A Bridge Too Far

iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ A Bridge Too Far ~

A Bridge Too Far, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

BONUS: For Street Photography Fans!

facebook.com/streetphotographysecrets

Tweet

When I work on an abstract painting, I'm not totally conscious of what I'm doing, what's going on, or what it all means. OK, often I have a basic idea of what it's supposed to represent or hint at, but not always. Sometimes I'm just playing with shapes and lines and colours and textures that please me. And sometimes, when the thing is completed, it speaks to me and passes me messages and suggests thoughts which seem original and new, almost as though it wasn't even painted by me in the first place.

And when I look at pictures like the one above, here originally of the Batofar bar-club on the Seine next to the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, I get the same impression. Or I'm starting to.

It seems that the further from reality I move my pictures, my photos, the more personal and significant they become. Ominous, and sometimes even sinister, that. It makes sense really. Because the more I play with an image, the more of myself I'm putting into it, and my being is actually merging, more than just interacting, with the original reality of this cool, but not mind-blowing boat.

All of this maybe sounds high-falutin' nonsense, and yet isn't that what all photographers who aren't just taking snaps are trying to do: inject a little of themselves into what they're looking at, hoping for some sort of immortality, perhaps?

It's a bit like a classical musician interpreting a score. Two musicians would see the same notes and instructions, but I doubt their renditions would be identical. Just like two photographers taking this boat would doubtlessly produce two different images. Indeed, and this might be the crux: I'm fairly sure that the musicians and the photographers would be pretty upset if their music or images weren't unique.

If I had to interpret what's going on here with this image, I'd probably say it looks like I'm living in a dream world, or that I'm not particularly impressed with the way things are. Otherwise why would I go to all this trouble to change them, even if it is just in my mind or on my computer screen. The boat itself probably hasn't changed much since my passing, so what's the point?

You know what? I don't know. The answer's probably far too deep to fathom, or to obviously simple to notice, or maybe there isn't even a question in the first place.

What I do know, is that it is a darn cool boat! Fancy having a lightboat on the Seine. I'm guessing that Batofar is a distortion of bateau phare, phare being 'lighthouse', and bateau being, well, you did at least one year of French at school, didn't you?!

Now it's a trendy club where you can go and boogie on the bridge and watch strange, shadowy figures contorting themselves to get strange images to transport them off to another dimension. But that isn't so different from what the boogiers are doing, just our methods are different. The problem is, once you've seen the light (or felt the music) there's no turning back.

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

_________________________________________________________________________________
© 2012 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.