Large scale installations blur the line between real and photographed

In this project, entitled Miroirs aux alouettes, Oliver Lovey creates illusions aiming  to immerse the viewer in another world, and meanwhile to start a reflexion on the photographic medium.

In my Miroirs aux Alouettes series, begun in 2016, I create impossible images, close to surrealism, by placing stickers in public or an exhibition space. By confusing the real and its double, I question the limits of image and representation. I revisit the notion of perspective, trompe-l’oeil and mise-en-abyme. Originally thought to be photographs, my images also work as installations.

—Olivier Lovey, Martigny, Switzerland

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Picturesque Inle Lake in Myanmar

Inle Lake in Myanmar is famous for its floating villages and gardens and the unique way of life of the local people. Local fishermen are known for practicing a distinctive rowing style which involves standing at the stern on one leg and wrapping the other leg around the oar. This unique style evolved out of necessity as the lake is covered by reeds and floating plants, making it difficult to see above them while sitting. Standing provides the rower with a view beyond the reeds. In addition to fishing, locals grow vegetables and fruit in large gardens that float on the surface of the lake.  The farmers gather up lake-bottom weeds from the deeper parts of the lake, bring them back in boats and make them into floating beds in their garden areas, anchored by bamboo poles. These gardens rise and fall with changes in the water level, and so are resistant to flooding. Almost all the houses in the village on the lake itself sit on stilts and are made of woven bamboo.
info wikipedia

By Edorta Subijana – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

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Matisi grottoes – A mountain carved into a temple

The Matisi Grottoes are Buddhist cave temples in the administrative region of the Mati Tibetan community in the Chinese province of Gansu. It is a large group of different cave complexes that are scattered over 30 square kilometers in the northern foothills of the Qilian Mountains. The best accessible site is approximately 65 kilometers south of Zhangye city center. The first caves were dug about 1,600 years ago. It is named after the Mati Monastery (Mǎtísì), which literally means “Horse Hoof Monastery”. According to Chinese legend, the god Erlang stopped here so that his horse could rest. Tibetan tradition, however, attributes the horse’s hoof , which is seen as an imprint in a rock, to the riding horse of the famous hero king Gesar. The section of the cliff carved out as a pagoda is the most imposing part of Mati Si. It’s nearly 200 feet  in height. It’s divided into seven floors and houses seven grottoes, an intricate set of tunnels, and 200 Buddha statues.

Von Immanuel Giel – Eigenes Werk, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

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Maly Semyachik: a volcano with a turquoise crater lake

Maly Semyachik is a stratovolcano located in the eastern part of Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia. A hot, acidic crater lake fills the historically active Troitsky Crater, which formed during a large explosive eruption  about 400 years ago. The water in the lake has an unusual bright turquoise color. It’s because the waters of the lake are poisonous due to the content of several types of acids and other chemical compounds.The water in the lake never freezes, even when everything is covered with a layer of ice and deep snow.

info source: wikipedia

By zarmel http://www.geodiversite.net/auteur2 – http://www.geodiversite.net/media191, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

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Via Krupp: a snake-like pathway on the island of Capri

On the Italian island of Capri, the most beautiful view is found on one of the world’s most beautiful footpaths. Via Krupp is a historic switchback paved footpath, connecting the Charterhouse of San Giacomo and the Gardens of Augustus area with Marina Piccola. The zigzagging Via Krupp, was carved into the island’s south coast between 1900 and 1902. Conceptualized by German industrialist Friedrich Krupp, the footpath was a connection for Krupp between his luxury hotel, Grand Hotel Quisisana, and Marina Piccola where his marine biology research vessel lay at anchor. Secretly however, this path also conveyed him to the Grotta di Fra Felice, a grotto where sex orgies with local youths took place. When the scandal surfaced, Krupp was asked to leave Italy in 1902. The path is surrounded by bushes of juniper and rosemary and covers an elevation difference of about 100 m.
info source: wikipedia

By Berthold Werner, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

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Moon bridges

A moon bridge is a highly-rounded arched pedestrian bridge associated with gardens especially in China and Japan, where the design originated. In many areas, moon bridges are purely decorative, but at one time this type of bridge was originally designed to allow pedestrians to cross canals while allowing the passage of barges beneath. When constructed using the climbing ascent and descent, it has the further advantage of not using space from the adjoining fields for approaches to the bridge. The visual effect of this bridge makes it a popular design for gardens, particularly those with water or small paths.
info source: wikipedia

Moon bridge in The Japanese garden at Huntington Gardens in San Marino, California.- By https://www.flickr.com/photos/randysonofrobert/ – https://www.flickr.com/photos/randysonofrobert/464791157/, CC BY 2.0, Link

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Isle of Pines: the closest island to Paradise

By René Moutouh – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

The Isle of Pines is an island in the Pacific Ocean, in the archipelago of New Caledonia. The Isle is nicknamed l’île la plus proche du paradis (“the closest island to Paradise”).
Melanesian people lived on the island for over 2000 years before the island was first visited by Europeans. Captain James Cook in 1774 saw the island and renamed it on his second voyage to New Zealand. Cook gave the island its name after seeing the tall native pines. He never disembarked onto the island, but as he saw signs of inhabitance (smoke) assumed it was inhabited. In the 1840s Protestant and Catholic missionaries arrived, along with merchants seeking sandalwood.
info source: wikipedia

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