Creationem-photography: Shiva pose posted in Illiterate Magazine online

The Shiva Pose by Paul Grant (follower of Basho)

This is from a collection of works that I made (6) for a group show called “Bike Art” held at Altered Esthetics's in Minneapolis Minnesota . All the art in the show had to have bicycles in it. Each of my works showed people doing yoga poses while on bicycles.

Each image begins as a photograph and then undergoes transformation using Photoshop, then reprinted, the new image undergoes transformation using pastels, then is scanned - and printed again as a photograph.

The process is to create a `work’ , rather than just take a photograph (which is capturing an image). I call this concept  of creating a `work’, using a camera as only one tool in a process and not the end means : “creationem-photography”.

In my classification system there are three uses for a cameras ability to capture:

1.A photograph is a predetermined picture, where there is forethought and, perhaps,  posing. The photograph is a capture of physical reality in time and space.

2. A snapshot, which is a happenstance picture . Where the camera is used to record something not specifically planned on. The snapshot is a capture of physical reality in time and space..

3. Creationem-photography, which is the using of either a photograph or a snapshot and manipulating it to create something new and different and unreal.

I do not judge any of the classifications to be higher or lower. The sucess of each process can only be judged by the final work. I would be interested to hear other peoples views about  this.

The friend who posed for the original `photograph’ was 7 months pregnant.