Rainbow Bones
Triple Exposure II
Posted by Paul Ricciardi (Rock Hill, United States) on 8 December 2006 in Abstract & Conceptual and Portfolio.
So, 26 years ago John Lennon was killed. I kind of miss him much in the same way as I miss Morrison, Hendrix, and Joplin. Sometimes I wonder if the theorists are right and the government killed the three of them.
This was another triple exposure shot on 120 film yet again. I did add a little grain to it and added Jules Verne’s signature in photoshop. I generally don’t photoshop my images, but these multiple exposures call for some touching up to get the contrast and exposure just right.
This series of photographs is pretty inspiring, and I can’t wait to do some more like them, I shot 3 of these on borrowed film and a borrowed camera, and I’m probably going to buy a Yashica A or 124 and some 120 6x6 film.
I also think I’m getting the hang of this photography thing. I’ve only been doing it for about 3 months, and I’m just now beginning to learn to “walk.” You know, it’s funny, humans take what, a year to walk? Horses walk right out of the womb.
Some people would say that humans should be able to walk right away. I think not. Crawling lets you see all the little things you would miss if you walked. It forces you to take it slowly and to learn to appreciate the world on a smaller, more intimate scale. But it seems that as soon as we learn to walk, we learn to run, and as soon as we learn to run we forget about walking, never mind crawling. I think, with a camera, I had tried to walk before I could even crawl, and I had tried to run before I could walk. I think that was because I felt like my photography should be on the same level as my art and poetry. But that’s impossible to accomplish overnight. Now, I’m slowing it down. I’m getting back into film, not to say I won’t shoot digital, but film just forces you to slow down. And forces you to think. I’m going to learn to take a good shot every time, not just snap 300 digital shots, of which 3 are “ok” and one is “good.” Sure, I got lucky a few times, but I was never consistent, and my photos never were “mine.”
I think that, last night, sitting in a parking lot in the “rough” part of town, writing poetry on my steering wheel, I learned that sometimes it’s better to sit still and appreciate what is around you than it is to let out all 350 horses and turn the landscape into a blur.
Sometimes we need to stop running, stop walking and simply crawl. Sometimes we even need to just sit.
And, though I will always be a gypsy at heart, and will always lead a transient lifestyle, I think I’m learning to be still and to crawl both mentally and photographically. It isn’t about running faster than everyone else, nor is it about merely keeping up with them. It’s about simply moving with yourself.
Maybe one day I’ll learn to fly, who knows, I’m only 17, I’ve got a long time to spend crawling.
And I’m happy with that.
