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Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Romulus

If you've ever listened to a Sufjan Stevens song, you have probably cried just listening to how beautiful his imagery from his songs are. There are a few in particular that when I listen to, I get a specific image in my head. I've always wanted to translate these images to photographs, and recently I tried to do just that, realizing that it is much harder than one would imagine.
The song which inspired this image is "Romulus", off his CD "Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lake State". For those who haven't heard it, go listen. But those who won't ever, it's about possibly his (he sings from many points of view) grandfather dying and how his mother "didn't seem to care, she smoked in her room and colored her hair." This picture doesn't portray quite what I wanted to, but I think it still works.

This image was taken in my bathroom, after stripping everything out of it and making it empty. A wonderful artist who I used to live with before she left for grad school in Germany, Amanda, was willing to pose for me. Thank you Amanda, and thank you Sufjan Stevens.

4 comments:

Lauren said...

Oh I love Amanda. Great shot.

No, the film wasn't cross-processed, it basically came out that way, I just did a few tweaks in curves--bluer lowlights and yellower highlights (which probably accounts for the cross-processed look). But honestly, most of the color was done in the scanning software, which is kind of awesome. Jonathan Canlas kind of inspired me want to use film more and I totally love it.

Jacob said...

nice. i love this. very creative. i love sufjan stevens. he is amazing.

austinmcraig said...

There's no smoke. She's faking.

Christine Armbruster said...

no..she was defentally smoking, but thanks austin. if you would have gone in our bathroom for the following week, you would have believed it.