
This is a special post to wish my friend Ergun, and my wife Jan happy birthday.
Junk Colors Over Time
A week ago, on a nice fall day, I revisited the junkyard in North Smithfield, North Smithfield Auto Recycling. It was still filled with dead cars which are piled 4-5 high at some places and gave the appearance as if nothing were moving. Quite the contrary, this round I saw as many, if not more, dead cars, but the clusters of cars have changed. Compared to my earlier visit on a hot summer day, it was a lot more comfortable, and I wandered slowly looking for patterns created by forces of ages and nature.
One of the finds was an International Harvester truck with hues as if the fall foliage has melted and dripped its paint on this old one. The other find was a trunk lid belonging to a much newer car, say 70’s, but time and nature had been equally merciless on it, creating beautiful patterns.
Orderly Patterns
It was remarkable to see the colors and patterns created, by nature over the years, all around. As I said when I wrote the opening pieces of one of the Great Salt Lake folios, nature, using seemingly chaotic processes seem to create orderly patterns which are compositionally sound. Many a painter would love to be able to create artwork like those created by these forces.
The trunk lid patterns exemplify an interesting color concept called “simultaneous contrast” when opposite colors having similar luminosities are adjacent to each other, like yellow and blue or green and red. On the lid, orange-yellows against the faded blue intensify each color to be perceived more strongly than they actually are. If you stare at some of the patterns where the colors and luminosities are just right, you will feel your eye having difficulty resting on a single spot and jumping around as if the pattern of colors is vibrating.
Here is the collection featuring the colors of time.
Binnaz MElin
Konuşmamızın hemen ardından gördük senin yeni yazını ve resimleri. Daha Ergun bakmadı resimlere. Ben çok beğendim. Yorumu Ergun’a bırakıyorum. Eline sağlık, iyi geceler.
A. Cemal Ekin
Evet, guzel fotograflar cikti dogrusu. Yorum bekleriz.
James Turner
Cemal, those images are awesome. I especially like the rusted rear of the “looks like mid 1940’s auto with the broken rear window. It is as if I am looking into the eye of time.
A. Cemal Ekin
Thanks Jim, it was a good experience. The shattered glass window belonged to the Studebaker I mentioned in the writing. I can visit that place again and again and come up with different photographs.