Behind Each Mask Lies Another Mask
This post contains some adult content.
As stated, this blog is supposed to be, in part, an answer to a 365 Project Challenge. For those of you who don’t know, The 365 Project is a challenge placed to a photographer to take a photograph every single day. It’s quite a challenge! It is a true test to be inspired daily; to have the photographic wherewithal to participate daily; to have a discerning eye daily and be motivated after all of that, to post it… daily (without out boring your audience to death); that indeed is quite a challenge. Some argue The 365 Project is not particularly for the readers but instead an endurance test, a disciplinary challenge, a self-imposed boot camp for the photographer challenged. The opposing argument to being an Artistic masochist is that it takes, as in any relationship, a daily and sustained interaction to maintain a closeness and a true understanding of the other, between the Artist and the Patron.
Do you think this is why you are reading this?
Is that why I am doing this?
OR
Is it a Billy Blanks/ Bikram Yoga type of self-induced torture just to beat my imagination and motivation into shape.
Time will tell.
The one thing I will say though is if I’m going to in fact play this game, as in life, I demand to play by my own rules. I will still take a photo everyday, however that is not my final goal and the photo that I take may not be what you will see in my daily updates.
What You Will See Is What I Choose To Show You.
Is that not the point of the ‘Photographic Arts’ and why we enjoy them as patrons? They are representations of what an Artist interprets and presents, in a manufactured ‘frame, in order to 1) express the inner psychological state of the artist 2) induce an emotion or reaction out of the viewer or 3) translate the artist’s point of view of the world.
We enjoy peering into the lives of others and trying to figure them out; whether it is of purely voyeuristic exploits (which are not all bad as the word tends to imply) or to squelch our ever-present sense of solitude and alienation.
It is rare these days to find an un-manufactured POV or an un-manipulat(ed)(ing) ‘thing’ at all. Considering this manufactured ‘frame’ through which we are forced to experience the outside world , where does one go to find the truth behind representations?
I will attempt to show you and this is my goal, for myself and for my audience:
You’ve Got to Look Deeper Than Deep
Artemis* @MercyMePhoto
Into The Center of ‘The Darkness Inside’
Daughter of Zeus ©MercyMePhoto 2009
Past The Seemingly Endless Façade
Her Six Wishes ©MercyMePhoto 2009
To Translate What is Given
Into What is Implied
Naiades @MercyMePhoto 2009
And Using Each Layer, Deduce The Infrastructure of The Story Being Told
Tears of Naiades ©MercyMePhoto 2009
Behind. Each. Mask. Lies. Another Mask.
*Model: Linsay C., Make-up: Matthew MacDonald, Margarita Melendez, Hawa L.
Mercy Me Photography and Superlative Exploits 