The Inspiration of Control

Lately I’ve been having inspiration problems.  I’ve been searching for it, and really, having no luck.  The other week, my wife & I went over to the Red Rocks Amphitheater just outside of Denver, CO.  For the most part, we were just bored and looking for something to do.  Having already had my “realization” that I spoke about in my last blog, I was just shooting some pictures of my wife on the steps of the theater.  When we had decided to leave, we started walking across the theater.  I noticed the steps going up were completely symmetrical.  Being the fan of symmetry that I am, I had to snag a picture.  Later that week when I was editing the pictures, I got to my symmetrical steps one.  I did my cropping and the usual black & white edit.  It still felt like it needed something though.  I’ve never really attempted to put stylish text over photos before, but I have seen others do it on Instagram.  And really, they do it quite well.  So I figured I’d just throw the title, “Options” on there.  Because all the seats were empty, hence you would have plenty of “options” for seating.  Just earlier that week, I had been listening to one of my favorite albums of all time, Pedro the Lion’s, “Control.”  “Options” is the first track, and a really great introduction to the entire album.  One of the things that makes this album so perfect, is that it’s a concept album.  It’s a fictional story told by lead singer, David Bazan, from the first person point of view.  The story is in chronological order from track 1 all the way to track 10.  This album was not Bazan’s first attempt at storytelling through music, but in my opinion, it was his finest work up to that point.  It hit me while I was looking at the picture I had just finished editing, “What if I were to tell his ‘Control’ story through a series of pictures?”  Done.  And there we had it, inspiration!

Lyrics:

We were walking, holding hands
With our bare feet in the sand
And the seagulls overhead
When I broke the spell and said,
“I could never divorce you
Without a good reason
And though I may never have to
It’s good to have options.”

But for now, I need you
But for now, I need you
But for now, I need you

But it was only in my head
Because no one ever says
What they really mean to say
When there’s so much at stake
So I told her I loved her
And she told me she loved me
And I mostly believed her
And she mostly believed me

Rapture

Lyrics:

This is how we multiply
Pity that it’s not my wife
The friction and skin
The trembling sigh
This is how our bodies move
With everything that we could lose

Pushing us deeper still
The sheets and the sweat
The seed and the spill
The bitter pill yet undiscovered
Gideon is in the drawer
Clothes scattered on the floor
She’s arching her back
She screams for more

Oh, my sweet rapture
I hear Jesus
Calling me home

Finally a chance to breathe
Reaching for the fallen sheets
Collapsing in a glowing heap
We’ve gone too far
We’ve done too much
We have to quit it
Just one more kiss
Just one more touch
Please ten more minutes
This feels so good
Just barely moving
The tension building
Our bodies working
To reach the goal

Oh, my sweet rapture
I hear Jesus and the angels singing
Hallelujah
Calling me to enter the promised land

Process:

The tricky thing to this series was knowing the title of the picture first.  I didn’t have a clue what I was going to shoot for any of these tracks.  With the first track, it just happened organically, so I didn’t need to think about it.  But the rest?  I was just hoping that the idea would just come to me if I listened to the track over & over.  We see in “Options” that it should be a romantic song of a husband & wife walking in the sand together.  But as the husband reflects on their marriage, he reassures himself that divorce is always an option.  The marriage as a whole seems as though, it’s not that great.  So here in track 2, we see the husband cheating on his wife in a hotel with either his mistress, or just simply, a prostitute. Bazan is quite classic in this album with some pretty vulgar and offensive lines.  Beginning here with the line, “Oh, my sweet rapture, I hear Jesus calling me home.”  A quick back story on Bazan is that he loves pointing out what’s wrong with America and what’s wrong with Christianity today.  So with this track, we’re left to believe that this main character is a “Christian” after he refers to Jesus and the “rapture.”  However, like a lot of Christians today, he hasn’t the foggiest what it is that he believes.  Specifically, he thinks that being there in a hotel room with his mistress, cheating on his wife, is comparable to hearing Jesus calling him home to heaven by means of rapture.

