One week ago I posted part I of a collaboration between Poet @raj808 and myself. Combining Photography with Poetry and vice versa: in the first part I selected (five) pictures that were matched with poetry by @raj808. In the second part we are playing the other way round: he shared a poem with me, for which I had to match the photography.
To see the first collaboration you can click here, or visit the matching post of @raj808.
The process, a visual match for a poem
I was curious how the 'vice versa' would work - it's a first for me to work together with a Poet, which has made me very excited, as I see the beauty of poetry combined with poetic photography. I received a poem from @raj808 who just seems to not 'do light-hearted'. I had to let the words sink in before I could come up with a visual idea for the poem.
As I actually think and experience the world as a series of images, the meaning of the words didn't become too abstract - abstract is not how my brain interprets the world around me. I see details of can be very literal in what I 'see' within words.
The Cathedral Bells he mentions in the last line of his poem sort of 'stuck' with me. They made me remember shots of movies where maybe bombs fall, something traumatic happens, and the victim or hero later only remembers that one specific detail - a sound, a smell... The 'scene' where the sound of bombs actually gets faded out by the more calming, trustworthy, predictable sound of the Bells... I had a vision in my mind.
The photos
Now, it's actually a coincidence I found these pictures in my photo archives. I knew I had some details of Cathedrals, heck, I visited one while roadtripping in France only 2 days ago! So I was thinking about photoshopping some details of a Cathedral, maybe the windows, a cross, the facade... A multi-exposure frame that was multi-interpretable. While randomly clicking through Lightroom to see if I could find more inspiration, I found these old pictures from 2012 - they are actually Church Bells, not Cathedral Bells, and I shot these in my own city with a portrait lens I just bought and was just trying out!
This is how test shots I never edited or published before suddenly became a perfect match for a poem. I love it when things work out like that.
The poem: Morning Chorus
https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmeh2adDugukKyBe5LR67368YeSi9UDVDwDRxHm6mvHMh9/Frame1_morningchorus.jpg
https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmQp567SWVRbhFAEMdFfTnmKUi8NbL9YxZDZry8N5osJqU/Frame2_morningchorus.jpg
Final words
Thanks a LOT @raj808 for working together on creating something bigger than our individual art forms! I love how we can enhance something we are both skilled at into something more by combining our arts.
A nice detail of the work we made here is that for us both the work was made years ago, left unused, and now suddenly came together as if they were waiting for one another, to become something new and fresh and 'published', even.
I would be interested in maybe sitting together in a random place someday, you with a notebook, I with a camera, and see what happens if we both 'observe' that same place for an hour. Would you see something similar or very different than I do? Would our Words and Photos be a superb match because our experiences overlap, or would we 'see' something entirely different in that same place?
For everyone reading and enjoying this post, I can promise you the one @raj808 wrote is even better! After all he's the man of the words, so click and enjoy!
Return from Art collaboration | Part II | Photography by @soyrosa & Poetry by @raj808 to Rosanne's Web3 Blog
