Casing the Promised Land
So, in another post I talked about feeding off of the energy of a place, how it can set the tone. When I'm shooting in a place that feels right to me, every shot has potential. Or it seems as if images were created just for me and I happened to be there at the right time. Also that it doesn't have to be a physical place, either. Most often I rely on mental places - emotions, moods, memories, music.
Sunday night I saw an interview with Bruce Springsteen on 60 Minutes. (Bruce is playing this week at Meadowlands, so there's quite a bit of Bruce buzz flying around NYC at the moment.) I love Bruce Springsteen. I remember once saying that I wanted my photography to have the affect of feeling like you've been punched in the stomach. That's how so many of his songs hit me. Just this shock of recognition and then this emotional circuitry tying his words to my past and my memories to his melodies. It kind of hurts listening to some of his songs.
And it's not that I have the same stories as he does or that my life's trajectory is embodied in the lyrics of his songs - but that the energy of his music gives off reverberations of nostalgia, loneliness, regret, hope and love. And these are themes that I return to over and over and over. Trying to find a way to talk through them.
From the interview transcript...
""It's not just the singing. It's the writing, isn't it, for you?" Pelley asks.
"Of course. Every good writer or filmmaker has something eating at them, right? That they can't quite get off their back . And so your job is to make your audience care about your obsessions," Springsteen says.
His recurring obsession is the life that he knew as a boy, the harsh relationship with his working class dad who didn't think much of a rock and roll son.
"It was a tough, struggling household. People struggled emotionally. People struggled financially to get through the day," Springsteen remembers. "Small town. Small town world which I continue to return to. It's like when I went to write, though, I put my father's clothes on. You know the immersement in that world through my parents and my own experience as a child and the need to tell a story that maybe was partially his. Or maybe a lot his. I just felt drawn to do it." "
When I was in Montana - now quite a few summers back, I was in a beautiful place. Every day, I could take pictures like these.
But they weren't my story or my obsession. And so shooting landscapes such as these seemed too easy. Not to minimize landscape photography - others can and have told stories and obsessions through landscapes. But they were not stimulating or thought-provoking enough to me.
In one of my photography classes that summer, we had to pick a song and illustrate it. It didn't have to be a literal illustration - it was a demonstration of inspiration - where it comes from, how to use it. I only had a few CDs with me that summer (before the ubiquity of ipod...) but I knew without thinking that I would use Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road" and try to capture the teenagers I would see drinking beers and cruising Higgins Street on weekend nights. These kids could have been anywhere - it wasn't about Montana.
Energy, misdirected enthusiasms, seemingly lifetime friendships, desire, a feeling of being trapped, a nagging twinge that perhaps they might never come to see that of which they've dreamed.
Sunday night I saw an interview with Bruce Springsteen on 60 Minutes. (Bruce is playing this week at Meadowlands, so there's quite a bit of Bruce buzz flying around NYC at the moment.) I love Bruce Springsteen. I remember once saying that I wanted my photography to have the affect of feeling like you've been punched in the stomach. That's how so many of his songs hit me. Just this shock of recognition and then this emotional circuitry tying his words to my past and my memories to his melodies. It kind of hurts listening to some of his songs.
And it's not that I have the same stories as he does or that my life's trajectory is embodied in the lyrics of his songs - but that the energy of his music gives off reverberations of nostalgia, loneliness, regret, hope and love. And these are themes that I return to over and over and over. Trying to find a way to talk through them.
From the interview transcript...
""It's not just the singing. It's the writing, isn't it, for you?" Pelley asks.
"Of course. Every good writer or filmmaker has something eating at them, right? That they can't quite get off their back . And so your job is to make your audience care about your obsessions," Springsteen says.
His recurring obsession is the life that he knew as a boy, the harsh relationship with his working class dad who didn't think much of a rock and roll son.
"It was a tough, struggling household. People struggled emotionally. People struggled financially to get through the day," Springsteen remembers. "Small town. Small town world which I continue to return to. It's like when I went to write, though, I put my father's clothes on. You know the immersement in that world through my parents and my own experience as a child and the need to tell a story that maybe was partially his. Or maybe a lot his. I just felt drawn to do it." "
When I was in Montana - now quite a few summers back, I was in a beautiful place. Every day, I could take pictures like these.
But they weren't my story or my obsession. And so shooting landscapes such as these seemed too easy. Not to minimize landscape photography - others can and have told stories and obsessions through landscapes. But they were not stimulating or thought-provoking enough to me.
In one of my photography classes that summer, we had to pick a song and illustrate it. It didn't have to be a literal illustration - it was a demonstration of inspiration - where it comes from, how to use it. I only had a few CDs with me that summer (before the ubiquity of ipod...) but I knew without thinking that I would use Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road" and try to capture the teenagers I would see drinking beers and cruising Higgins Street on weekend nights. These kids could have been anywhere - it wasn't about Montana.
Energy, misdirected enthusiasms, seemingly lifetime friendships, desire, a feeling of being trapped, a nagging twinge that perhaps they might never come to see that of which they've dreamed.
posted by bridget at
1:22 PM
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