066: Red Hat

Red Hat, originally uploaded by gingerpig2000.

If I catch you wearing this...

It's amazing what I can find to fit in my wife's wardrobe ;)

Clothed and closed are very similar-sounding words, and the clothes you can wear depend a lot on how much society closes its minds. Different cultures have different mores, and even these vary with time. What I do not understand is the problem that people have with clothes - why can I not be free to wear whatever clothes I like without threatening the very structure of society itself. Society, in reality, is very flexible when push comes to shove, and I want to do some shoving.

The other element of this picture is that wearing the same clothes is a symbol of the single unit that out marriage represents. There is no leader, no his and hers, we do what we can, the best we can. Interestingly enough, society seeks to lever this unity apart by insisting that roles and clothes be assigned to suit them, and not our own preferences and abilities.

This was an interesting shot, as we had to position ourselves in a 3D space to produce a dynamic in an essentially 2D medium, some of the pose elements would appear artificial from another viewpoint. See the major power triangle with Ania's elbow, my hat and my lower foot. Luckily, as long as I can keep the major positioning in mind, my subconscious takes care of the details. Ania, though, has her own influence on the image, completely outside of my control.

26: Nerds

Culturicalus Nerdii, originally uploaded by gingerpig2000.

Today I uncovered my inner nerd - not, although there is something of me in this image. After seeing so many repetitive 'silly walks' too close to the Mont Python original yesterday, I was glad that I had accidentally gone down a different road.

In a similar vein, someone wrote that they were staying in a hotel room, with no props, hence were frustrated they could not put together decent photographs. However, I think that their problem was not a lack of props but basic classicalism. It goes like this - you like taking pictures, and you look out for suitable things which would make good props. Once discovered, they become labelled 'props' in the mind, and we can use them in whatever way we feel in our photographs. However, a hotel room is full of 'hotel room things' like a bed, chair, mirror and such, and the chances are they are not what we would choose if we were looking for props.

What, though, if we were to rid ourselves of all sub-classes of object and instead just thought of everything to hand as 'things'. We exist in relation to whatever things surround us, our existence can be defined in terms of our relation to them. If we are always some form of 'we', and everything else is just 'things', then the only thing restricting us is our preconceptions of how we relate to the things. Dump that mind set, and then what you are left is the opportunity to photograph your present self in the present situation using whatever things are to hand at present. If you can achieve that, and it does require practice, then no where is frustrating because you always have to hand everything you need.

10: Fabulous Embellished Party Hats

This one floored me, I didn't think I had any materials at all for a party hat, and the ones shown on the group were terribly bitsy and twee. Then I noticed the bottle of wine we got on sunday, and wondered if I could balance that on a hat along with a glass - much more like a party hat to me, I thought. Later I noticed wifies jewellery lying in the bathroom, and wondered if I could add that to my hat. However, pushing metal spikes through my cotton hat did not sound like a good idea - but my wooly, winter hat, that would be fine.

This image shows how much I have learnt over the past week about the best way to photograph myself - an angle shot and without glasses. Using a hand is also incredibly useful, a flat edge-on hand can chop the shape, while the almost-fist elongates the face chopped off at the top by the head, as well as the sensual near-mouth finger and the dominant thumb visible in a supporting role.

7: Inspire & Be Inspired

Inspiration is not what we do normally, it is something that occurs in the dark depths of our minds. Here is my invention, designed to shed some light down those dark corridors of the mind, along which we creep blindly, felling our way.

Inspiration, like some kind of strange rabbit, can be encouraged to poke its nose out of that dark waren, but that means we have to do something specific. It is easy to go through life and only occasionally notice the nose of an inspiration rabbit, much harder to learn ways of encouraging one to appear on cue.