Deeper Artistic Meaning: Sometimes our greatest enemy is our dark self. Parts of us are blown away by its might, but more parts will fight the good fight. Don’t give in. Keep going.
Behind the Photo: I’m really proud as to how smooth all of the selfs blended in. There is only one very tiny mistake with the lighting in this image. Can you spot the issue? The sun moved by the time I took the self-shot of the red shirt self being blown away.
On Wednesday night I went and saw the band, Caravan of Thieves, live at VZDs. They are truly a band that is fun and entertaining to see live. They don’t just rehash their album live. There was so much depth. They interacted with the audience, even dancing with them. The band describes themselves: “If Django Reinhardt, the cast of Stomp and the Beatles all had a party at Tim Burton’s house, Caravan of Thieves would be the band they hired.”
Here’s a video of one of their songs.
I have been having some powerful nightmares lately.
Take last night for example.
In the first nightmare I was trapped on an island where I was investigating this research station. I uncovered genetic experimentation that was turning people into monsters/zombies. I couldn’t find anyone that was still human to get answers. Inside one of the buildings, I found a hidden trapped door. I went down the ladder. It was a large, rectangular room with a dirt floor, concreate walls, and yellow florescent lights. The only thing in the room was down on the far opposite end. Resting in a wooden chair was this dead human body covered with thick spikes with a wooden bo staff in his lap. Around his neck was a golden key that I somehow knew I needed. I walked slowly towards the body. I kept thinking he was going to come to life as I took the key, but he didn’t. I ran back to the ladder only to have a wall slide down in front of it. I heard bones creek and crack as I turned around and saw the body come to stand. The bo staff he had somehow hand a large axe blade. I knew the only way out was to kill him. I ran at him. He swung his axe. I slide along the ground, picked up the chair, and stabbed him in the back with it. He dropped his axe and fell to pieces. The wall raised up and I ran out of there.
I remember bits and pieces of running and hiding in different locations. It was like a montage scene. There was also this sort of a puzzle I had to do using the key to lower the water level in order to get inside a research station. Where there was water there were zombies. This blond hair guy appeared and used martial arts to kill the zombies. We got inside and locked the door behind us. This guy was unnaturally strong and wanted my help, but in the nightmare I somehow knew he was the bad guy who caused all of this and I didn’t want to him. He was furious. He came, mutating his arm into a sword. I used a wet towel to smash up some tanks with body parts in them which caused pain to him. I ran out of the building and I woke up shortly afterwards being unable to escape at the edge of the island. This was at 5:30 a.m.
I managed to fall back asleep for a second nightmare. In this one, I was reunited with someone that I wanted to see. We met at a college. I was so happy. We tried to find a quiet place, but then the fire alarm went off. Students poured out of the buildings. I picked up the person I was with and flew. I had a bit of trouble flying, making sure not to hit the students as I couldn’t fly that high, but I got the person to safety. However, I needed to investigate the fire. I flew off and went into an empty cafeteria. People in black suits swarmed the windows and doors. The fire alarm was a trap to capture me for my powers. I flew away, but these FBI/MIB kind of agents kept chasing after me. I tried to hide in this black banner. They found me and wrapped me up in the banner and took me. Then I woke up.
Yeah…That was my night.
I knew these nightmares weren’t ordinary that I’ve been having lately, so the night before I had set up my camera. This is the image I captured.
Though, perhaps, there is a profit to be made from these nightmares? I’ll let them live. For now.
Good News: I have written out the scripts for the first six episodes of The Time Traveling Troupe. To mark the occasion, I’ve made this video blog to talk about them.
There’s still more work to be done before I can start shooting, but I am a step closer.
I thought I would share a picture I took my date idea book at Full Circle Bookstore. My murder mystery party game book is there too.
Deeper Artist Meaning: This photo asks, who are we at parties?
Behind the Photo: This photo was a serious challenge to do because my weight on the couch would cause indents that wouldn’t appear on other images. That box I’m wearing on my head is of a printer I bought earlier that day. I pulled the printer out and used that box for this self-shot picture before hooking the printer up to my computer.
Behind the Photo: You can’t really tell, but I have my book, The Crashing of the Heaven and Hell, on my word processor on my iMac’s screen. The idea behind this self-shot was to have various characters talk to me as I write, which I like how it turned out. I was worried about the shadows from the black coat self, but that didn’t turn out to be an issue.
It didn’t go so well…
Deeper Artistic Meaning: This picture tells the tale of one cycle of depression and loneliness. In the blue shirt sitting east with the rise of the sun, we feel bright, sky high, refreshed, and ready to live. As we move toward the middle of the day, we don’t feel so high and we’re bit a more grounded, playing with our technology to distract us from our loneliness. As the sun sets, the voices in our head emerge to tell us how worthless we are and all we want to do is cut the voices.
Behind the Photo: This self-shot picture was my first time to play around with the idea of multiple selfs in the same shot. I had fun making it and created more. I did have to tell people on Facebook that I was honestly okay.
To help to finance my projects, I was thinking of turning to Porn for Women. Here’s a self-shot picture of me cooking a vegetarian meal while ironing and doing the dishes. I also have a bowl full of chocolates.
Deeper Artistic Meaning: What turns on people? Attraction is so much more than appearance, but metal as well.
Behind the Photo: I brought the ironing board earlier that day. I took this self-shot before actually ironing with it. To be honest, the iron wasn’t plugged in, the was nothing cooking, and the dishes weren’t being washed. I do own that cookbook.
Did you know: There is a reply to “Liar, Liar, pants are on fire.” Come back with, “I don’t care, I don’t care, I can buy another pair.”
