Something out of nothing #2 -

"Burning the Great Plains"
manipulated digital photograph by Mick Mather

It's time to execute a "Crazy Ivan" with this second in the series of work based on a very bad photograph that will appear tomorrow here as well as at Thursday Challenge ... wait for it!

Crazy Ivan -

"Two Women"
digitally manipulated torn paper collage

In Tom Clancy's novel, "The Hunt For Red October", there comes a point where Jack Ryan asks if the Russian Captain has pulled a Crazy Ivan yet. In military gamesmanship, this refers to a sudden 90-degree turn meant to discover and discourage another submarine from being a successful shadow. As it turns out, I did a Crazy Ivan of my own last night when I spotted some scraps of torn newspaper in the recycling bin - left over while clipping out a recent article in the local papers regarding the Totem Project in downtown Syracuse. Anyway, they were begging to be tossed onto the scanner bed and then run through the usual array here at the secret visual laboratory. It was fun, relaxing and it is what it is. It also happens to be exactly what I needed at that moment.