Five Peripheral Projects
Studies for "An Imaginary Book"
Studies for "An Imaginary Book"
Introduction
All of the peripheral projects were completed before I began work on the sixth core project, Infinite Beauty. I thought of these projects as experimental studies; I wanted to see what would happen if I applied the Four-fold symmetrical picture-making process to images from earlier completed bodies of work. I wondered:
All of the peripheral projects were completed before I began work on the sixth core project, Infinite Beauty. I thought of these projects as experimental studies; I wanted to see what would happen if I applied the Four-fold symmetrical picture-making process to images from earlier completed bodies of work. I wondered:
"Would the new transformed images have their own validity in relation to the integrity of the original, earlier works?"
"Could the Four-fold process applied to older photographs, with their originating intentions and conceptual frameworks, yield new meanings or symbolic potentiality?"
Though surely the peripheral projects are not as important to me compared to the core set of projects, many of these images in their newly transformed state are, for me, very beautiful and evocative, and in that sense not "peripheral" at all. The projects are only in the way that they stand outside of the more autonomous, direct and spontaneous creative flow that manifested the nine core projects for "An Imaginary Book." Truly speaking, it seems to me the book as a whole and each of its core projects came into being with a creative life of its very own. See my Preface. The core projects are listed below.
I used several of the peripheral project images as source images for the Infinite Beauty project; and then I used some of those Infinite Beauty photographs for the Ta'wil project.
Returning to earlier images and re-vising them, transforming them, making them new in some way, has been an important part of my creative process for many years. For example my project Studies 1994-2000 is a large body of work dedicated to the idea of re-vision. Interestingly, some of those images have undergone yet another order of transformation in the peripheral project: Four-fold Symmetrical Studies & Thing-Centered Photographs.
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Windswept Symmetrical Photographs Click here to visit the project
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"An Imaginary Book"
The Complete Collection of
Photography Projects inspired by
Islamic Sacred Art and Sacred Knowledge
Preface to "An Imaginary Book"
The Nine Core Projects:
Five Peripheral Projects
Also
Sacred Art, Sacred Knowledge Excerpts from the writings of Islamic Scholars
About Steven D. Foster
Welcome Page to The Departing Landscape website which includes the complete hyperlinked listing of my online photography projects dating back to the 1960's, my resume, contact information, and more.
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