Monochrome Photographer of the Year 2014 (professional)
ENTRY DESCRIPTION
Series statement:
This photographic series is a visual voyage of metamorphosis into the subconscious waters of the mind. The ultimate metaphysical quest into the undercurrent of consciousness.
Motivations for work:
The Omni-Phantasmic series has been a long-term project, spanning about four years now. The entire series was photographed at a abandoned rock quarry in North Carolina ; it's a secret spot only know to a couple of people that are adventurous enough to find it and swim there!
I first started the project shooting with an eight dollar fish tank and some dumbbells for buoyancy; basically because I didn't have money for a underwater housing. It gave me the spilt-level perspective that I wanted, but really lacked the control I needed. I had too many close calls floating around in the rock quarry; this forced me to later invest in a underwater bag.
Deeper reasons why i am Motivated
Eons ago we somehow begin this evolutionary track from virtually nothing but water. I think a lot about origins of thoughts pertaining to living creatures, and how to illustrate that abstract idea. I like the innate power of water to create and destroy in the same wave of energy. It's only from a human’s point of view that we label each one bad or good; helpful or useless. Our first 9 months we start floating in our mother; how strange to be floating in a container inside a human body that is also made from water. How powerful is that; if we could remove the memory of what that water had been apart of before it started forming a fetal's organs. Could it have flooded a valley of dinosaurs, been the urine of Jesus, or the fluid of a dragonfly's eye?
AUTHOR
Neil Craver quickly became mesmerized by the creation process as a young boy. Beginning as an abstract painter and figurative sculptor, his motivation grew from an interest in chroma and psychophysical effects of these stimuli acting upon his five known senses. His creations are the exploration of his inner facilities; in the pursuit of knowledge expressing “original thoughts”. Photography holds all the intrinsic values of all the other arts but differs in the fact that it’s the foundation of existence.
“Nothing can exist without the photon and every aspect is controlled by it’s usage.”
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