Return to the Mountains of East Texas (There Are No Mountains in East Texas)

The night is my canvas: since 2013 I have explored nature areas and nearby places at night – mainly in Texas – via a technique known as light painting photography. During long exposures I selectively stroke the landscape with light beams hoping to reveal the uncommon potential of common scenes and visions of the world as otherworldly. Using lights of different color temperatures and extensive post-processing, I expressionistically stylize my photos to depict what was in my mind’s eye. And to me, this transformation offers a visual metaphor to a psychological concept: Things can seem different if seen in a different light (so to speak) – the concept of “cognitive reframing.” This current project (a subseries of my “Vibrant Night” body of work) challenges viewers – as its title implies – to ponder the type of reality and meaning of information provided by a photograph. Indeed, there are hints throughout the photos that things may not be what they seem, and at the end, the perspective shifts so viewers might discover the physical reality of what they have been shown. Here, the surreal images of “the ‘mountains’ of East Texas,” are actually -- [SPOILER ALERT] --… piles of mud from surface mining – most no more than 10 – 20 feet high! Hopefully, the irony between the otherworldly beauty and the real world risks vs benefits of what is depicted can provoke thought. This is one of my favorite subseries from its encompassing body of work (“Vibrant Night”) not only because viewers have found it enigmatic and visually striking, but also because no other subseries better expresses the central conceptual and psychological theme (“cognitive reframing”) behind “Vibrant Night.” And aesthetically, mountains have always enchanted me. I was please to find a way to conjure them up, if only in my mind for now. Thus, I have returned to the area in 2020 and continued to add more to this still recent subseries [“The Mountains of East Texas (There Are No Mountains in East Texas)”]. Ten previous images can be seen at my portfolio site, www.LensCulture.com/ron-levy The images included in the current offering are all new. This additional set mostly has the sense of a night journey thru an especially surreal “badlands.” (As in my first set, there is a “light of day” reveal at the end of what these “mountains” actually are.) Unlike many other fine art landscape photographers, I do not build or composite these “mountains,” but rather rely on creating illusions based on perspective, scale, and light painting techniques combined with post-processing dramatizations mainly of tone and color.