Week 28 — Musicality

Week 28/52

I have no shame to admit that this shot was not thought of, not planned, not thought through. I just started to hang music sheets from the ceiling and this is how it came out, so it's not one of my best, not even close.

My problem, this week, was time. I've been having rehearsals for the showcase on Sunday — every single day. I've been studying the songs I have (five of them!), I'm spending time at the school and that leaves me very little time for anything else. Which is also why my 100DoS is so freaking late.

There's no story, today. No pseudo intellectual musing about things that no one cares about. There's only this shot and its outtakes, and my complete and utmost exhaustion with the showcase — and the extreme and utmost joy I know I will feel once Sunday comes and we're all having fun on that stage. That's all I'm hoping for.

Week 27 — Behind the Curtain

Week 27/52

I had to bite my tongue not to name this photo after another of songs from 'For Lovers Only'. That's right. It's been a week. I'm still obsessed. But I did this whole shoot with that music playing, so it would fit. Still. Lulu. Name your shots yourself, don't steal other people's words.

It's been a while since I've liked one of my shots, but this week, I do. And I like the outtakes. And now I'm jinxing it by saying I like what I did, but whatever.

The textures are pareeeerica's, and my own.

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Candaules tells Gyges that the queen has the same practice every night.

"She takes off her clothes and puts them on the chair by the door to her room and from where you stand you will be able to gaze on her at your leisure."

And that evening it's exactly as the King has told him.

She goes to the chair and removes her clothes one by one, until she's standing naked in full view of Gyges, and indeed she was more lovely than he could have imagined. But then the Queen looked up and saw Gyges concealed in the shadows, and although she said nothing, she shuddered.

This is from a scene in The English Patient. I know the original is from Herodotus, but I don't know the original text so I transcripted it from the movie. I had been dying to do something based on that scene for a while, and while I set up the lights and the veil and everything in my room, my mind went back to this piece and I knew I wanted to work with it.

Week 26 — A Veiled Innocence

Week 26/52

Oh, dang, we're halfway through. And yet, somehow, I don't feel like a better photographer than I was before I started it. Oh well. It shall come.

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All things truly wicked start with an innocence. — Ernest Hemingway

This quote has been rolling around in my mind this week; maybe it's because I'm feeling wicked — and not in a good way —, or maybe it's just that I've been so frustrated with my photography lately that nothing else seems to make sense. That's the risk you take when you throw yourself into your art; when it doesn't cooperate, nothing else does.

But back to the quote, this is a concept that I found to be truthful. It all starts with a sense of innocence, of an expectation that is never fulfilled, until it breaks. And then it breaks you, makes you want to run and hide, makes you want to be truly wicked.

This quote also makes sense in the context of one of my favorite books — yes, Wicked, by Gregory Maguire — where we see the transformation of a girl who thought she could change the world, who thought that she could do something better than what everyone else was, who had all of this innocence within her — into something dark, something solitary and fearful, something everyone else perceived as a frightful. Elphaba goes from a student who aspires to change the way Oz works to a dark and lonely soul, so lost and closed up that nothing can touch her. That path scares me. I see myself going down that same way over and over again and I look back to try to cling to the light, to the reality that I've always lived in. My happy place. So why is it that the darkest path is always the most alluring one?

Week 25 — The Writing on the Wall

Week 25/52

I'm sorry for the delay in posting this, but yesterday was a local holiday and I had a rehearsal with a couple of friends. I was counting on getting home at 7 to post this, but I ended up arriving here at 2am. Right. Not really in time to post. :p

This shot turned out incredibly dark. It was supposed to be a light, joyful shoot, but the muse switched gears on me and drove me into her dark and twisty ways.

So here it is, the moral prison, the pain of being tied up by the light, by inspiration. The muse comes and the muse goes, and we're all subject to her whims and wishes. It's a dark game, that of the artist, and such an exhausting one, at times. But it's not the kind of path you choose, it's the kind you're blessed with, and I am so very glad to let my mind be a vessel for the muses' wishes.

