Learning to fly

“The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.”
― Carlos Castaneda

One thing I have always found fascinating about photography is to challenge oneself to overcome the technical limitations. In 2010 I for example used 3 MP mobile phone camera a lot, and learned many creative ways to take and edit if not technically good but at least interesting images. During this year I have decided to focus using a mobile phone camera again, and also learn at least something about black and white photography.

One of my all time inspiration on photography has been Jesper Høm's and Sven Grønløkke's 'Børnenes Billedbog' (DE: Kinderbilderbuch, FI: Kuvis - uusi kuvakirja): www.achtung.photography/jesper-hom-sven-gronlokke-bornenes-billedbog-1975

My sister had a copy of it when we were young, and later on I manage to find the book from one antiquarian bookshop. So, the reason why I have always loved images of simple things very likely comes from that picture book. I remember how me and my brother once talked about this concept of shooting ordinary everyday items and scenes, when I was something like 18 years old, and just starting to learn photography more seriously.

I guess the whole idea is to capture something that is meaningful to almost everyone. And presenting the image as a poor quality black and white somehow makes clear it is indeed only an image, a shadow on the wall of Plato's cave, aka an image of an idea. For example feather is a feather in everyday life context, but an image of a feather is an idea of a feather, and therefore also all of it's symbolic meanings becomes more obvious, I think...

I also recently became interested on an idea of keeping a "photo journal", where I think the goal is to record and report the work-flow behind the image. For this shot the flow was rather interesting indeed. I first of course started from The Sunday Challenge, which was feather(s) for this week. During the week I was also seeking information on Canon G5x camera, and I accidentally discovered The Art of Photography "vlogs and blogs" by Ted Forbes:
www.youtube.com/channel/UC7T8roVtC_3afWKTOGtLlBA
www.facebook.com/TheArtofPhotography

Ted Forbes had just recently started an online assignments when I discovered his videos and Facebook pages. There he introduces the technique of keeping a photography journal. My first reaction was that I really can't get printed any of my pictures, or write something about every single shot I take on daily bases. But then I realized it would be nice and useful to write at least few words even once or twice a week, and I could just as well do it digitally.

After all, the point of any journal is to stop for a moment to reflect what one has done. By formulating it in words, it then helps one to recall things better.

So from my daydreams of buying a new camera, and digesting this week's feather challenge, I slowly started to think not only how to use a pair of feathers I had at home, but also how to use my technically limited tools creatively. I also recalled all the things related to mysticism I have read or heard about during my life. And then it suddenly hit me. I have once been interested on Carlos Castaneda's fictional stories about "his training in shamanism". Although Castaneda's books have soon found out as totally fictional, the stories still have been a great inspiration for many artist, like Milo Manara, and perhaps also for Storm Thorgerson, who has made a very cool music video for Pink Floyd's *Learning to Fly': youtu.be/nVhNCTH8pDs

After following this path of thinking, I immediately knew the scene I want to shoot, the scene where the main character on video attaches the feathers on his arm. I first had ideas on how to take just similar image as on the video (person seen against the blue sky). BUT then I started to think I want to use one of my favorite point of view, to shoot from the "first person view", and show my both arms like seeing them on front of my own eyes. And when testing how it would look seen through the wide angle (24mm equivalent) lens, I realized I can include also my feet. Finally through several test shots, I end up to this composition seen on the picture. For the background I chose a shag rug and dark shade of a sofa, to make the background as dark and rough as possible.

The technical challenge when taking this shot was to use a self timer, and place the mobile phone camera in a position that shows my both hands and feet in the picture. Finally I end up using screw clamp camera holder to hold the camera with my teeth. Not a very comfortable approach, but it worked! Then because the shot was pretty poor in quality, I decided to use 'selective Gaussian blur', and then turn it into black and white. Finally I got the idea to tell this story, to record and report what I had done and why. And I also decided to seek the reference on that book that has always been my great source of inspiration.

The overall outcome was that I really enjoyed the whole process, found number of interesting sources, and learned plenty of new things =)