Dean M. Chriss
Photography
Life in a Vertical Domain, Triptych
(Click image to enlarge)
This triptych shows three incredibly steep walls of the
Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River. This nearly vertical terrain is composed
of crumbling nutrient poor soils yet bits of life hang on and survive there. I have always found the
impossibly steep forms fascinating, especially when they seem to float weightlessly in fog
or haze. These images were captured with long lenses to
compress perspective and rendered in monochrome on a warm mat surfaced cotton
paper.
The
photograph that began this triptych project is on the far right. I
liked the photo but its original interpretation did not convey the airy ethereal feeling I
wanted so it was not printed. Two years later while
visiting a museum I saw a
scroll painting of similar terrain by the Chinese painter Fu Baoshi. It had exactly the feeling I
was trying to convey. I could hardly wait to start work on a
photographic print in a similar style with some adaptations of my own. Faded
edges gave the images a much "lighter" feel and a fine line where the edges
of the original image used to be
anchored it in space without detracting from the feeling I was
trying to convey. The photograph on the far right is available separately.
It can be seen by itself in greater detail
here.
I was completely satisfied with the result but then realized a triptych would
help to convey the enormous breadth of the canyon
in addition to its
steep vertical aspects.
It took hundreds of additional photographs made over the next two years to
create two more images that worked nicely with the original.