Dear Professional Photographers (and other artists),
This letter is not to tell you how to do your craft; I don’t know anything about techniques or how to determine composition through a camera lens. But I do know the value of art and its relationship to shock value and I would like to teach you a bit about differentiating the two.
Now, this is mostly aimed at the fashion industry and their methods to get their product stuck in the minds of consumers, but I think I make some points that can be worth noting for anyone in a visual, art community. (I have yet to learn of a music composer who addressed these issues. They are too busy convincing the public that any ol’ sound is music).
First of all, themes of domestic violence, rape, or slavery are distasteful. But, worse than that, they’re insulting because you are not using them to represent anything. What exactly are you trying to say? Good art may use these themes, but for a greater purpose. The shock value is meant to get the viewer to reflect on their lives and their society in order to change it. The picture looks wrong because it is wrong. It looks disturbing because the artist wants you to think the value it represents is disturbing and then keep the image in your mind for the next time you can do something about the issue. Sometimes this action to fix the world is small, but the important thing here is that the artist is trying to say something, even if they aren’t trying to pressure the viewer into doing something drastic about it.
But what are you trying to say? You’re selling a product and nothing else. So what does violence have to do with this? Nothing. If you want to argue against me, I point to your flippant remarks regarding said issues or descriptions accompanying your photographs. You aren’t making a point to stop domestic violence, for example (though if you are, you’re doing a bum job of proving that), you’re using it to get people to have an emotional reaction so that they remember the name of your product. However, this backfires as people now have a negative reaction when they think of your name and won’t shop there. So fine, you succeeded in getting your name out there, but I don’t think you’ve encouraged them to shop, so what’s the point?
There is an inherent problem of objectification in the industry that I would love to address but I know is pointless. But I ask you to try and keep things in mind when you’re designing a photo shoot. Of course, your point might be too racy or banned for reasons you disagree with, but if you want substance in your photos, then make sure there is substance, not just playing with a touchy subject. The world is bad enough without us encouraging people to hurt each other. So please, keep that in mind next time. Controversy might be good advertisement, but it sucks for business.
Sincerely, your friend,
B.N.
The two sat in silence for a little while.
“You died in a coma,” the boatman said quietly. “I’m allowed to know that information because everyone wakes up differently depending on how they died. They told me you didn’t get enough oxygen to your brain so you might have been disoriented and have a headache when you woke up, so I had to be patient while you recovered a bit.”
The pain in Ted’s head started to return again in a small wave. “That…explains a lot, actually. I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Put your head down,” the boatman said. “But you won’t get sick. There shouldn’t be anything in your stomach and your body is dead so nothing can poison you.”
Even in pain, Ted chuckled at the logic. He felt sick and no one could argue with that, but the pain was starting to subside, even if the nausea just hung at the back of his throat. Ted shook the last of the headache out and finished shuffling the cards, dealing them slowly.
“I’m sorry,” the gondolier said quietly. “That’s got to be really hard to hear.”
Ted didn’t answer. After pushing back the sinking feeling that arose while he studied his sorry hand, Ted looked up and found his opponent looking at him with embarrassed intensity, his cards still in a haphazard stack on the table.
The boatman took a deep breath. “Let’s make a different deal,” he said. “I’ll take you to the city if you let me see your wife.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ted said, flipping the first card face-up.
“There’s a way to do it. If we go quickly, no one will know you have died, I can take your place in your body just for a few minutes and…”
“And, what? She probably knew the second I died. In modern hospitals, machines notify you the second someone stops breathing or their heart stops.”
“I know that! But, some people die twice, I’ve seen it.”
Ted sighed. “Why do you want to see her?”
“Because she sounds like an angel and all I get to see down here are people at their worst. You think things change when you die, they don’t. This isn’t heaven, this isn’t hell or purgatory, it’s the world all over again but when everyone is immortal and I’m sure you’re learned enough to know that immortality is a curse.”
“You fell in love with her from just hearing me talk? I can’t believe it.”
“It’s not love,” he answered back, quickly. “I’m just…curious.”
