The Sleepwalkers
Terry Baker
printed on Giclée Epson Semi-Gloss
Standing directly underneath the centre of Anish Kapoor's 'Cloud Gate' sculpture in Chicago's Millennium park, the photograph was taken looking vertically upwards at the curved base of this beautiful structure. Everything reflected in the bright, polished steel surface is distorted into fantastical, elongated shapes within a surreal, dreamlike landscape. The viewer is surrounded by a world that resembles a painting by the French surrealist, Yves Tanguy. The photograph was consigned to Photoshop and edited to augment the phantasmagorical qualities of the image. The 'unsharp mask' was applied generously to increase the feeling of unreality and all the colours were heavily saturated, again to exaggerate this bizarre, alien world. By dint of careful inspection even the author of this image can be seen, camera pointing upwards, a sleepwalker trapped in a world of which Salvador Dali himself would have approved.
