The Art of Camoflauge *hides*

Grasping the giant, potential-to-break-wrists Seeing Sideways book, I simply placed it in my lap, with my hands on a chunk of pages and flipped it open, hoping for something inspiring...muttering all the while to myself "no whammies, no whammies, please NO whammmiess!"

I was pleasantly surprised! I opened up to page 264 entitled: Camouflage. *insert magical epiphany music playing* AWESOME. So here's my thoughts on it.

There is a rather large black and white picture on most of the two pages. It took me a second to realize what it was a picture of...a dalmation dog blended into the background...of outside in a back yard? Is he in a lake? On a street? I think that's the whole point here. It really made my imagination jump around from one guess to the next. There was a quote my eyes were drawn to which said: "I spilt spot remover on my dog and he disappeared" - Jack Benny. This is very true of the picture, because at first glance you do not see the dog, you see spots and splotches and what not. The dog was truly hidden yet...but was he really? :) Very thought provoking indeed!

"Camouflage operates by either making the conspicuous inconspicuous or the inconspicuous conspicuous." (try saying that 10 times fast lol) It goes on to mention how the objective of camouflage is to mislead, and not conceal. There are different types of camouflage too, such as counter shading - a gazelle for instance. It's markings help it appear flat and entirely disappear in favorable lighting. Then there's disruptive patterns - like a tiger, who can easily blend in with taller grass. Also, there is confrontational markings - such as brightly colored, but poisonous Great Barrier Reef fish, flaunting them around saying "Hey don't eat me, unless you've a death wish! RAWR n such!" All these work in a delicate balance to mislead...and I began thinking, what are some things that we, as humans, do as a part of camouflaging aka: misleading?

Our clothes, like certain colors or patterns, might for example mimic a leopard (ahem, certain styles or eras more than others of course), or we might talk a certain way "No honey, you don't look fat in that" to help mislead but the tone it's said in does not entirely conceal our thoughts. What about plastic surgery in order to look younger? Doesn't that mislead...Another thing to think about with this picture is negative (white) space vs. the black. The splotches actually help your eyes move around the picture in order to see the Dalmatian dog. This is based on it's design, and how our eyes perceive something, I guess I'm recalling some things from my Design Principles class perhaps even, and boy is that a whole nother can o worms!

This article was an interesting read, and it really got my thoughts going about relating to it! Plus, now that I've typed camouflage about a dozen times I surely will not forget there is a "u" after camo. LOL. I'll leave you with this quote: "Camouflage is a game we all like to play, but our secrets are as surely revealed by what we want to seem to be as by what we want to conceal." - Russell Lynes