“Why torture yourself over something you can’t have? You get a few minutes and that’s it; then you get an eternity of memory.”
“I don’t have any other memories. Please let me have one happy one.”
Ted sighed. “No. Let’s just stick to our original deal.”
“I let you win, you know,” the boatman said, playing his card.
“What?”
“I let you win those last two hands,” he said, taking a card from the deck and playing another.
“Well they were close hands, but I’m getting the hang of it. I could probably—”
“No you couldn’t.”
Ted turned red and angrily put down his card. Almost immediately, it was followed by another play and the game continued in silence as the two sped through the deck of cards. All strategy was thrown out the window, Ted realized when he got to the second half of play, but he was so angry at being challenged, that he didn’t care.
He lost, just as was predicted.
“Please let me see her.”
Ted leaned back in his chair and stared his small collection of cards. Who knew what lie ahead in the city, but it was probably better than drowning again at the hands of regretful spirits in the water. His opponent might have been young and naive in every respect except his card-playing, but Ted felt bad for his companion and the more he considered the less he could see the problem of the new bargain.
“All right, but don’t do anything brash and unexpected and don’t say anything stupid, either. I don’t want her to suspect that it’s not me and I don’t want the last moments to be ones she’ll be scared about.”
The boatman smiled and helped Ted back onto the boat. Just as soon as he was seated, the platform rapidly diminished and then faded into darkness. For the first time, Ted felt tired and trapped at his predicament. He wanted to see Michelle again, but it was probably just as well that he couldn’t. He knew no one had ever cheated death and the world he had to leave behind was probably worse than the monotony he was going to face in the afterlife. They reached the ledge where Ted had woken up, although there was now a ladder on the far wall across from the river. The gondolier got up and helped Ted out of the boat with a nervous warning not to follow and then quickly climbed up the ladder into the darkness that Ted had assumed was a ceiling.
Ted stood for a bit, getting used to the feeling of solid ground, and listening to the sounds of water lapping against the stone ledge. Maybe he had made the wrong choice in letting the boatman up the ladder into his body. If he had cheated death thus far by avoiding swimming the river, maybe he could get away with just returning back to the surface. Besides, the men who had gone after him and nearly killed him might return for Michelle and the kids to pay the debt.
But then again, they didn’t really kill him; they had just gotten really close. They might have been caught and punished and then Michelle had been safe. He had made far too many mistakes in his lifetime and maybe it was time for once to follow the rules. Besides, he had a chance to start over. It seemed like it might be a completely alien world but from what he had seen, it wasn’t so different from the last one. He was lucky for second chances.
Soon the gondolier came back down the ladder and once his feet had reached the platform, the ladder disappeared.
“Thank you,” he said, smiling. He put a cold hand on Ted’s shoulder in a warm, friendly gesture. “Really.”
“Thank you,” Ted said. “For breaking the rules.”
The boatman chuckled and led Ted back into the boat before pushing off the ledge and down the dark river until they reached the glittering stone pier of the City of the Dead. Thousands of people milled about the banks performing jobs that Ted couldn’t describe. For being some place in within the darkness, the city was brighter and more vibrant than a living counterpart. Ted took a deep breath and actually felt a bit of excitement.
“Well, this is it,” the boatman said, cheerfully. “Come on, let’s get you the employment office and then a place to sleep.”
“That sounds great.”
Author’s note on post 418: Finally, the concluding segment. I re-wrote the ending, which is why it took so long. I couldn’t figure out how I wanted to fix it, just that it needed fixing. So, I think this is the final I’m going with and I’m not going to keep you hanging any longer. I have a post for tomorrow, so tune in next time. I don’t have a ton of time to be writing (this weekend is just a fluke, honest), so I’m not sure when I’ll be able to post again. I might go back to doing 10-minute stories; we’ll see.
Why, hello there! Miss me? It took me a little while, but I’m back to writing and editing. To catch up with this portion of the story, click here.
