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Tiger Swallowtails Butterfly and Stain-Glass Window
by Yadi Romero
See Tiger Swallowtail Manipulated Images I and and Tiger Swallowtail Manipulated Images II and Outline for the outline and images that accompany this essay
When an original photograph is manipulated, its meaning is either modify or totally changed. The comparison I made of the wonders of nature captured by a vivid colorful photograph of a Tiger Swallowtails butterfly-Papilo Demodocus on an astonishing red flower, and the stain-glass window image of the same butterfly, shows the way a manipulation of any source strips its remarkable beauty, reality, and power of the original picture.
Nature's beauty in the natural world is aesthetically pleasing. This photo of the Tiger swallowtails on a red flower on its natural state, surprises me by its remarkable beauty. You can see how nature is reveal, how attractive and breathtaking it could be, how it can transport you to another world, a world of natural magnificence. It tells you the story of life, of how nature takes care of itself with its natural resources making nature a beautiful world with all of its phenomena. The original photograph manipulated to look like a stain-glass window takes away the natural splendor that was revealed in the original. It has taking away what nature created or nature intended. It is not as attractive, but it still kept some of its loveliness. It is hard for it to tell you a story because you concentrate on the stain-glass window rather than the Swallowtails. Once you realized what the figure on the window is, it has already taken away the meaning, and all you see on the window is the image of an ordinary butterfly on a flower. The window has disguised and denied their existence. The beauty of nature is no longer meaningful, what has become meaningful is the window.
The perspective of reality is the natural world as it is, in its natural state; it is actual rather than artificial. Realism is portrayed in the photograph as we see a real butterfly on an actual red flower, the spider web underneath the petals untouched by the human hand but captured in its reality. The radiant colors of the Tiger Swallowtails wings, the contrast of yellow and black stripes verifies its name, making it a fact rather than ostensible. You can see the details of it all giving it realness. It conveys natural truth in a way that you could almost touch it. In the original photo art imitates nature, nature is life and life is a particular aspect of existence. The photo of the stain-glass window is a distorted image of the original, it does not express reality, and it merely imitates the real butterfly on a flower. You can see the outline not as defined as the original. The colors are there but are not helping it look real, not stating life. The green overtakes the representation not letting the other colors show what they are capable of doing for the figure. The image is no longer perceived as true and exclusive, the object, or thing is perceived as a stain-glass window, and where there is no truth exposed here only an illusion. The stain-glass window has acquired a new kind of impressiveness, not because of what it shows-not because of the realism of the image. It has become impressive, mysterious because of what it is, a stain-glass window.
The impact caused by a powerful piece of art is unique and varies from person to person, as is the definition of art. Our perception or appreciation of an image depends upon our own way of seeing it. In my comparison of the two images I observed the impact the photographs had on two different people. I first showed the stain-glass window to my ten-years old son, ReJon. He looked at it and his first reaction was, that it looked liked a stain-glass craft he made in summer camp. He said it was nice and then asked what the figure was. He did not seen sure of the image. Then I showed him the original photo, his first reaction was of a gasp follow by "oh, mom it is so beautiful, where did you get it? Can I have a butterfly?" He seen taken and moved by it. I then showed the distorted picture to my seventeen-year old sister, she said that it was beautiful, that it express something but was not quite sure, she had to look at it hard to abstract what it was and concluded that it showed how art could imitate life but not well recreated in this case. Then I proceeded by showing her the original, the effect it had on her was similar with my son. She gasped and stated that it was so realistic, so natural that it was an instant impression, and no imagination was needed to made-up the outline. At first sight of this tiger swallowtails captured on this photo, it promoted a striking gasping effect from its two viewers. It gave an instant impression of nature as its best. The imagination was not needed to conclude that it influenced a powerful force, the power of nature itself. The stain-glass image did not capture the interest of its spectators as much as the original did. It suggested very little to the viewer. The manipulation of its original has made it loose its power in a significant way. It stripped the force and impression from Its original state. The uniqueness of the original was taken away leaving a powerless stain window.
As stated before when an original photograph is manipulated, it's meaning is either modified or totally changed, manipulation of any source strips its remarkable beauty, reality, and power of the original picture. And in this case the manipulation of the photograph disguised and denied the existence, and it merely imitated the real butterfly on a flower. It stripped the force and impression from its original state leaving it powerless. As a result its meaning changed, or more exactly, its meaning multiplied and fragmented into many meanings not conveying the natural truth.
Copyright (c) 2002 by Yadi Romero
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