Yesterday morning, like many other mornings, I enjoyed my Amy Winehouse Karaoke marathon on youtube. A handsome face in black and white showed up the right side amongst all the related clips. This was Curt Cobain’s picture in a clip laying down the facts to support the conspiracy theory about Courtney Love being the murderer. I consulted my Courtney Love expert in the matter, Fionn. He is still head over heels in love with her even though he isn’t even that into girls anymore. I guess once you go Courtney, you never go back. He ended up sending pictures of her in her prime, when she is showing her boobs on stage and just being awesomely cool and well dressed in sexy short blond hair. I wanted more picture so I opened google. I found this.
Turned out that Ellens pictures of Courtney Love are still far from her best work. Compared to what other stuff she has done, these are almost not even worth looking at.
Ellen Von Unwerth, hands down the one and only photographer who has gotten my jaw to drop when scrolling through images. To the point that I am turning my wheels.
I am sure it will be quite difficult to find models who are brave and cool enough to pose for these images, but this world is huge.. There is people everywhere… They posed for Ellen, so why not for me?
Apparel by Sanna K is fun and I learn a lot from it, but I need to push some boundaries. Frankly, I need to do something less clean. Something that is less accepted by the general consensus. I wanna pinch a nerve somewhere and make people look at me in aw, wondering if I am insane. That will never happen if I keep doing what I am doing. Meaning I am trying to fit in the profile of a “normal photographer”, at the same time as I am constantly fighting against it. Not doing anything to really make it happen and I shrug at the thought of actually succeeding. But I cant kill this ghost in my head, voicing this false piece of information to me. “You will never make any money if you don’t learn how to shoot events… Like Aaron” Truth is, I would rather shoot myself.
Still, I keep going back and forth… Learn to care about companies and their CEOs VS some outrageous and ever so slightly insane but beautiful art with cryptic messages?
Sigh…
From the events I have shot, my favourite pictures are the ones nobody will ever see. Beautiful rich women in classy gowns are drunk on the dance floor grinding their husbands like dirty sluts at 2 am, when most of the other guests are already tucked in at home. These gorgeous photos, that I am so proud of having taken, that I am sure these women would love to have printed in a drawer somewhere; cant be posted anywhere. And it breaks my heart.
From Ellen I learned, I want people to get a little uncomfortable from my pictures. Not to the point that I am breaching any sensible morals, but I would feel brave and pretty bad ass having a person looking at my pictures — not being able to imagine how the hell that all went down. I want people to look at my pictures wondering what the atmosphere was like when they were taken. I want people to wonder exactly how arranged these pictures are? Or was the scene very much alive and just a moment flashing by like any other was captured? Wondering about everything, like I did with Ellens pieces.
I am not a corrupted person who has given in to all kinds of self indulgence while keeping my moral and spirit high anyway, by following the expected patterns of living a life. Like finishing school and surviving an office job. I haven’t even finished high school and probably never will. “You cant change the world trying to be like it” somebody said, and I agree. I gotta walk my own path, learning the things I want to learn in the way I want to learn them. A classroom is no future destination for anything, unless, ofc… maybe a photoshoot inspired by Von Unwerth.
I want to create something that is serving as my corrupted side. Not giving in doesn’t mean I am never considering it. The thrill I get from creating something that is not 100% PC, simply can not be replaced by anything else. I need it. And it cant be commercially airbrushed clean, it needs to be real. It needs to be dirty. It needs to be bad. It needs to raise an eyebrow and it needs to be balancing on the edge of “not okay”. Still it needs to be incredibly and exceptionally well done.
I have been writing a lot of songs and singing; as a way of doing this. But these have been texts about inner demons and they all wrote them selves while I was at war with them. I am not ashamed of my demons, I have even befriended most of them by now. As a way of admitting their existence and proudly show how my thought patterns are not like everybody elses, I published them. I have even sung a few of them at couple of Open Mic Nights. One guy listened carefully and understood. A few girls liked my wits.
My brain malfunctioning in moments that I know would be crucial to somebody else, is something I consider a blessing and a curse. The songs will never provide me the satisfaction since a great heartful performance is required for them to get through to people. And I will never perform them the way I see it my head. I can never do them in the way they should be done, when anybody is watching.
Pictures though, don’t need me to be present to be admired. They simply are just proof of what I have been up to earlier.
That’s what I want. That’s what I am going for. Some proof of me being ever so slightly insane.