Without a word, the boatman dealt the cards and started the game. He remained quiet through most of it, but he seemed less focused on the cards. Ted tried to take full advantage of his opponent’s spaciness, but didn’t feel to confident about the outcome of the game.
“What was her favorite flower?” the boatman asked.
“Whose?” Ted asked absentmindedly.
“Michelle. What was her favorite flower?”
Ted stopped, his mind blank, even though it was his turn to play a card. It was odd hearing someone else say her name, and so innocently, that it threw Ted off guard. Luckily, his opponent was in no hurry and didn’t rush either the game or his answer. But no matter how much Ted tried to think about his wife, he had no idea what her favorite flower was. He vaguely remember her favorite color as yellow, but they seldom had any yellow flowers in the garden. Except marigolds.
“Marigolds.”
“Really?”
“I don’t know, maybe.”
Ted looked up in time to catch a glimmer of disappointment on his opponent’s face. Ted frowned slightly and played what he card he thought was best. They continued in silence with Ted gaining more and more cards. He felt more confident, but a fighting worry that he would get cocky and lose still gnawed at his conscience. Play it like your Poker games, he thought, and you’ll be fine.
Memories of his last Poker game came back in a haze. Then came flashes of the beatings, the moldy basement, and the weight of the hand holding his head underwater while his lungs marked the milliseconds like an extremely precise bomb before exploding into darkness.
“You won again,” the boatman said a little too cheerfully. Ted was breathing hard and fast, and he swallowed hard to try and calm himself down. He stood up and tried facing the water, but the dock swayed with his sudden movement and almost sent him into the darkness at his feet.
“Careful,” a somewhat panicked voice called out from behind him. The jolt of shock at almost being dropped back into water caused Ted to sober up and he sat back down at the table and grabbed his cards.
“I counted those already,” his opponent said, but Ted ignored him and counted them again. There were some high cards in the pile that he didn’t remember playing, but he took them anyway and then gathered the remaining cards to shuffle.
“Are you all right?”
The question seemed clear enough, but Ted wasn’t sure how to respond. “I—” he stopped and took a deep breath. His hands were shaking as he put down the deck. “I just had a flash back to how I died. Or how I think I died, I don’t know.”
Author’s comments on post 417: Another cliff hanger, but there will be answers next time…whenever that is…
“What’s your name?” he asked his opponent as he dealt the thirteen cards for the game.
“I can’t remember,” he said as if he was talking about a forecast of consistently sunny weather. “That’s the problem of being led down the Lethe. You forget things.”
Ted surveyed his cards. “How many rivers are there?”
“Five.”
“And where do they go?”
“The Underworld doesn’t really have a name, which is kind of weird, now that I think about it. And, well, only people who can afford it go, but it’s not a bad existence. You get assigned to a job and you do it. Once they find you a perfect job, you stay there. I haven’t gotten there, yet, though. We’re still trying to figure it out.”
Ted nodded and they continued play in silence before the gondolier asked, rather quietly:
“Do you remember?”
“Remember what?”
“Your name, how you died. Anything from when you were alive? Some people do, but I don’t talk to them much because they’re either crazy from shock or too snooty to bother talking to those of us who don’t.”
“Um, well, I remember my name is Ted Ryner and I worked as a security guard and I played black market poker on Saturdays. You couldn’t have picked Poker, huh?”
The gondolier smiled. “I’m not very good at it.”
That’s a shame, Ted thought as he studied his cards. He was doing better than he thought he might.
“What is black market poker?”
“We would bet on illegal stuff that people would represent with vouchers. Don’t worry, I always got cash since I didn’t want anything too incriminating on me if the cops stopped the game. I had a wife and kids to worry about.”
The game seemed to be taking a turn for the worse for Ted. Panic hit him again, but he managed to push it out of the way.
“You had a wife?”
“Listen, you’re better at this game than I am. Do you mind if we don’t talk so I can concentrate?”
“Sorry,” the boatman said so quietly Ted almost didn’t catch it. At the end of the game (Ted ended up winning), the boatman shuffled the cards and repeated his question.
