the Laying Down Game
Wednesday, November 4, 2009 at 02:34PM It's official. The JustUs Team has setup www.LayingDownGame.net
Jed & Vicki Taufer introduced me to this crazy idea when we were out to dinner in NYC for the PPE convention. The concept is simple: lay down, face down, hands to the side, stiff as a board, in unusual places...well anywhere really. Then take a photo of yourself. It's hard to describe why this is so funny. It's just so out of context that it makes me cry laughing whenever we do this. This first image here was taken at a fancy pants restaurant called Tao in NYC and we were promptly asked to leave the restaurant after the photo was taken. Fortunately, we had finished our dinner! We laughed all the way to the front door and then knew we had to see where else we could get kicked out of...the Apple Store? Hotel lobbies? Ice Cream parlors? The middle of the busy street? A crowded night club? You'll have to look at the gallery to see what else we got in to.
From a photographers point of view, the photos may not immediately be seen as "artistic"...but they elicit emotion, some conflicted. It makes you think outside the box and once you start doing it, you begin to look at the world around you in a different way. I posed this challenge to one of my workshop groups (that I taught with Vicki & Jed in Vermont). The class loved it and turned in some crazy, and creative images! You'll see those in there too. It really emphasizes the importance of having a project, no matter how obscure, to stimulate your visual thinking and creativity.
Please be sure to leave your comments: why do you think this is so funny? Why is it so fun? Do you have a LDG photo to contribute? Send it to us at layingdowngame.net and we'll post it!
Click here to see the gallery of Laying Down Game images!
Laying Down Game in Tao, NYC
Email Article to Friend
Reader Comments (3)
Hey Kevin! That's freaking hilarious! But the laying down game web site doesn't have a gallery or any other way to see anything other than the first picture. Is it still being built or what's up?
Thanks for the idea!
Wow, my first thought was "How immature". These are the kind of games that teenagers play to get themselves kicked out of McDonalds. Then I noticed the guy at the bottom of the stairs in the Tao photo. He is clearly paused, waiting for the weirdos to get off the stairs. What must he be thinking? This question suddenly made it interesting. As I looked through the gallery, I found myself asking lots of questions like "Hey, can that really be considered laying down if only his stomach is touching the trash can?" Or "Wow, what would an escalator step feel like on your face?" and "Are those people laughing at the woman lying face down, or are they just laughing at a joke?" and "Aren't they going to have a really wet front side once the photo has been taken". It's the questions that make it interesting to me. It must be a hoot to do it in person.
The photo gallery is awesome! Love it!