External Elixir

I suddenly started thinking about colour and colour in motion. 

This has come after reading through Jane Robert’s book (Seth material: The Nature of Personal Reality) in which a term FEELING TONE stood out to me and started talking. 

A little earlier as I was doing a bit of writing I had this moment of understanding that

ANY DARKNESS IS A BACKGROUND FOR THE LIGHT TO BE MADE VISIBLE

This morning this concept has developed slightly to the understanding that in order to see colour we need a carrier, or background. Therefore seeing something requires a carrier for it to be seen, and also there’s this assumption that the colour (or light, as in the earlier statement) already exists and is merely being seen. 

The situation that helped me formulate the first statement was camera-less photography and darkroom printing. In camera less photography an object of phenomenon (like light, or smoke) is being projected via light onto a light sensitive carrier, for example paper. But that’s not producing visible effects until the paper is developed. Most often it has to be flashed - exposed again to a stream of light in order to ‘stamp’ the projection made earlier. Then the paper needs to go through chemical processes in order to be made visible - developed. 

It’s a process of making the invisible visible. 

There is always this balance of darkness and light, of background and foreground, that somehow project themselves seamlessly, together in union. 

L ANGUAGE / LANNGUYGD LA NGUAGE / LA NGUYCH LAN GUAGE / LAEN GUYTCH LANG UAGE / LEANG OOYCH LANGU AGE / LAENGOO AEYTCH LANGUA GE / LANGWAE GEE LANGUAG E / LANGUAK EE

There is a theme of language woven in through my life.  Is it significant? Somewhat, I think. Where I live now has sprung from my love for english language. As I was growing up, I was a zealot. I loved speaking english and I adored all the different dialects, not by their looks, but how they sounded. It was easier for me to learn about things when I read about them in english, as opposed to polish, which is my native tongue. 

I started learning english quite early on, definitely my first years of school, or as soon as it was available. I remember the pleasant and exciting feelings I had towards my teacher. She was a very pretty and young woman. One with that sort of all organised life aura. She had a partner, nice clothes, lovely and gentle make up. At least that’s how I remember her, not that I’d recognise her on the street, but how I perceived her at that time, so different to any females I was familiar with from home and my own environment, had definitely impacted how I perceived the language. 

I never learned english. I really just enjoyed reading texts, listening to tapes, repeating, rewriting. I listed to music from foreign artists and I’d find their lyrics, to sometimes translate, sometimes just make little books with, retyped on a typewriter. Maybe I’d paste a picture here and there. No sure, but some memories remain. 

These days, or should I say, for a few years now, it seems that my mouth just wants to speak Spanish. I adore the sound of Spanish from the south of Spain. It just flows so beautifully. When I’m in Spain, my mouth opens up to speak, I just didn’t let my mind know that it has the vocabulary to use, but soon as I’ve allowed it to think it can, it’d just go. It’s almost a physical thing. I mean, it does feel very physical, in my mouth especially. 

Much like that time my body wanted to conceive. Yeah. That time. So bizarre but that’s what I felt. My body wanted to conceive a baby. But I didn’t want that. I was resisting it as much as I could. I was in my early 20s. It wasn’t meant to be. How lucky!

I guess, not only language has had some say in my life, but also words. I read lots of lyrics as a youngster (and some philosophy). Mostly by Cobain and Courtney Love. I wrote a little throughout my school years too. I still have my high school notebook. Luckily, it’s not full. The pain that I find on the pages is not even funny. It’s really quite sad. It was tearing me apart. I guess it’s some kind of stage, of looking for oneself amongst the environment that seemed hostile. 

Religion should allow and set free, not forbid. That’s a domain of politics. 

But this year has been good for poems. They just come. They just come. Writing too. It’s those impulses from the universe. The muse is like, here you are, here’s some words for you to write down. And so I do. 

Are they good? That’s not even a question. I don’t really care (yet). I just like the feeling of the moment of inspiration. That is the joy. But also, I like some of them. I really do. Similarly to photography, they help me remember almost exactly what emotions ran through me at that time. And some of them seem quite deep. Deep in a sense of being able to be translated universally, not just in particulars to who I am, what has ever happened to me, or where I come from. It all has an impact, but the poems I like could have been written by many, not just me. They are on their way to revealing the truth, or sometimes maybe they do. 

things have changed

as they do

things change

transform

through time

and 

As I was falling in sleep, words started coming into my head. They made some sense in my emotions so I decided to get the light back on and write them words out. They came in batches. I was writing and falling asleep and writing again, although it didn’t take long. 

afterimage aftertaste why so bitter sweet this lemonade ....

So what is an after image?

Definition of afterimage

1: a usually visual sensation occurring after stimulation by its external cause has ceased

2: a lasting memory or mental image of something

That second definition really resonates with me. It’s basically looking at the past. Intellectually, I know it’s all wrong, pointless. That’s not where I want to go, but at the same time that is where I want to be. I want to be in that image, in that feeling of love, of connectedness, of togetherness, of having these amazing feeling as a response to all and any experiences. Why do they never occur on my own? Why? Why? Why? What is stopping me so much in feeling that bloody good just on my own? It’s like it doesn’t matter what I do I just feel like this ain’t it. Because I’m on my own and there is noone to share the feeling with. I still don’t know, in my emotions, on how to achieve this. Intellectually, I’ve got it all figure out, I can and do, write about it, but my emotions don’t step on the same level of understanding. 

