BRANDscapes

• Prize
• Photographer
  Stuart Sperling, United States

BRANDscapes is a series of modern micro Western landscape
photographs: stereoscopic 3D macro images of shiny, marketing-
phrase-covered litter objects found decaying in the flow of the
ocean's edge.

I came upon these objects, in their natural settings, with the
fascination and exhilaration of an archaeologist. In bringing my eyes
to the ground, I was surprised at how simply and efficiently these
tiny scenes conveyed essential qualities of larger-scale phenomena.
It seems that the currents we observe in our society and
environment from the wide viewpoint of our daily lives can also be
found to have complexity (in a fractal-scaling manner) down at this
‘microcosmic’ level. From their packagings' humorous spelling and
outlandish graphic design to the various acts of refuse and discard
that brought them to where I found them, these objects speak
powerfully about our manners of relating to each other, to our bodies
& psyches, and to our environment. They tell stories of our
economics, our nutrition, and our fascinations. Their processes of
decay, and their interactions with the land around them, display both
the gnarled and the sublime flow patterns of the natural world. Each
object was photographed in the moment it was discovered.

Objects were photographed as found, undisturbed, as still lives.
Originals are full-frame stereo-pair film chromes.

MFA, University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts
BA, University of Pennsylvania (through Annenberg School for Communication)