For my picture, I wanted to capture the act of infidelity.  But, I didn’t want to be inappropriate.  It had to be sexual, and preferably female.  The idea of lips came to mind and thankfully my wife is always game for when I want to use her for one of my picture ideas.  So I grabbed a lamp, put it right next to the bed, had my wife lay down very close to the lamp, I leaned in with my iPhone’s camera, and Ka-Blamo!  It only took 3 shots to get that perfect “mouth slightly open” look.  My wife is such a good model.  There wasn’t too much to the editing process.  I did small tweaks including the crop in Snapseed.  Then over to PictureShow and applied the “Red Vintage” filter to give it that ‘70s album cover vibe.  Then my second idea hit me, since this was music that I was putting pictures to; why not make all of these pictures look like individual album covers?  And so I did.

Penetration

Lyrics:

Have you ever seen an idealist with gray hairs on his head?
Or successful men that keep in touch with unsuccessful friends?
You only think you did
I could have sworn I saw it too
But as it turns out
It was just a clever ad for cigarettes

‘Cause if it isn’t making dollars
Then it isn’t making sense
If you aren’t moving units
Then you’re not worth the expense
If you really want to make it
You had best remember this
If it isn’t penetration
Then it isn’t worth a kiss

We’re so sorry sir
But you did not quite make the cut this time
And we’d appreciate it if you cleared your stuff on out by five
Don’t take it personal
Everyone knows you did your best
If it makes it easier
You should look at it from our perspective

‘Cause if it isn’t making dollars
Then it isn’t making sense
If you aren’t moving units
Then you’re not worth the expense
If you really want to make it
You had best remember this
If it isn’t penetration
Then it isn’t worth a kiss

Process:

This image in my mind was simple enough.  At this point in the story, either our main character is getting fired, or he’s doing the firing.  I’m pretty sure though that he’s the one doing the firing.  I love this song and Bazan’s choice for using the penetration line.  Penetration, obviously having the sexual meaning where your mind probably travels to first; but he’s also using the word in the business sense, as in, “Market Penetration.”  I believe this song, and the next song, are absolutely amazing examples of Bazan blasting the attitude of corporate America.

With this image, it didn’t come together as quick as I was hoping it would.  I knew I wanted the picture to be of the person that was just fired walking out with his box of possessions.  However, I don’t work a desk job, so I haven’t a clue what would be inside said box.  So, I’ll admit it, I did some google image searches to see what others have decided would be in the box.  The common theme?  They all had plants!  Ok, now I had all of my items, I just needed a box.  I didn’t have one.  However, the dumpster at my apartment complex did.  Yes, I went dumpster diving.  Once back inside, I had to suit up of course.  Well, after my shower that is.  I suited up, filled up my box with my papers, my plant, & some pens, stood against the white wall in my living room and gave my wife some directions for how I wanted to be shot.  She complied, but once I had my suit off and sitting on the couch, the picture just wasn’t right.  The iPhone just wasn’t responding well to the low-light situation inside my apartment.  I needed this shot to be clear, not pixilated through heavy app saturation.  So back to the closet I went to re-suit up.  This time I set up a tripod with my Nikon D5100, flipped the screen around to the front so I could see it while standing in front of the camera, grabbed my remote for the camera, grabbed my box and stood against the wall and started snapping away.  I was much happier with this result.  Loaded those pictures to my iPhone and started editing.  First, I used Snapseed for my basic tweaks & crop.  Next, I went to Filterstorm and adjusted the brightness around myself on the white wall to eliminate the shadow of myself.  Then I spent awhile with many, many apps trying to find the perfect filter.  Eventually, I ended up using the “Beardy Earl” filter in Super Retro.  I’ve only used Super Retro once before, it’s an ok app in my book.  The only bummer from that app was that it required I use the white border that comes with “Beardy Earl.”  I wasn’t into it, so I cropped it out with Snapseed.  And lastly, I had to add the word “Penetration.”  So, for the text, I used the app, Phonto.  I’d definitely recommend this app.

Indian Summer

Lyrics:

Ultra-violet rays are washing over
All the boys and girls
As their moms lay tanning by the pool
Oh, look, their dad’s arriving home
All the children hug his neck
Unaware of their inheritance

All the experts say you ought to start them young
That way they’ll naturally love the taste of corporate cum

God bless the Indian summer
God bless the Indian summer
God bless the Indian summer

Don’t you just love the sun?
Doesn’t it make you feel good all over?

