The first great European adventure story, The Odyssey by Homer, is being adapted again to the big screen, this time by Lionsgate. So far the project includes director Francis Lawrence and producer Nina Jacobson (of the Hunger Games movie adaptation fame), and writer Peter Craig (known for co-screenwriting The Town and Mockingjay Part 1 and Part 2). According to Deadline Hollywood, production is planned to begin early in 2016.
With the advances in visual effects technology, this adaptation will surely look grander and more epic than any preceding ones. I hope that the screenwriting will be great, too.
I just ran into a collection of photos of woods and other natural areas by photographer Ellie Davies. I thought many of the forest photos in particular looked magical or fairylike. Take a look:
The photos above come from her series Stars from 2014-2015. I couldn’t figure out how Davies made them. Turns out that they are composites of forest photos and Hubble images of the Milky Way, Omega Centauri, the Norma Galaxy, and embryonic stars in the Nebula NGC 346, provided by Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and NASA. Very neat!
Some of Davies’s past projects incorporate photoshopped elements, small-scale construction, or objects into the landscapes she photographs.
Ellie Davies: Smoke and Mirrors, 2010.Ellie Davies: Between the Trees, 2014.
Despite the man-made additions, the photos stay in an apparitional realm, playing with the otherwordly. And it’s intentional. In her artist’s statement, Davies writes:
“UK forests have been shaped by human processes over thousands of years and include ancient woodlands, timber forestry, wildlife reserves and protected Areas of Outstanding Natural [Beauty]. As such, the forest represents the confluence of nature, culture, and human activity. Forests are potent symbols in folklore, fairy tale and myth, places of enchantment and magic as well as of danger and mystery. In more recent history they have come to be associated with psychological states relating to the unconscious.
“Against this backdrop [my work] explores the ways in which identity is formed by the landscapes we live and grow up in. Making a variety of temporary and non-invasive interventions in the forest, my work places the viewer in the gap between reality and fantasy, creating spaces which encourage the viewer to re-evaluate the way in which their own relationship with the landscape is formed, the extent to which it is a product of cultural heritage or personal experience, and how this has been instrumental in their own identity.”
Co-Geeking 