Mirrored.

How incredibly overjoyed I was when I finally again got together with Jenny and Kamil for a photoshoot just around the corner of my apartment. Well-known place for short photoshoots. It was a warm day, one day before my 25th birthday, so we’re talking about the 7th of August in 2016, just to be exact and for the simple sake of order. (And I even met those two royal dodos the day after once more! Thanks so much again to both of you for making this evening so lovely and special. Ah, friends.)

When I had a look through my entire, public Flickr. photostream a few weeks before that photoshoot I’m going to talk about now, I noticed that a handful of photos apparantly are very popular. Or let’s say more than others. One of those was a photo I took at the beginning of 2013, featuring a model called Aloisia and some black shards. I remember my grandpa and I covering a pretty big, black piece of glass which used to be the surface of a coffee table with a blanket and then beating it with a hammer in my grandpa’s garage one night. So that action left me with those exact black shards I wanted to have and then used for the photoshoot in 2013. I for once had a pretty clear idea and photo in mind before we started, so that made it a lot easier. What also helped a lot was telling Aloisia roughly  the meaning and reason behind the photoshoot, so she too did the best job possible, expressing emotions with her body and demeanour. It was the very first time I met her face to face that day, as a little sidenote. That shoot was very private, well, the idea and thoughts behind it were private and for the very first time I was able to understand the phrase people always use „expressing oneself through art.“ I was convinced, being ignorant, that this was just a simple sentence without real depth, a hackneyed saying. It really does work though. It’s very rare in my life that I really put out something artsy with a deeper meaning behind it, I usually simply write it down in letters, but at that moment, when I looked at the finished results of that day, I felt really pleased with myself and those spikes around my heart, squeezing it so uncomfortably, got a little looser. No kidding, it does work. (Hindsight is always 20/20!)

Back to the recent photoshoot with Kamil and Jenny. I thought it was a bit sad that I had those shards still in my basement, wrapped up in newspaper, rotting away, and I simply had the urge to use them once more. Without any more bad or sad feelings or general ideas attached to it, I just wanted to see them once more on some photos. I know both Jenny and Kamil aren’t too excited about those darker, moody shoots, but those are my favourites so this time there weren’t colourful butterflies or bright eye-shadows. At first ..

What can I say, ready, steady and off we went. Kamil laid down on the ground in the middle of the path while Jenny arranged a couple of those shards around his head. Of course first though Kamil had to endure some minutes of sitting still while Jenny did his make-up and hair, all at that tiny playground area where there are benches. I can’t stress enough how much I adore the energy of those two people, being with one of them already is so pleasant, but just looking at them while interacting with each other and listening to them talking is almost like meditation, just feeling so utterly comfortbale. Maybe that’s just me thinking that way. 😀

All photos seen on this blog are © by lauragrafie.
Please don’t use any of them without my written permission.

All I knew was that those photos I was going to take that day would be turned into black and white ones. I didn’t know how I wanted those shards to be displayed around Kamil and I didn’t know how the mood would turn out on those finished pictures. Jenny, unlike me apparantly had something in mind right away and laid out those shards exactly like you can see it on the upper photo(s), the bigger sides of the glass close to Kamils head, the spiky parts facing the outside, his surroundings. And holy moly, there suddenly was the idea and reason „behind“ the photo. It really appeared to me after we were completely finished, but nobody has to know that, right .. 😉 I called those photos „resentment“. If that’s not pretty much self-explanatory already, I’m going to tell you why I chose that noun. You see, if you’ve got said resentment, anger, jealousy, dismay – whatever words come to your mind when thinking about resentment, inside you, stuck in your veins, preventing yourself from feeling and being happy, it doesn’t only affect yourself but also your surroundings, the outside, the world around you, the peole and beings. If you like it or not. You basically have to fight your own little battle, shoot out those deep black spikes in form of words, gestures or actions. Maybe most of the time unwanted, but good will itself can’t often do the job by itself.

I feel like it needs a very good amount of healthy self-reflection to get back to the ground again, or for reaching the surface of the ground after being buried in the dirt beneath it. So go ahead and please guess the name of the picture above. 🙂 Ignorance, hate, disgrace neither helps you nor anybody else around you. It only makes matters worse. We’re all a team, if we like it or not. There is a lot than can be done, but one alone seldom saves the entire world. But how easy would it be if all human beings on this earth would feel the same, good amount of empathy towards each other and other living creatures? Too easy. What if everyone would be as open-minded as possible? I think the first thing you notice when growing up is that pretty much nothing is easy. At least if you’re not one of those individuals getting money shoved up their behinds without realizing it’s only a form of legal narcotics, using it for buying happiness in form of materialistic things. Stressing the „legal“ part here very much. I understand it might be hard from time to time to jump over ones shadow, start thinking for oneself, really digging deep in ones head and mind, being open-minded in general. But once you started and make it a habit .. Things around you start making sense, like a puzzle being played with.
Uh, late-night ranting.

I’m not sure if you’re able to see it, but on the photo where I cloned Kamil he already once more rocked a red lip and some dark eyeshadow for his own series of photos. Didn’t hold me back, I still turned it into a darker, black and white one. It’s been a while again and I can’t wait to finally meet both of them again, hopefully also with my other awesome photo-people who are all way too busy those days.

Thanks so much for those couple of hours. ♥

Laura x