Week 24 — Death of a Prom Queen

Week 24/52

There's always a line for the photographer's stage, on these things. Proms, Bar Mitzvahs, cotillions — the one thing he knows is that the girls always want to have their picture taken, and the boys almost always comply, in the hopes for some sloppy kissing and groping in the hallway, later. It's how it works, and it's never bothered him until now. There's a blonde and a pimple-faced kid, standing awkwardly in front of the red backdrop, but his eyes are drawn to the girl at the end of the line.

It takes him a few minutes to get through everyone and when the girl approaches him, he notices for the first time that she's the Prom Queen. A plastic tiara was placed lopsidedly on her hair and the mascara that once made her eyes open up with flair is now running down her cheeks. Her lipstick is smudged, but the most obvious sign of her decay is still the lack of a date by her side. She's the first girl he's photographing alone, this evening.

She's not hiding. There's no embarrassment in her stride as she motions to stand in front of the red curtain, no shame. She holds her head high and the Photographer is able to notice that her eyes are dry. Whatever she had to cry about, she's done with it, it's a thing of the past. He marvels at the feeling she emanates; it's something he's never seen before — the feeling of a clean slate, of the newness and the opportunity that comes after you graduate. She's not just crying, she's shedding her skin like a snake, growing newer and more beautiful scales. She's transforming. And as she brings a hand up to wipe some lipstick off of her face, his mind forces him to press down on the shutter button, and a click is heard.

Her eyes shoot up to meet his, and when they do, she smiles. Her part is done, and so is his.

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Whoever gets the TV reference in the title (no googling!) wins a prize. An air kiss from me. Yes, that.

Don't forget to check out my 100 Days of Summer project! Oh, and the texture belongs to the lovely pareeeerica.

Week 23 — The Firefly Collection

Week 23/52

I'm very uncertain about this shot. I don't like it all that much, but since I've been on an inspirational rut these past few weeks, I'll post what I have and go with the flow. Oh well.

I wanted to do something with fireflies, this week, sort of in reference to the cult TV show... FIREFLY. Were you surprised? Were you? :D Okay, I'll stop. But really, I just watched this show. In little over a week, I went through the 15 episodes and I couldn't stop crying when I saw the last one. I loved it so, so much. I still have the movie to watch, but I'm sort of saving it for a rainy day, you know? But the show! It's so epic. Nathan Fillion is incredible, Morena Baccarin is to die for and Jewel Staite might just be the most adorable thing I've ever seen. It's such a gorgeous cast, such wonderful actors, and Joss Whedon's writing is flawless! BUT okay. Enough geeking over a show.

I'm not sure if I like this better in color or in BW, but when in doubt, I usually go with color.

Have a glorious weekend, you all! :)

Week 22 — A Cotton Candy Summertime

Week 22/52

June marks the beginning of the summer, for me. It's my favorite month of the year, a month that reminds me of parties, or state fairs, of lights and sound and joy and music. It's a month that holds the hopes we always have for the Summer; before it gets too hot and those hopes fall to the ground like most things do.

For so long, I wrote about the small things. I wanted to sublimate the mundane, to bring every detail to epic proportions. Now I'm running away from the trivialities of life in order to create a new reality for myself, a world in which I can make cotton candy fly and watch it swirl around me. A world where everyone is met with a smile and we can burst into song in the middle of the street.

I used to want the calm and quietness of life, but now I want it loud, I want the noises and wonders of it. I want emotion as it comes, I want to experience it all, to soak it all up, fully, madly, deeply. I wonder if it's a seasonal thing — if the Summer is somehow perfect for the insanity of true and complete emotion, and the Winter for the soft quietness of the everyday life. Maybe it's the heat, or maybe it's just the fact that we grew up being used to be free in the warm months, and confined to a home with school work up to our necks during the cold ones. I don't know.

What I do know, is that June starts my idea of Summer, and with the first day of the month comes this craving for new sensations, for joy, to go on road trips and have meaninful conversations behind the wheel; to sing and dance like we don't care in the middle of the street; To feel things wholly, without holding back. To read and write and not feel guilty about the life that I chose. To drive and drive and drive and wear nothing but flowery dresses and flip-flops. To live in a reality that can be pink or red or silver or gold, but never, ever, dull.

And all along, this longing for adventure calls from my nightstand. The presence of Kerouac there isn't at all coincidental.

[+1 in the comments, because shooting this made me so, so happy.]