kylejthompson:
Sinking Captain on Flickr.
Why did I reblog ? Yesterday I did something I rarely do : I went on Tumblr spotlight page to find new photographers. I usually don’t do that because I like discovering people by coincidence. You know I prefer finding new photographers following my travels throughout other photographers’ sites, but since I didn’t find anything after some time, I decided to go to the spotlight page with few hope to find someone “new”. And surprisingly I did or I’d rather say that so much time flew away since I last went to this page that it was pretty obvious to find new people..
That is how I discovered Kyle Thompson, and I am really happy I did find him. You know when I decide to follow a photographer it doesn’t take me too much time : I take a look to the first three pages and according to what I see I follow or not the artist. I don’t have any idea of what I will write on the photographer, but usually when I follow someone I am pretty sure that after doing that I’ll be writing something on him/her.The process can take one night like few weeks, it depends on how much I manage to get into the photographer universe.
It seems that Kyle universe mesmerized me quite a lot since I am here writing a piece on him. I actually decided to follow him just because of one thing : his self portraits. I consider them therapeutic both for the photographer and their viewers, and I consider them even more like that if the photographer manage to bring you in an other world.And guess what, Kyle just does that.
Today, browsing his Tumblr an other time, I realized that what makes me love his pictures even more are the relationship he has with his followers, he takes time to answer their questions and is very genuine and down to earth when doing it. An other thing that I appreciate is that Kyle invites us to picture his creation process thanks to his sketches and words.
What I’m seeing. I don’t think I would have noticed this picture if not for these boats as they are the very reason why I came to love this image. The setting chosen by Kyle is non other than a mere roadside. A mere roadside that Kyle succeeded in turning into a magical scene thanks to these boats. What I find fantastic about this picture is that every element present in it are from our real world but yet the scene looks surreal.
The picture is called “The sinking captain”, and I do think it makes sense eventhough the so-called captain is giant compared to his fleet. I believe Kyle likes his viewers to travel and to imagine. As for me while looking at this picture I thought about so many stories I read when I was a child, beginning from “Treasure Island” by Stevenson to “Gulliver’s travels” by Swift. The two elements that reminded me these two books are the boats and Kyle huge height difference with them.
The scene depicts a shipwreck and yet the usual image of grief that we associate it with doesn’t appear to my mind, instead I have a feeling of quietness. I believe that what makes a photographer an artist is the ability to make the most depressing or simplest things of our everyday lives magical. And I think Kyle is doing so by creating such surreal pictures.
I still have to read the answers Kyle gave to his followers so I’m off for some hours of reading and being mesmerized !