Poseidon Parody

This is what can happen when the Weekly Challenge goes off the rails.

I’ve been struggling this week; walking along water edges, unable to find much that both interests me and fits the WC#579 criteria. Spring is late in Chicagoland, and necessity being the mother of invention, I recalled some work by Fred Berg, a photographer acquaintance from the past who lives in Germany, and this image occurred to me; admittedly near, and perhaps over the edge, but it was fun; so after Fred Berg.

The ancient Greeks, lacking our profound scientific understanding, explained nature through a mythic narrative. Poseidon, and his brother Zeus, were grandsons of Uranus and Gaia, the Sky Father and Earth Mother. I found the driftwood Wednesday at water’s edge of Big Rock Quarry and without moving it, added the remaining four elements to express a scene in which Poseidon, a merman with domain over the waters, discusses with mermaid Amphitrite the possible use of one of his Ketos sea monsters to punish the humans living in Troy.

Last night the wife and I attended a lecture on the Higgs Boson at Fermilab, and my take-away was that if humans are still here 2500 years from now, Gaia permitting, today’s best scientific understanding of nature will likely seem as fatuous to them as the mythic theories of ancient Greece seem to us now, 2500 years later. Yet for them this was the unseen reality underlying the natural world in which they lived.

Pentax K-5, Tamron 90mm macro @ 1:2 / 0.56X, f/11, ISO 80, off camera manual fill flash, Zerene PMax from focus stack of seven. Action figures by Toob® “Mythical Realms”, Safari Ltd. Abolone shell was a gift from my mother..

Critique welcome, as always.