Anyway, that after image is a haunting experience. Like a veil, a lens through which I perceive everything in my present life, in every single present moment. It is almost like a block to other experiences, since my dial is coloured and I see only what is of the same shade. Even if things do come by, I don’t see them, I see the after image. 

I like the idea of implementing colours into the pages of the book, I think that could accentuate the emotion of blocks - blocks of colours. Cos the memory is so beautiful, colourful, juicy and deliciously joyful. It is not the past that is wrong or bad, it is that I keep looking at it and so that is all I can see. 

Another thing to maybe include on the pages is a chaos of images, a chaos of blocks of images that overlap, one on top of another, creating a mash. Must be a beautiful mash, but still obscuring the vision. Too many images and you can’t see one from another. 

I definitely will want to use transparent paper to play with this concept of an after image. Something really contrasty, coming on and over a bright page. 

A chance (?!) led me onto a title for the book I’m wanting to work on. 

A friend invited me to take a chance at taking 10 black and white images as one of those ‘challenges’. I don’t really bother with any, but since I was quite inactive on some of my social media and since I usually take images on film taking it long to actually see them, I agreed to take part using my phone. 

The first image I created was of my hand holding onto a hand I have from an old mannequin. The picture above is not the first one I took, but it resonated with me the most. 

I just had an inspiration to see how the pictures would look like in a negative as this is something I like trying out when printing in my darkroom. I see a completely different world in the negatives. Often, the positive image wont’s spark any inspiration, but when I look at the negative, at the original, I see a whole new world.

So far I made 2 successful direct positive images on Harman Direct Positive paper in my darkroom. They are just delicious and so full of depth that they speak to me in many languages! :-) Clearly words can’t explain. 

But this image brought to my mind a word afterimage and it made the whole publishing so much more meaningful. After all, I wanted to create something, sort of - out of the past. To make a positive out of a perceived (by me) negative. 

I therefore decided that this would be the overarching theme for the project and the (working) title of the book. 

Also the image is very suggestive and meaningful as the most fresh memory from the past and a lot of the images that I’m using are from the period of my life from which I still get those after images. They are a collage of video stills and feelings that I experienced when certain things happened. 

Like that time when I was cycling with you after one of our first dates in the park and knowing we were come to a crossing that would part us we kept going slower and slower, almost stopping. We didn't want the moment to end. I loooooove these times! I think I’ll always remember that moment. Another one, and the one that really ties in with this book title and the picture itself, is when we were in mountains and it got dark. We held hands not to trip and fall, at least one of us could lift the other body up straight :-) I remember feeling at the top of the world then. Here I am, with the love of my life, somewhere in the wild, holding onto one another in support and love. I felt you cared for me and wanted to bring me to safety, I felt you wanted to show me you’re not afraid that you’re brave to shield both of us from any danger. I felt you so strong and I held your hand firmly, but lightly. I was not afraid in the slightest. I was so proud, so filled with joy, so happy to be by your side in that moment. A moment of true togetherness, of deep connection. 

But maybe that was only my perception. Maybe you didn’t feel that. Cos if you did, I still can’t grasp why would you decide that I’m not good to you, at all. 

I watched, not so long ago, an interview over instagram, between Margaret and Dienachtpublishing. It was really great to see her presenting her dummies with the audience. It was super inspiring to know that she also works with analog photography and by the looks of things, that she also might be printing on direct positive paper. Very clever! Margaret shared with the viewers that she uses a professional printer at home to hand make her dummies and publishings. This one, however, was done professionally. It has got gold leaf throughout, as well as on the cover. She said she was very pleased with how the book came out. 

The concept for her photographs originated from the idea of wabisabi, which I’m already familiar with and seen used on other occasions. I think it’s a combination of the richness of the material and elegance with which it contrasts the black and white photographs, as well as her many previous books that add up to her practice in the medium and self editing. 

I’ve only got a couple of images that I used direct positive paper with and I love them. They are exceptional, I wish there was bigger size of paper than 10 x 8 available in this medium. The contrast is just how I like it and I am able to play with images creating something completely different out of them. Like, giving them a new name, new face, new life, other than they would every have. This reminds me of the quote from Stephen Pressfield’s book ‘THE WAR OF ART’:

What I like about his photo book is the poetic feel it has. Sort of like an old manuscript of some sort. I’ve been working with contact prints of my 35 mm negs and I noticed that the author simply stuck the tiny photographs in, so they appear in their physical form. Very unusual, more appropriate for an artist’s book, however here we have 300 copies. Interesting take on a photographs as a physical object. 

I had an idea that I could play about with the sizes of the images, I have already got a few sets that I think might to go together well, but I also might use the small sizing to my advantage. Some of the contact prints have got some chemical stains on them, from fixer or otherwise. On one image especially it adds a bit of magic to the scene. I really like it about analog photography - when these happy mistakes happen.