This is a picture I made of a typical stairwell from a backyard in Lund, the other day. The light was rather harsh being lunch time, but I didn’t mind, because it lit up the interior of the stairwell in a way that it looked almost surreal. The interior became lighter than the dark red façade.
Some day, I have to take on this project I have been thinking of for years, making a photo book of all the (okay, merely the accessible) backyards in Lund. I wonder if my waiting is of the same type as Andreas and his bicycles. I photograph while building a pile of ideas, saving potential keepers to be include in the work. The problem I have is that I don’t know what to say yet, no idea has made it to the finish line, that is, the starting line if you see it from the other way around. Without knowing what to say, I have a hard time sorting out the good pictures and creating a story around those. Not to mention the post processing part, colour or b+w, and on and on…
But, I feel no stress over this, it’s not that I ask for ideas or encouragement, I’m just thinking out loud the state of my mind. Next year’s SoFoBoMo, maybe?
15 Comments
I’m having a hard time putting it into words, but this image hit me like a bolt of lighting. I really enjoyed it.
Åh, vilken cool bild!!
Oh, that was not the intention, hope you wasn’t hurt.
Thanks a lot, Kjell, and welcome to my blog, too.
Å tack, Karin, så det finns svartvita bilder du gillar!
This is excellent. Finding what to say sometimes is the most difficult. If you haven’t read David DuChemin s Book Within The Frame I highly recommend it. Vision and a story is the most important thing we can learn, the rest is just syntax.
Ray, thank you very much. This is how I work to my very bones, if I have nothing to say, I’m silent.
I did read the book, but wasn’t really captured as many were. It might have been that I was not in the mood for it, I don’t know really. It was to much details on technology and I sensed a tone that most important is seeing something no one have ever seen it. I don’t see a problem in this, seeing it as other sees it. If you have a different way of expressing what you see, good for you, then you might have an opportunity to make a living on it. I’ll give it a try again in a few months, I might have missed something due to my mood.
Ove, what a striking image. The stairs being so brightly lit imparts a sense of voyeurism or being a “peeping tom”–like a photo taken through a window at night with the inside room illuminated. I wonder what this says about me? LOL
Thanks, Earl. This reminds me of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear window…..voyeurism and murder….not much better, but a bit more cultural.
Very nice I really like this, the light made a big difference in the shot.
The story I got was actually what lies behind the facade. You are so right that the harsh light worked in your favor. The dark windows on the left side make the entire image that much more mysterious. Now, I want to see what is inside those as well. You have been investigating mysteries,illusions,and the pulling back of curtains recently. It has been a joy to follow your exploration. This does seem to be a strong candidate for a SoFoBoMo project.
Don, nice to see you here, and thanks!
Anita, you’re quite right and I thought so too, that the story of this picture hardly was the façade but merely what was hidden behind. Those dark windows were lighter in reality, but a darkened them to put them more in the shadows. Interesting observation you made there, also. I have not thought about it, that I have been working with pictures in this particular way. But you right, I have done this, unconsciously I’m afraid. On Flickr, I have tagged many of those with ‘reflections’. That is definitely an area for me to explore more consciously. Thanks a million for this clever observation, Anita.
A really striking image. First I thought about a reflection until I realized that strong light coming through the 2nd window. Straightforward and definitely working for me.
Thanks, Markus! You’re right, the light falls in through the second window, from the left. And there are more windows on the left, one on each floor all the way to the top floor.
I don’t think that a photobook must have a blunt message. It can, but it need not. There must be some correspondence between the images, but I think it is not even necessary for the photographer to fully understand the work. And there is more. Images are much more ambivalent than words normally are, even when specifically made to mean exactly one thing. They may trigger different things in different minds.
In other words: Just do it
Yeah, sometimes I find my self too tied to a line that I have to follow….