From xazor.com

 I've always included a little forced perspective in my work. That's the common photo hobbyist's trick of mixing near and far and letting the camera flatten out the image. The result is usually a joke about scale, as above. But photographers and artists have used it in other ways, as below.

John Pfahl

Esther Stocker

George Rousse

Pelle Cass (me!)

And here's a recent image of mine that I did at a recent residency. One of the notable features of the examples above, excepting the snapshot of the helicopter, is the tidiness and precision of the images. I wanted to do something shaggier, I guess. Something where you can see how it's done and see some mistakes, but the trick still works. I've also inverted a couple of other things: the margins contain my alterations, and I've used 3-D materials to make them. Click images to enlarge.

I Was My Only Option

I was at an artist's residency (Yaddo, in Saratoga Springs) in January, and started a whole new thing. I started doing self-portraits, something swore I'd never do. I hold the whole genre in contempt. All those imitation Cindy Shermans. Irritating, self-absorbed artists like Laurel Nakadate and on and on. Well, it's official. Now I like them all, for the most important, compelling of all reasons: I'm doing self-portraits myself! It's fun! Now I can practice sucking my stomach in! Holding my shoulders back! Oh, the vanity! There was nobody else to use as a model at the residency, which strictly enforces "quiet hours," during which you can't approach another resident to beg them to come pose for a minute. Besides, they are all pretty busy with there own work. I was my only option!

Note: I haven't really been blogging much for the past year or so. My plan is write a lot more in the coming months. In that spirit, I redesigned and renamed the blog more in accord with my new vanity. Goodbye, Brand New Unfinished Projects. Hello, Pelle Cass, the blog. (I thought about naming it Mr. Pelacus, which I have been called occasionally when people read my first and last name as one. I've also been called Pearl Katz, Pelé, and many other minor variants. My favorite is, although it wasn't at the time during middle school, "Dictionary." In any case, I was more often called "Poindexter" for my manly glasses and bold, decisive mien.)