Warning: science-geek alert!
Over the last few days I have been looking at my metaphoric ‘portrait’ of the COVID-19 portrait I had posted earlier. Hmmmm, the resulting photograph just did not seem ‘evil’ enough, even if we know something like a virus or a bacteria is not necessary ‘evil’, but these little buggers can wreck dangerous havoc in the human body. So I felt a do-over was deemed necessary.
One aspect that I did not think was readily visible in the first version was the color fringing on the highlights that connotated the virus’s cellular wall structure. So I selected a photograph that had better delineation of that characteristic, then tweaked the image to place even more emphasis on this fringe colors.
The other aspect I want to include is the internal human landscape to place this virus into an environmental context, taking even more liberties. One thing that the scientist have recently found, that unlike the common flu virus which attacks the pulmonary system of the lungs, there is a lot of mounting evidence that COVID-19 branches out into the cardiovascular system, which is both very unique and even more terrifying. The COVID-19 is being found through the cardiovascular system, usually attaching to the ACE2 receptors, which regulates inflammation within the body. Thus with the ACE2 receptor blocked the circulatory inflammation goes unchecked and really bad things start to happen everywhere in the body. (this is where I should reveal that the drug I am working on does help regulate inflammation which is why we have working sometime seven days a week). Thus I wanted to include an ambiguous looking environmental landscape that could be representative of the cardiovascular system for my metaphoric portrait of COVID-19
I also tweaked the contrast and tonalities to create a darker space and as a result I think the photograph provides more of a presence of something ‘evil’. For me, mission accomplished as I really like this second version of my organic abstraction of COVID-19 much better. Hope you agree.
Cheers & stay safe,
Doug
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My other exhibitions and workshops:
The Photographers Eye’s gallery exhibition, Living and Photographing in the Time of COVID-19, group virtual exhibition that includes two of my diptychs from the series A Developing Crisis. This online exhibition is from May 8th through August 1st, 2020.
Medium Photo 2020 Workshop: Developing a Creative Book workshop that I will be leading, is now rescheduled for September 24 – 27th, 2020, a four-day extended weekend workshop in San Diego.
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Featured artwork; Fresnel Coefficients 5613 (Quantum Elements), copyright 2020, Douglas Stockdale
Singular Images 