Dr ROBERT ORGAN

 

THE WIZARD OF OZ 2013

 

 

 

 

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THE WIZARD OF OZ 2013

Rainbow

Land of Oz

Adventures along the Yellow Brick Road

Monkeys

Toto and the Lion's animal friends

The Tin Man and the Scarecrow

Dark forest

Spells

Emerald City

Munchkins' Ball

 

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The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” is a children’s novel written by L. Frank Baum in 1900.  It was already one of the best known stories in American culture before it was immortalized in the 1939 musical film, “The Wizard of Oz”, which starred Judy Garland.   Interest in the story remains unabated with recent high profile TV series searching for new talent to play in a revival of a stage musical.  There have also been recent prequels to the film.

This photographic project interprets various aspects of the story in series of photographs:

1.  Rainbow. 

The musical contains the song, “Over the Rainbow”.  A rainbow of course contains many colours and the film was famed for its use of Technicolor.  Twenty photographs reflecting a heightened use of colour or the isolation of a particular colour pay homage to these aspects. 

2.  Land of Oz. 

The Land of Oz is essentially an imaginary place.  An attempt is made to capture this sense of a dream-like, strange, un-natural place in twenty photographs using natural landscapes augmented with sculptures, unusual buildings or distorted perspectives.

3.  Adventures along the yellow brick road. 

Dorothy, the main character in The Wizard of Oz, follows a yellow brick road to find the wizard.  Along the road, she meets various characters and has many adventures.  A series of forty black and white photographs represents this journey.  There is a sequence to the series:  entering the road, meeting interesting characters, resting, watching events, playing, dealing with challenges and taking place in battles.

4.  Monkeys. 

The winged monkeys kidnap Toto and Dorothy on their way to the Wicked Witch’s Castle.  The sense of mischief often associated with monkeys is captured in a series of twenty photographs of the unique “snow monkeys”  that bathe in the hot springs above the city of Nagano in Japan.

5.  Toto and the lion’s animal friends. 

Mankind has always maintained a fascination and close bond with other animals. This includes the depiction of animals in sculpture and other media.  Imbuing other animals with human qualities is prevalent, not least within the story of The Wizard of Oz.  This theme is explored in a series of twenty photographs.

6.  The Tin Man and the Scarecrow. 

Twenty photographs of modern-day tin men and scarecrows are presented.

7.  Dark forest.  

The yellow brick road goes through the Dark Forest and is where Dorothy meets the Tin Man.  Twenty photographs of the natural landscape are presented.

8.  Spells. 

The Wizard of Oz is laden with hopes, messages and magic spells.  Twenty photographs of graffiti depict the hopes and thoughts of ordinary people.  Collages of multiple images, used previously by the photographer, are used again in part.

9.  Emerald City. 

The Wizard lives in the Emerald City.  Twenty photographs of urban landscapes and details of buildings are ordered to recreate the emotions that Dorothy and her friends would have experienced when approaching the Emerald City:  first seeing the city from afar, then seeing the individual buildings before examining the details that make each building special.  

10.  Munchkins’ ball. 

The Munchkins are the colourful characters that rejoice at the death of the Wicked Witch of the East.  At the end of the film, the lion, tin man and scarecrow receive their awards from the wizard.  The combination of award receiving and colourful characters are depicted in twenty photographs recoding the graduation ceremony at Soka University Hachioji, japan. 

All photographs were taken with digital cameras and processed digitally.

Click here or on themes on the left hand side of the screen to see the photographs