Zonda`s Quest

…or the things we deny so we can make what`s expected from us. That was the main theme of a conversation I had with my cousin Elisa a few weeks ago. We were discussing my attempt to shift creativity (a VERY rare resource within these lands…) towards more pleasing subjects. The constrains attached to commercial photography made Elisa very good at it. She is capable of creating and exercising her expression on top of the demands of the “jobs” she gets.

As one could expect, my path through photography is a bit different. As Natalia, a good friend of mine once said: “one can only give what one has to give”. Well, that being the case, the only thing I have to give are a bunch of feelings, and most of them are not beautiful. – Well, then, Elisa said, do not expect people to “upvote” your pictures if what they see is not pleasing to them. She was, again, right.

The absence of recognition however can be bitter to the tongue. In the other hand, creating something just for recognition ends up in an egoloop that feeds me stuff I like, but do not need.

Honestly, I took some time to make up my mind about this. Since I made Hiding Aces and Domination I`ve been stuck in this matter. I made them both in the same night and got a lot of recognition from the former and almost none from the latter. The bad thing is: Domination was almost an open window to my soul. As I already mentioned, Domination has things I feel covered and expressed by things that made me who I am. Hiding Aces was crafted to be liked. The picture meant nothing to me. I`m sure, however, that a card of hearts hanging in a bottle lighted by warm and cozy light was DESTINED for success. Go figure it…

Once I stopped caring about the “likes” I would get for my work, I started sending probes to see what kind of feeling I could bring back. Just like the old man from Hemmingway`s The Old Man and The Sea, something way bigger than expected came to surface. “You wanted something, here you go, have a blast!”. Some strong feelings of hopelessness came up and the images I would like to capture started coming to me.

Thankfully, my wife Álica and my very good friend Marcela Nardeli came to the rescue. Some conversation about the main theme came up during the shooting and they tried (and they made it!) to represent it the best way they could without suffocating trough the Russian WWII gas mask I borrowed from my friend Ricardo Roriz. With no more “trying to understand”, I`d like to present you the result of this effort:

Remember

Remember to Breathe

Remember to Escape

Remember to Dance

Remember to Fight

Until now, when asked, I couldn`t answer what I was trying to do when taking pictures. This weekend I was invited to think about it after reading the opinions of a group of photographers that self-proclaimed themselves as “hunters” of light. Each photography is a capture, a prize to be seen.

Once I heard that we define what we are partially by denying what we are not. That is pretty much the case. I couldn`t think of a worse definition to what I do when I press the shutter. While I understand that photography is just means to a greater objective, and while I recognize that the objectives will vary from person to person, the definition of hunter just sounded selfish. Who am I to capture something and call it my prize? What about the characters in the picture?

I went to sleep with that thought, and after dreams about the zombie outbreak, I woke up with my own definition about photography. In my pajamas, I thereby declared that my photography is not about capturing light. Pressing the shutter is about shedding light over true emotions. Once I produced that little and ephemeral reflection of my own self, I seat and hope that someone will identify themselves with it in their own way.

It is not about taking the best pictures in the world! It`s about taking a picture that people can share what I tried to express or, in the worst case, see something about me they don’t like.

Post Facto is the king of light. A great master of colors and composition. Post Facto is a slice of my personality that appears after any creative success. In my head, I imagine Post Facto dressed as one of the ancient Greece philosophers, using a chiton, one of those leather slippers and a beard.

The primary function of Post Facto in what I call my own “self” is to convince me that every success I`ve had was the result of a process that once played backwards would show nothing but pure mathematical logic.

Today I got pissed on that. At two in the morning, about half an hour after shooting Delicate Balance I was entering the shower when Post Facto appeared in what he thinks it`s the Agora (but that in reality is an amphitheater made of my patience):

• Well, he said, you could see that the chromatic objective of Delicate Balance is to show a gradient that starts on the models legs, filled with light, passing through her body already filled with dark because of the clothes, and ending in full darkness, when her head almost blends with the couch. Another thing we must consider is the balance between the massive solid on the right and the delicate pillars shown by her legs on the left. You really though it through! Congratulations!

