Shanghai moonshine
Terry Baker
printed on Giclée Epson Semi-Gloss
This triptych derives from three photographs taken in Shanghai during a road trip in China in 2006. The triptych is not so much about the buildings themselves, interesting as they are, but in the powerful graphic quality they display in juxtaposition with each other. This is definitely not meant to be a record of any particular building; rather it is a piece of graphic artwork, made even more so by rendering it in monochrome, deliberately heightening the contrast, and inverting the sky to jet black. The image was then taken even further from any semblance of reality by inserting the moon, in its different phases, into each of the three sections. Though loosely based on photos taken in Shanghai this is a piece of artwork in its own right, with its own identity. Even the monochrome has its purpose, for, even in the brightest moonlight, the human eye cannot resolve colour.