Parakeets in the Produce

January 3, 2013 8:09 AM

"We cannot help but see animals from a human vantage point, and therefore in some sense all the works in the present exhibition are actually about us." Garden Fresh is a photo series featuring animals exploring a grocery store.
posted by quin (33 comments total)

"We cannot help but see animals from a human vantage point, and therefore in some sense all the works in the present exhibition are actually about us."

You know sometimes you can just say "Fuck it, I want to take a bunch of pictures of animals in a grocery store." No one is going to criticize.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:13 AM on January 3, 2013 [19 favorites]

Oh man that Animals Talking In All Caps guy doesn't even have to try anymore people are just giving it to him.
posted by The Whelk at 8:13 AM on January 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

I liked these pictures, but I feel like the artist's description was designed to make me hate them.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:16 AM on January 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

You like to eat fish, Pelican. FISH!
posted by Segundus at 8:16 AM on January 3, 2013

I'm trying to work out if that was all photoshopped or not. Some of those are pretty good if so.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:18 AM on January 3, 2013

That crow's about to fuckin CHOW DOWN I'm-a tell you WHAT.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:18 AM on January 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

Yes where are the photos of the animals looking at the food and then eating the food and then running away with all the food cause look, look at all the food.
posted by The Whelk at 8:18 AM on January 3, 2013 [6 favorites]

Yeah, but lets see them attempt to use the self-service checkout.
posted by bondcliff at 8:24 AM on January 3, 2013 [5 favorites]

I'm trying to work out if that was all photoshopped or not.

The artist's gallery on DeviantArt suggests that they are all photomanips.
posted by fight or flight at 8:28 AM on January 3, 2013

Damnit, I want a video like that cats in the IKEA commercial but instead of kittens in a furniture store it's a whole herd of deer let loose into a grocery. Watch them gambol and cavort and lie down on soft mountains of tissue paper!

Then we release the tiger.
posted by The Whelk at 8:30 AM on January 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

"Phil, clean up in produce please. Phil, pick up please. Phil? Phil ... it's poop."
posted by Pistache at 8:32 AM on January 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Those are some pretty obvious photoshops, which might be forgivable if the artist's statement was less turgid.
posted by echo target at 8:33 AM on January 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

The artist's gallery on DeviantArt suggests that they are all photomanips

Interesting. I just realized that I have a higher standard for realism in photoshopped stuff than I do in real photos.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:36 AM on January 3, 2013

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the market of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could 'shop thy fearful symmetry?
posted by Soliloquy at 8:44 AM on January 3, 2013 [5 favorites]

I think these look neat, although the parakeet one just looks like the Harris Teeter in North Carolina near where my husband went to high school. They had a bunch of birds in there too.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 8:52 AM on January 3, 2013

I liked the deer and zebra ones. We will likely see them ripped off for an ad soon.
posted by colie at 8:56 AM on January 3, 2013

... if this isn't a smartarse viral ad campaign already...
posted by colie at 8:57 AM on January 3, 2013

You know sometimes you can just say "Fuck it, I want to take a bunch of pictures of animals in a grocery store." No one is going to criticize.

You must be new here.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:58 AM on January 3, 2013 [3 favorites]

The grocery store I go to has sparrows (or chickadees or eagles or whatever those little birds are) living in the ceiling above the bulk food section. My thought on seeing them is always that their most outstanding characteristics are isolated as their ‘only’ characteristics. Or maybe that they're cute, and also that I'm glad the bins have lids.
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:04 AM on January 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

You can tell they're photoshopped because there's one with a swan in it. No way the photographer worked with a real swan in a grocery store. You can't work with swans. Swans are assholes.
posted by mr_roboto at 9:19 AM on January 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

Needs more cows in the meat section.
posted by blue_beetle at 9:41 AM on January 3, 2013

I likes it.
posted by sweetkid at 9:47 AM on January 3, 2013

Swans are assholes.

True, they're just like geese with film-star looks.

I have a friend who did a photo shoot with a goose. It shat on him and attacked him almost continuously for several hours.
posted by colie at 9:54 AM on January 3, 2013

" It shat on him and attacked him almost continuously for several hours...

That could refer to about 82.3% of the big names in the movie industry.... Although I've never head them referred to as a "goose", usually it's just "that idiot".
posted by HuronBob at 10:10 AM on January 3, 2013 [4 favorites]

I like the concept, but if I can put on my art-critic-slash-asshole hat, this would be really great if it were a bit more...raw? It's probably a necessary byproduct of photoshop, but the effect of blending the animals and the stuff in the store - both the dead food and the living food - gives the photos that shiny, plastic texture that's just offputting and fake. I think this concept could really kick ass with some better juxtaposition of the subjects.
posted by antonymous at 10:12 AM on January 3, 2013

When I was in high school I had a pet rabbit named Boophus. My friends and I would take him to Hy-Vee (grocery store) and set him in places - like on top of the beer display, or in the greeting cards, or in the produce, or behind a box of cereal, and then hide around the corner and video tape people's reactions when they were shopping and discovered a bunny just chilling there.

I think maybe it was a little mean to the bunny, but he also seemed to enjoy the adventure.
posted by Lutoslawski at 10:17 AM on January 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

This could have been a good idea, but the compositions are entirely static and the animals look exactly as alive as the food they've been photoshopped into.
posted by oneirodynia at 10:33 AM on January 3, 2013 [2 favorites]

I've always wanted to see a pack of dogs running amok in one of those fancy dog bakeries, you know, the ones with the little dog cookies under the glass.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:26 AM on January 3, 2013

I wonder if you could arrange to do this without photoshopping, if the proceeds went to the zoo or something. You could set up a fake grocery store and then just release animals in (perhaps one species at a time) and see what they do. Imagine the joy of the bunnies in the produce section.

In fact, somebody do this.
posted by joannemerriam at 12:37 PM on January 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I couldn't stop thinking about the logistics of this. Seems like you'd have to throw out the entire produce and meat sections worth of food, if not everything in the store, after parading animals through the place. But I do like the idea of setting up a fake grocery store to accomplish something similar.
posted by vytae at 1:49 PM on January 3, 2013

Yeah, I thought the interesting part was going to be how the animals are looking at or interacting with or eating the food. But they're not because they're not there, so it's not so interesting to look at.
posted by aubilenon at 3:14 PM on January 3, 2013 [1 favorite]

HuronBob: "" It shat on him and attacked him almost continuously for several hours...

That could refer to about 82.3% of the big names in the movie industry.... Although I've never head them referred to as a "goose", usually it's just "that idiot"."

"posted by HeronBob", surely.
posted by boo_radley at 3:16 PM on January 3, 2013

Yeah, but lets see them attempt to use the self-service checkout.

"Unexpected toucan in bagging area"
posted by atrazine at 6:23 AM on January 4, 2013 [4 favorites]