“Yeah. Michelle was her name. We met in high school and weren’t really close, but she was the only person I knew in college, so we became friends. It took me a long time to realize she was the girl I wanted to marry.”
“Was she pretty?”
“Kid, she was beautiful.”
“What was she like?”
“She became a physicist in a small lab almost right out of school and she stayed working there. She was incredibly bright and a hard worker. And she loved to sing. She played piano or guitar to accompany herself when she thought I wasn’t home or the kids needed calming down. She used to sing to herself, too, when she thought she was alone. I don’t know if she loved singing more than physics, but she certainly did it a lot when she was lost in thought. She loved gardening too, which was fine by me. As long as she had a garden and plenty of yard, she was quite content.” Ted stopped talking, still stuck on his wife and the last time he saw her. The kids were out in the garden, it was sunny, and she was bent over some pink flower he had never heard of. And then, there was a knock on the door and…
He snapped back to the game. “Are you ever going to finish shuffling?” he asked, not meaning to sound hostile but coming across that way all the same.
Author’s comments on post 416: Sorry for the ending, gang, but that’s how I’m going to have to end it for a little while. The whole thing thus far should be up on the page called "Choice and Chance" for your convenience.
Ted stepped onto the boat and sat down instinctively to avoid the craft from tipping over, but it barely reacted to Ted’s step or the added weight. All at once, the boatman pushed the craft forward quickly down the river. It soon got dark in the tunnel, which brought to Ted’s attention that he hadn’t noticed a light source earlier, but he could definitely see the alcove and river as if there had been a dim flood light. Only the sound of sloshing water gave any indication that they were making progress until the boat turned sharply to the left and Ted could see an island ahead as if it was under a spotlight. Under different circumstances, he might have rolled his eyes at the overly dramatic setting, but the pain had returned to his head when panic hit his stomach like a bullet.
When they had gotten closer, he could see that the island was a floating deck held to the riverbed by four chains. In the middle of the deck was a table and two chairs opposing each other. The gondolier stopped the boat and helped Ted onto the deck, which did give under his weight letting a little water lap at Ted’s shoes. He quickly walked to the center and sat down in a chair, then realizing that a chess board and scattered deck of cards were already waiting for them. The gondolier took his seat across from Ted and, after pushing the chess pieces aside, he gathered the cards, expertly shuffling them for what seemed like several minutes.
“German Whist,” he said. “That’s what we’re going to play. Have you ever played before?”
“No,” Ted said, trying to take an inconspicuous deep breath to calm himself down as panic mounted.
“It’s pretty easy,” his opponent said and cheerfully went through the rules while Ted asked a few questions to try and wrap his head around the game. “I want to make this fair to you since you don’t know how to play, so should we say best out of three? No, best out of five, ok?”
“Best out of five sounds fair.”
The gondolier finished dealing the cards and placed the remainder of the deck on the table. The first hand started fairly slowly as Ted tried to figure out the best strategy; his opponent was patient while he fumbled and fussed with his cards. The first hand went by in silence with the gondolier winning. Ted wasn’t surprised, but he wasn’t comfortable with the fact, either. He shuffled the cards in heavy silence and tried to talk himself out of an increased feeling of doom.
Author’s comments on post 415: I’m almost on my way to Hong Kong and I’ve got a million things to do to prepare. So, I’m having trouble getting everything in order with this story before I go. There might have to be a small break after tomorrow for me to iron out the ending while I get frantically ready for the trip. My sincere apologies, but, that’s life.
“Look, I’m sorry. But I really have to go. I hate to leave you like this, but…good luck.”
“Wait,” Ted called back a little softer. “Is there any other way I could pay for passage?”
“Well, I don’t…nobody told me…I can’t imagine…” the gondolier looked nervously downstream and then glanced up at the ceiling above the ledge.
“What if we gamble for it?” Ted said quickly.
“G-gamble?” The gondolier looked at Ted like a wounded deer cornered by hunters. Ted felt a little sympathy for the boy in the boat; he looked no older than Ted’s twelve-year-old son and as if he hadn’t slept for years. Of course, Ted thought, mentally kicking himself for his naïve reaction, he probably died long ago.
