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streaker

WHEN PRESENTED WITH A CAMERA, most people tend to hold it upright with the lens roughly parallel to the ground. Winogrand and the snapshot aesthetic, along with the popularity of wide angle lenses, have loosened things up a bit. Still the vast majority of photos made by professionals and amateurs alike are taken with the camera body virtually level. This is not the only reason that the vast majority of photos are boring, but it certainly doesn't help. Why hold the camera level for every picture? Why not tilt it? Probably because the effect can be jarring and disorienting. Try tweaking the wall art in your house for a few days and you'll see what I mean. Tilt all your pictures so that they are slightly askew. After a few days of this your aesthetic sense will be frazzled. This is exactly the effect I'm looking for in TILT.

The photos in TILT are taken from various tilted angles, from slightly askew to totally vertical. The one thing you won't find is an even horizon line running across the center. Apart from that, they cover a wide range of subject matter, just basically stuff that I've encountered on an everyday basis around town. I use a swinglens panoramic camera which covers 136 degrees side to side. The camera draws a wide range of material into one image. When the camera is tilted the lens sweeps across objects at various levels and distances, often producing a total hodgepodge. And not just any level hodgepodge. A tilted nervewracking hodgepodge.

Tilt last update: May 2004