No, I did not.

I saw the pose in a picture from Playboy. While I liked the pose, and the theme, I thought I could do it without the nude and creating an alternate interpretation to it, with light and a different angle.

During the shooting, however, I did not think of any of the issues raised by Post Facto. I just felt it, shot it, reviewed it and shot it again. The resulting photo is nothing more than something that made me feel good. If it shows a “light gradient”, nice, than probably it`s because light gradients make me feel good. If it shows a “contrast in balance”, than, again, it`s because it`s pleasing to my eyes. It`s not a rational process. It`s something that can be factored, post facto, but it`s born alien from the concept of logical reasoning.

In the end, it makes me think about the true range of art critique. If the result of a work of art is nothing more than a subjective statement of the artist (and not a something generated as a blend of rationale and technique), what is the purpose of rationalizing and explaining art it in a general way?

I`ll sleep on it, but I, honestly, can see none.

“Just put it on top of the lens and tore it”.

With tons of suspicion, I did as she said. It`s a really nice contrast. The kind of contrast it`s nice to live so you can go over your ideas all over again. Feels like looking at your own car as if you were buying it, even if you have it for years.

And there goes about TWO HUNDRED years in lens development. As I putted the plastic sheet over the lens and tore a hole in it to take pictures, it felt like profaning on Carl Friedrich Gauss grave.

Most of the 50mm lens used today are developments of the original Gauss objective concept. The Double Gauss Objectives used today (like all the Canons, Nikons and Sigma 50mm, as well as Zeiss 50mm) were made possible by developing the original concept created by Gauss into a new kind of lens. These lenses are, at the same time: great at chromatic aberrations, distortions, vigneting, are provided with a large aperture (does anyone remember the Canon 50mm f/0.95?) and are cheap to build. It`s not a coincidence many photographers call the 50mm lens the “nifty fifty”.

Can we get back to the curled plastic sheet on top of my two hundred years lens?

Sure, the contrast. My cousin Elisa couldn`t care less about my Double Gauss design epic narrative. She cares about the expression of my photography. It`s something like “follow all the rules as long as that doesn`t stop you from getting your pictures”. As I already stated before, she is right. As she was teaching me the creative use of lens flare (yes, yes, I want to learn the dark side of the force) and the creation of soft focus using Vaseline or plastic sheets. She handed me the plastic and said: “Just put it on top of the lens and tore it.”.

As I was doing it, vexed about such a sin to the great masters, I kept complaining as if would make it clear I was doing it against my will.

“It`s such a shame to blow to smithereens so many …click… years of technological …click… development …good god it`s beautiful!”

Yes. Next time I want this kind of dreamy photo effect, the kind of effect that just a lens with fungus can provide (and I happen not to have one available), I won’t even blink before “just putting it on top of the lens”.

Thanks, again, cousin! :o)

It`s such a curious phenomenon the way the brain works. I was looking for some ideas to make some progress in the photo challenge I`m in. After the water theme I was stuck and couldn`t figure a good way to portray any of the themes available, and there are plenty! While trying to think about a meaningful way to say something about “music”, I started sketching some ideas. The best one I could get was the girl in the foreground, the bass in the background using the strings as the lines of a musical score and some colorful notes through the strings. Unfortunately, my sketches proved themselves useless, as I could not take a picture that expressed the idea in the drawing.

Next half an hour, I spent mad about the fact that the proportion of the bass arm was way off and the framing of the picture was terrible (besides, in real life I cannot just drop charcoal in the background and spread with my fingers…).

As I threw the paper musical notes I`d prepared for the photo shoot with the bass I saw the reflection of the paper through the glass of the table.

Add a flashgun, and a harp to the recipe and the picture is ready.

Not the product of my subjective expression, but the honest and authentic fruit of chance.

Cheerful Notes