“Sure!” Ted said more enthusiastically than he felt. “If you win I’ll swim to shore and if I win, you’ll take me there in your boat.”
“No, no, I can’t…I can’t…”
“What have you got to lose?” Ted said shrugging, although he knew the gondolier had more at stake than he did. He swallowed his worry for fear of breaking the illusion that he was in control of the situation.
“A lot, actually. But…no, I haven’t played in a while and you shouldn’t get the advantage. But…” the gondolier bit his lip and looked downstream, “Fine, you’ve got yourself a deal only if I pick the game.”
“Deal,” Ted said extending his hand.
“But we can’t play here,” the gondolier said, ignoring Ted’s gesture. “Get in the boat and I’ll take you to a place we can.”
Author’s comment on post 414: More of the story.
Ted Ryner noticed the pain in his head before he registered that he was awake. He rolled over to his side and a flood of nauseating pain filled his body. Groaning, he fell back, a little too hard, to the surface beneath him. He lay in the darkness, afraid to open his eyes and make the pain worse, slowly realizing that wherever he was, it was cold, flat, hard, and had plenty of salty, wet air. As the pain subsided, he registered the soft ebb of water against what might be a dock. He rolled over again, with more success this time, and managed to sit up and open his eyes.
It looked like he was sitting in a stereotypical sewer as the wall opposite him was closer than he had expected and guided the flow of a dark river of water. He was sitting on a stone ledge in a brick alcove which had a set of stairs leading into the water. At the bottom of the stairs was a gondola manned by an incredibly pale gondolier with dark circles around his eyes wearing a quizzical expression. When he caught Ted’s gaze, he smiled.
“Welcome to Styx! Or rather, the area upon which you will be traveling is called Styx—I mean, the river. We call the area around it…” the gondolier stoped suddenly and cleared his throat. “Unfortunately, I’ve got a lot of people to escort, so I’ll answer your questions on the way. Provided, of course, you have money to pay for your voyage. You do, don’t you?” Ted rubbed his temples and shakily stood up. Even in the haze of his headache, he remained upright as he fumbled through his pockets.
“Sorry, I don’t,” he mumbled.
“Oh, er, that’s a problem,” the gondolier said. “If you can’t pay for your passage, you’re going to have to swim. And no soul that swims in the water ever survives.”
“What?”
“I said, no soul that swims in the water ever survives. They get pulled under by the other ones and get absorbed. It’s a sad fate, but improves the shoreline much better than when they had souls wandering around here. Or, at least, that’s what I was told. I don’t know having just started this job and…” he stopped again and sighed. “Well, if you don’t have payment, I have to go.”
“Wait!” Ted called after him, although the man had not gone very far away, “at least tell me where I am and what I’m doing here.”
“I told you, you’re at Styx. And, um, I’ve never been very good at leading into the subject, so I’ll just jump right in: you’re dead.”
Ted laughed. “No, really. What’s going on? What day is it? Did the boys put you up to this for my birthday?”
The gondolier didn’t laugh. “I’m sorry to say you must have died because only the dead come here.”
The smile melted off of Ted’s face. “You’re kidding…” his voice was quiet and diminished to a whisper as he stepped back towards the wall and slid down, his eyes focusing on a spot of space in front of him. Once again, the only sound was the water sloshing up against the stone ledge and even though the gondolier didn’t say anything, he bit his lip and kept turning down river as if expecting something to come barging from upstream.
Author’s comments on post 413: What’s this? Well, that should be fairly obvious, n’est-ce pas?
I wrote this in one sitting and it’s somewhat short, and since it’s meant to be taken as a whole thing, I had a bit of trouble chopping it up. So, there might be some odd spots where it just ends, but I will have another post up the next day, so you only have to wait a little bit for the next installment. Enjoy : )
Five years ago today, I sat down at my shiny, new web-address and wrote an introductory post describing my creative writing blog endeavors. At that point, this website was going to replace my former blog that I had continued alongside my own stationary site called Brianna’s World. In the next half a decade, Lucid Waking would become the corner for my musings and creativity. It kept me practicing my writing and motivated me to continue my drawing. It showcased both of my self-hidden talents. For what it’s worth, I am glad to have this space where I can let people to see what I can do while hiding behind the anonymity of a computer screen.
