With my final Digital Photography assignment I was working on a couple of ideas that didn’t end up panning out. While back in Pont-Aven, I kept trying to find time to take pictures, but it was constantly raining. So I ceremoniously stood up in my studio and decided that the rain was going to work with my photos instead of being a nuisance.
Trudging along in the rain while trying to not get my camera wet, get hit by cars or let the wind take off with my umbrella, I found my inspiration. Earlier this semester I wrote about Italo Calvino’s excerpts from “Invisible Cities” and I was thinking about his excerpt “Cities & Eyes” that talks about the city of Valdrada which is reflected by the lake it borders. The story of this city is wonderful, but for my purpose I adapted the tale. Standing in the rain, holding on to my umbrella, I stared into the puddles at my feet and wondered “What if these puddles didn’t reflect what was around them, but revealed another city parallel to ours?” I then stared to imagine how these puddles were windows to this “other world” and we can only get glimpses of this world when the puddles exist.
The next step was capturing this idea with my camera. With the images below, I worked with a specific formula. I wanted the images to vary, but as a whole, I wanted this idea of two worlds existing simultaneously to also be present. To do this I would include parts of the setting or objects from Pont-Aven alongside the images in the puddles. These images are meant to be displayed in two groups of four images. I will be displaying these groups horizontally with space separating the first group above from the second group below.
With some of these photos, I also played with how you looked into the puddle. Some of the photos are a little unsettling because the image is right-side-up, but the setting is upside-down. I really enjoyed taking these photos and I’m going to continue this idea in other cities or try to push this concept further. In the end, the rain can be a photographers friend!
