The Teddy Bear

I know this is going to sound weird and maybe a bit crazy but I decided that I was going to set out and make a photo of a teddy bear. I wanted to get past the cute and cuddly and give the image a feel of torment and violence. My intention was to make a stop at the local Goodwill and purchase a teddy bear using the $2 I had in my wallet and upon finding one wearing a tacky Christmas sweater I did just that. The goal was to dirty and dismember this bear to get the look I was going for, but in looking for a place to start, I was lost. I had had it all worked out in my head to rip and tear apart the bear, remove an eye and the drench it in a puddle and cover it in dirt. Then it hit me looking into its eyes I was taken back to a time that I was a child and I valued my stuffed animals (mainly a little cream-colored dog that I referred to as “Puppy”)  and realized in my heart that I couldn’t do it. Maybe this bear had a child that looked up to it as I did to “Puppy” and who am I to destroy that? Who am I to end this imaginary life? You look at movies like Toy Story and it makes you wonder, what if?  So for me I had to put this bear in a place that I assumed it would best be suited alone, abandoned and in it’s darkest hour (even though this was shot at 10am.) Currently this bear has a place in the passenger seat of my car until I take it upstairs and put it with my other bears. I know it may seem like I rescued this bear but in all honesty it was the one that rescued me…

Technical data:

Film Capture w/ RZ67

Aperture: f/3.5

Shutter Speed: 1/250

ISO: 100 (Neopan Acros 100)

Off Camera Strobe

Filters: Cokin ND4 and Cokin 003 Red  

Scanned to 16x20 @300 ppi