Begin Deepening
Module 2
Today I'm talking about Balancing and Mirroring.
Watch this video to get an idea of what I’m talking about. I describe one of my images in this video and have posted it below for you to see as you listen in. The password for all videos is begin_deepening
A “balancing” photo is something that is balancing the energy of your topic.
If it’s a dark subject maybe the image is all very bright and white or yellow.
If the subject matter is upsetting, maybe the image is soothing.
If the subject mater is joyful, the image is more quiet, choosing a color scheme and lighting, objects and energy that might suggest a more subdued feel.
Basically the subject and the photograph about that subject balance each other out. Potentially opposites.
So if you’re wanting to investigate something challenging, you might want to balance that out with something easy on the eyes. It gives you somewhere soft to land while you’re going through whatever you’re going through.
Mirroring is going to look like and feel like the subject matter you’re investigating.
If it’s a crisis in your life that you’d like to try to illustrate in your image maybe the image is chaotic and makes you feel overwhelmed looking at it.
If the emotional landscape feels lonely and you want to try to create something that mirrors it, maybe it’s a lone tree far away from the camera out in a barren field. Maybe it’s a self portrait and you’re alone in the corner of a room in a dark space.
If the situation you’re in is a conflict with your lover or partner or friend, maybe you use 2 spools of thread all tangled up as the mirror of the situation or how it feels in that situation.
If you’re celebrating a big transition in your life ( like the birth of a child, a new relationship, a goal being achieved.) Maybe you look for an object that’s metaphoric of that feeling of transition.
Another Example
The crown.
I was in the middle of getting divorced. I was feeling so many things about it. I was the one who chose to get divorced. I was listening to the whispers in my heart for a few years before I actually decided to take the action and tell him I wanted to go. It was really hard. If you looked at the marriage from the outside…nothing was “wrong”. But on the inside… I was very alone for a long long time.
So when I took this photo I was actually alone. I’d moved out and moved back to Los Angeles from where we had been living. I’m in another house, alone. On this particular night my son is with his dad for the weekend. And…It's the date of what would have been our 7th year of marriage. I’m facing myself. Who am I now? How did I get here? What is this new life of being a mostly single parent . I’m not grounded in this new space within myself. I’m not interested in going back there. I’m unsure about how my life is going to be now.
I like to mark important moments in my life through photography. This date felt so significant to me. October 13th, 2014.
I took the crown that was the topper on our wedding cake and put it on my head and created self portraits with my Polaroid SX-70 camera and black and white Polaroid film.
I just started to take photos. It was nighttime and I was using a lamp for the lighting. I put a sheet over a door that leads to the hallway so the background was white and became an “other” space. The images were long exposures because the light was low and the polaroid automatically stays open to compensate for that. I moved my face back and forth. Took MANY Polaroids. This is the one that spoke to me the most.
The images of my face. The looking back with a sadness in the way my face is looking and expressing. The looking forward with another type of sadness. And all of that white space in the in-between. It really expresses how I was feeling in that moment. Unsure of where I am. Sad. Hopeful. Grief.
I believe this image is Mirroring the sadness and confusion of the past and present while also sad about the unknown and how I will fit inside of this new future. If it were “Balancing” It would have a happier tone to it. This image doesn’t scream sadness, but there is an energy to it that’s contemplative and inward. It matched (mirrored) my internal landscape well.
Today’s Prompt
Take your secret… create an image that is balancing ( expressing the opposite of how it really feels ) or mirroring ( creating how the secret feels ) If you get stuck I highly recommend the book “The Book of Symbols” or you can look it up online. The symbolic meanings of different objects, animals, places, nature, etc and see what might feel like it fits as you explore the energy of this secret a little more. It can be just a photograph of an object. How you photograph it can really express what you’re going through in a metaphoric way.
Still stuck? Start taking photographs of objects you have in your home. Just start. See what they look like in different lighting situations. The LIGHT could be the thing that helps you describe your internal landscape. Maybe the lighting is bright. Maybe you try it dark with just a sliver of light around the edge of a plate or a cup.
xo
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If you find yourself too stuck to move forward and would like some support I offer 1:1 coaching to help with any limiting beliefs or blocks and to give you feedback on your work or suggestions on what to do next. Click HERE