Taffmeister. “Overshadowed”

This is a powerfully evocative photograph, perfectly composed. The foreground of the skeletal remains of an earlier machinery, looking ominously diseased and dangerous, which gave rise to shiny edifices like the one seen in the background. Sunlight trying to pierce through dark clouds suggestive of funereal smoke. What progress at what price? the piece seems to be asking. The photograph prompts a memory of the fold out cover of Led Zeppelin’s fourth album – the photo of a framed photo of a hermit hauling sticks on his back, seemingly hanging on a living room wall. But upon being seen whole, the security of a cottage living room is vanished, the wall revealed to be the last standing of a destroyed domicile, open to the elements, a modern city high-rise looming in the distance. That photo was more cool in its cleverness than unnerving. The composition is recalled in “Overshadowed,” but the sun was still shining in the former photo. Those were, after all, halcyon days for rock ‘n’ roll. This latter photo, the Taffmeister vision, is far darker, far more unnerving, far more ominous. An apt reflection of our darker times. Just beautiful.