The tools at Carl Warner’s disposal in making his amazing landscapes vary and can include anything from clothing to nuts and bolts to office supplies. In a food market, during a time when his advertising photography career wasn’t going anywhere, he got the idea for his “Foodscapes.” Those images are often employed in advertising and commercial campaigns.
Warner more recently found inspiration in Zabriskie Point’s scenes of rocky, dusty terrain and nude bodies. The Michelangelo Antonioni film influenced Warner’s “Bodyscapes,” about which he says, “I was fascinated by the relationship between body and landscape, and I have always been looking at my own body in terms of its form as something structural and sculptural.”
Warner says food isn’t as limited as the human body in the types of shapes and angles it can make. “It [the body] is less versatile, but it is often the case that having some restriction pushes you harder creatively, which makes it all a worthwhile challenge,” said Warner. To add the sky, a lone, featured shot of a torso or back in an image requires only a little digital manipulation, whereas shots that employ multiple body parts involve a more complicated process (mostly stitching together multiple shots of the same subject to compose a scene).
Said Warner, “I know people would love these to be made with many different bodies, but doing this would mean having different skin tones, which would lose the sense of continuity within the landscape. I also like the fact that it is all made from one individual, as it offers an aspect of alternative portraiture and becomes a more intimate connection with the subject.”
All images ©Carl Warner | Read more on his website
