreground of pebbles. The image was not good enough to honor or represent my father so I framed it in multiple built-up frames, like the biggest hug I could give.

 

Altered Horizons 57

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Altered Horizons 45

Altered Horizons 45 Robin Botie of Ithaca, new York, photoshops fabricated landscapes as therapeutic photography for dealing with depression and grief.

There was an eye in the middle of the underside of a steel chute at the gravel pit. In a world where landscapes are riddled with security cameras, I did not question its presence. We’re always being surveyed and recorded. Possibly even in the remotes of a sand and gravel quarry, I thought.

In Photoshop, the only thing I added to the image was the frame that I pieced together from my photos of nearby gravel-transporting equipment. Also, I lightened up the dark steel to bring out its texture. Rusted metal can be so beautiful; it can be so depressing. But that eye—it was such a docile eye, a bit like that of an adoring pet—it almost turns the tiny industrial landscape into a portrait.

Altered Horizons 45

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Altered Horizons 22

Altered Horizons 22 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops a fabricated landscape of rocks and stones in her dealing with grief and loss and depression.

At University Sand and Gravel in Brooktondale, NY, there were mountains and mountains of rocks. Scooped up and lifted onto conveyor belts, rocks and stones were sorted and then dropped into huge piles. Walking around them on a hot sunny day, I was reminded of how my grief had felt: endless, heavy, hard, cold. Pummeling. My thoughts turned to mining accidents and death by avalanche. But there was also something jolly about the intermingling of the almost-blue momma-bear, poppa-bear, and baby-bear sized boulders. I imagined a moonscape.

 

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