Despite my daily struggles, this personal project of mine has kept going-at some times speeding along and others puttering to exhaustion-and I intend to keep it going, even at a snail’s pace if need be. I’ve always had somewhat unrealistic goals for myself and sometimes they keep me motivated to be better while sometimes they make me feel guilty and accomplish nothing. I have been writing recently, and I have two stories somewhat in the works as both are in the difficult planning stage. And, in honor of five years still going, I’m working on a new theme. For the next 5 years, I’ll rotate through all the old ones, but for now, a sneak preview of designs that didn’t quite make it towards the final banner.
Thank you for reading and waiting for posts for the last 5 years. Enjoy the day and have a little piece of cake on me!
Ah, the age-old question: what is art? It’s a hotly debated point mainly because there is no answer, but if I learned anything from my modernism and postmodernism art history class, it’s that art is defined by our intentions and perceptions. This definition has problems, I’m aware, but I want to put this to the test in this little article about a 4-year-old girl named Aelita, who has her own gallery show.
Angela di Bello, who is the Angora Gallery director that hosted Aelita’s works, stated that
“She [Aelita] is special in that she really knows what she’s doing. In that, she really understands color, composition, texture. If you look at her paintings, you’ll see that they’re balanced. Also, she’s consistent. … So, she’s already developed a style that is hers.”
and she also goes on to claim that Aelia’s artwork is surrealist in addition to abstract expressionist for her use of objects. For those of you who are non-visual artists in the community, Surrealism is Dali and his melting clocks, while Abstract Expressionism is Jackson Pollock. Not being an art expert myself, I thought I might only be seeing the bare bones of surrealism and therefore didn’t understand that surrealism can include the random placement of objects within a wash of color. But after consulting the Merriam-Webster dictionary (which defined “surrealism” as “the principles, ideals, or practice of producing fantastic or incongruous imagery or effects in art, literature, film, or theater by means of unnatural or irrational juxtapositions and combinations”), I’m still not sure how her use of pipe cleaners, pom-poms, and masks are a demonstration of surrealism.
Is this show an ironic demonstration of the typical high art community snobbery? We all know the jokes; one of my favorites being a short improv sketch one of my friends made up where a “Caution: Wet Floor” sign was critiqued as high art and the janitor who put it there regarded as a genius. I know the temptation in dismissing postmodern art as something anyone can do, and in a certain way anyone can. Anyone can have these ideas and anyone can pull them off well. In many modern works, it’s these ideas that make them appealing to me, not necessarily the work itself. But because I base my opinion on modern art from the artist’s creativity and ideas, I can’t give much value to this girl’s work. I do see something very mature in her artwork when looking at it, but when I listen to her talk about her paintings—during and after the process—I can’t see a mature artist taking her works seriously. Obviously, because she’s 4 years old and that would be giving her too much credit. Maybe she has an innate sense of color and placement that she can’t explain, but for us to say that she understands what she’s doing, that’s a bit of a leap.
So can we say that this is art? If we stick purely to my definition, we have to take it’s perception into account, so, yes. I will agree, however, that it is a bit ambiguous. But who am I to belittle her accomplishments just because she is four. If someone wants to spend several thousand dollars on something like this just because a gallery moderator says her works have a mature continuity, then that is the buyer’s prerogative. Me, I want to see what she comes up with when she’s older. If she’s going along like other child protegees, then there should be some amazing works of art.
For lack of a better title. I worked on this during a few snow days that we had and was perhaps the most therapeutic picture I have ever worked on, though I’m glad that I’m finally finished with it. This is available as a print, so if you love it, you can have it.
For more info/larger size –> click on the picture
For info on prints –> click here
