Photoessay: The Dreamscape Project

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Sometimes – quite frequently, actually – I fin myself on an aircraft with not very much to do. I fly often enough and spend enough time in the air that I’m one of those people who will bother to try and find out the flight route in advance and pick the seat most conducive to photography on arrival or departure – assuming of course there isn’t an engine or wing in the way*. I’ve gotten some very satisfying images this way.

*Frequent travelers will know there’s always a tradeoff: the front of economy is usually blocked; the rear usually is noisy and has a lot of traffic en-route to galleys and toilets, and the view isn’t always clear because of the convection visible due to the engine exhaust heat. Or, you fly up front and land up bankrupt.

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I’m also fascinated by clouds: like trees and water, they’re fractal objects with endless variety that means you never get bored. One thing I’ve always wanted to do is try to create a consistent documentary of the clouds I see during the course of one flight; however, I’ve also always had challenges: dirty windows, wrong seat, poor weather, poor light, no clouds/ ugly clouds…but on one flight in late July, everything came together: I flew in the morning, with nicely directional light; I had a seat in the front of the plane thanks to some air miles, and we had a nice assortment of clouds. I also had a prototype Zeiss 1.4/85 Otus and a factory-fresh D810 – a perfect recipe to cut down a long haul flight (normally, I use them to create content for the site so long as I have power).

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I could have shot this series in color and made it as faithful to reality as possible; however, I wanted to convey a slightly otherworldly, timeless and yet surreal feeling: the kind of odd detachment from reality and feeling of being an observer in your own life that happens when you haven’t had enough sleep, feel jetlagged and slightly uncomfortable: In short, all of the things that happen to long distance travelers. There is no land visible in any of these: that’s deliberate, to minimize our brain’s ability to automatically assign orientation and scale to the scene. The clouds that pass by offer a momentary respite from that boredom and fatigue. They are light, ethereal, and free. We wish we could be them, if only for a moment. We cannot be, but we can dream – and there really isn’t much else to do on these journeys. The images have no names because they do not really have solid existence in our minds; the very temporary nature of clouds is akin to fleeting thoughts that don’t quite rise to the surface of consciousness. The series is presented in not chronological order, but rather an order of evolution: a sort of slow visual morphing to match the nature of the subject matter. The final image descends into the most homogenous yet detailed of the lot – a visualisation of entropy. MT

Individual images or a set from this series are available as limited edition 10×15” Ultraprints; please use this form to order or request a quote. The entire series was shot during the course of a single flight with a Nikon D810, Zeiss 1.4/85 Otus APO-Planar.

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Limited edition Ultraprints of these images and others are available from mingthein.gallery

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