Adult swim uses a bunch of those for their inter-show cards

cause charles is mentally feeble?

freaks me the hell out, too. it's like that feeling when you lay down on a roof and stare up at the open sky and feel like you're going to fall up.

There are no boobies in them?

@3 Wait...what? What are you on and where can I get some?

Because the pictures are too focused for his scattershot approach towards dissonant existence?

Because they are based on reality? (and yeah, there's no boobies/supermodel/natalie merchant/amanda knox on view).

Tilt-shift photography is the opposite of James Casebere's photographs of miniature, completely empty rooms shot to look bigger than they really are. Charles is loyal to only one kind of altered perception.

It's like seeing action figures modeled after real people. You think, "Hey, I recognize that person," but at the same time you're thinking, "That's a doll." Real life / doll / real life: It's this weird perspective shifty thing. Makes me feel funny.

That said, I love the tilt shift pictures.

concrete?

@9 I believe that's called the "Uncanny Valley":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley

Appropriate that zombies are the deepest point of the valley and here it's Halloween...

they're frightening because they're reminiscent of the sand castles or lego cities we all used to build and then destroy/watch be destroyed by forces much, much larger than them. A reminder of the essential transience of our existence.

80 years on this earth is really no longer or more consequential than 80 minutes, to put it more deppressingly

Good old tilt-shift. 'Course, you can do the same with a fairly simple shop/gimp trick. Flickr has a bunch of them: http://www.flickr.com/groups/tilt-shift-fakes/

I actually don't always like the tilt shifts (and the simply-done fakes) because they're not accurate; the focus should be based on the object's distance, not by vertical position in the picture. Some people do it right, though.

the obvious aspect that he hasn't been able to remove is the motion of water in his photos. In both these cases the flow of water tattles on what he's trying to do,.

I would say it's due to his tenuous grip on reality and his inability to distinguish between metaphorical and literal statements.

@15, you're one of those assholes that yells out discontinuities at movie theaters, aren't you.

chaz's life is one big discontinuity

Simulacra!

#13: Thanks for the link. I've been a fan of tilt-shift for awhile but I'm too scared of fucking up my gear to try it myself, so this way I can fake it. YAY!

These look like Lori Nix photos - except she does make tiny models and photographs them. I adore her work, thanks for letting me know about this.

Abby's right.

You can never have enough Natalie Merchant though.

@11: Veeery interesting. Now I can impress my friends with a seasonally appropriate Fact Of The Day. Thanks!

@18: Mimesis!

because they make man look like an ant. an ant that can be crushed in any moment. hence they evoke an existential crisis for Charles, as they remind him of his own fragile mortality as man.

and there are no visible boobies to comfort him...distract him, that is.