Sigh,
Winter.
I’ve only spent four of them up here in New Jersey, and I feel like I’ve only just now began to sort of understand how to combat its stillness.
It is not easy for me though. At the end of the day, I am a Tropical Kid at heart! Born in the heat that is South Florida’s sun, the cold brings forth an opposing force to all that I am, including the creative juices that keeps the machine running!
I am by no means a night photographer. I’ve dabbled in a couple romantic-late-night strolls with Cinestill 800T, but if we keepin’ it 55th, was never really happy with my results, and that limits me. See, by the time I get home from work around 4 or 5 pm-
darkness reins the skies, which leaves my camera to sadly sit in its cabinet missing the sweet caress that is Light.
So, how does one overcome such creative dry-spells?
Well, I am not entirely sure, and I am not going to sit here and tell you the golden answer because it is different for everyone.
Attempting to take cinematic parking garage photos in New Brunswick? (2021)
-Sometimes I watch The Photographic Eye (easily one of my fave YouTube channels as of late) as Alex Kilbee consistently creates an inner spark with monologues that tap into The Source itself.
-Sometimes, I just go for a walk
– Sometimes, I look toward those around me who inspire to create and whose kind spirits invigorate
-But lately, I’ve been taking a new approach, letting my subconscious create images, which I then attempt to make semi-tangible.
Let’s dive into that last one a little bit.
I try to incorporate some sort of meditation into my daily routine. In an earlier post, I mention a personal philosophy that I call “Backseat Perspective”
(Backseat Perspective: Where I, the “driver”, hop into the backseat of my “vehicle” and observe all that goes on around me from my position-
Neutral, observant, and attentive.)
and that serves as a sort of on-the-go meditation practice for me.
But when I have some time at the end of the night, I light an incense, shut the lights out, throw on my headphones, and let my mind chase the electrical impulses behind my eyelids created by “Sensory Deprivation Chamber”
-a playlist (mostly of Telefon Tel Aviv) providing space for the mind to float effortlessly; letting images appear and disappear the same.
My portrait of my brother, Zaii Valdes, from our collaborative series “IN THE ROUGH”, hanging at Unique Photo’s THIS IS PHOTOGRAPHY Bi-Annual Photo Gallery in Philadelphia, PA
It serves several purposes:
- To translate my breathing from this semi-controlled state to out in the real-world
- To disconnect a bit from things
- and to practice letting visuals come and go, just as one should with objects in the tangible (emotions, material things, etc.)
It wasn’t until recently that I thought to myself, “what if I tried to photograph these transient images in my mind?”
To me, it’s kind of how AI Art is generated, except, it’s this organic mass in my skull that’s populating these images.
Now, when I am sitting there staring into the darkness, these images, are not at all the clearest.
They are not defined, incomplete ideas that disappear quickly.
But I am interested in this process because of how much variability there is in all of it, just like film photography 🙂
It already starts out as a super vague visual-form, and from there my actual-thinking-brain has to interpret how I would sort of recreate this watery-memory of the subject-
leaving the possibilities to be endless!
I don’t have any results of any of this yet, but I’ve been jotting down some ideas in my notebook. Just wanted to share some a new technique inspired by a need for change and direction.
So, here’s to the Unknown,
and the To-Be-Discovered!
With Love Always,
-Chris