It’s my pleasure to announce
In conjunction with the fed
And my recent popularity
Thanks in part to mother nature
It will never rain again
It should do wonders for the GNP

If you’re just joining us now
You’ve missed a brilliant speech
We go now live to the streets
To find out what the voters think
He’s worked a miracle
I just now bought a brand new car

God bless the Indian summer

Process:

This was an easy one for me.  This song is again just David Bazan showing us how shallow this character is.  I knew exactly what I wanted for the shot.  I knew that this was going to be a picture comprised mostly of my editing process.  So I walked out on my balcony and snapped a quick picture of the skyline.  First, I sent it through Snapseed for the crop and tweaks, making sure to only leave a small amount of the skyline at the bottom of the picture.  I wanted mostly sky.  Second, I sent it through PictureShow for the MultiExposures filter.  If you keep tapping on that filter choice, the colors will change.  Eventually, I settled on the colors that you see here.  Next, I went to google and found a perfect “yellow circle.”  Then opened up Blender (or Image Blender), and applied a mask so as to make it appear like a sunrise/sunset, and adjusted the opacity so it blended better.  Then it was off to Phonto for my “Indian Summer” text using the “Oliver” font.  Lastly, and for the life of me I can’t remember, I added one more filter somewhere to make the sky a bit more yellow.

Progress

Lyrics:

Here we have our dust free dining set
We guarantee it won’t collect a spec
Freeing up the children to instead
Grow into your molding
Heed more of your scolding
Go early to their new self-making beds

It seems like you’d be tired of losing face
Like you’d want to put the children in their place
The more you have to tell them to do their chores
The more you run the risk of being ignored

If you’re lucky they’ll turn out as good as you
You tell them that they’re good kids
But you know that it’s not true

Your father drank a little
You’re on liver number two

Progress has a way of feigning ease
Convenient new inventions bait the tease
For, though it is impossible to cure
A husband bent on cheating
The oxygen’s depleting
A child who’s always bragging
A wife’s persistent nagging
We’re equipped to live as though it were

If you’re lucky they’ll turn out as good as you
You tell them that they’re good kids
But you know that it’s not true

Your father drank a little
You’re on liver number two

Process:

Many, many moons ago, I was at (now closed down) Seattle’s old Paradox Theater.  I was there to see some local act, I don’t remember which one.  During one of the performances that night I stepped outside for a cigarette.  Lo and behold, Dave Bazan was also outside just chatting it up with some people.  In my circle of friends, there were a few of them that knew Dave personally.  We ended up talking to Dave for awhile, we chatted about a lot of stuff.  I asked about his new album that he was working on (Control), Dave responded that he hadn’t wanted to write another story album, but as he began writing all of these different songs, he noticed that they all had a theme, so he put them into this album.  Originally, this song, “Progress” was released as a differently recorded track called, “April 6, 2039” on the “Progress” EP.  I like the version on Control much better.  My point to this is, I’m pretty sure this track was one of those tracks that just “fit” in with the story that he ended up writing.  It’s a great song in my opinion.  I think it’s a great song to show us a great example of the human condition.  And he’s also showing us more about the family in this story.  The husband is cheating, the kids are bragging, and the wife is nagging, and it is all thanks to the progress of “convenient new inventions.”  The thing I was thinking about during this picture was, this song was recorded well over 10 years ago, long before any smart phones.  Just food for thought.

The picture was difficult for me.  I don’t have kids; otherwise it might have been easier.  And I certainly couldn’t go to the park to take pictures of kids; that’d just be weird.  So I focused on the drinking part.  But there lies the other problem.  I don’t drink anymore.  And I don’t have any whiskey glasses.  So I couldn’t even use iced tea or something.  I ended up remembering that I had shot an Indie movie premiere here in Denver with my good friend, Cameron (@camwashburn) back a couple months ago.  There, when the party was simmering down, I used my Nikkor 10.5mm Fisheye lens on my Nikon to shoot this recently filled glass of whiskey.  The edit was simple this time, just Noir and Snapseed, and of course, Phonto for the text.

Magazine

Lyrics:
This line is metaphysical
And on the one side, on the one side
The bad half live in wickedness
And on the other side, on the other side
The good half live in arrogance
And there’s a steep slope
With a short rope
This line is metaphysical
And there’s a steady flow
Moving to and fro

Oh, look you earned your wings
Are you an angel, now
Or a vulture
Constantly hovering over
Waiting for a big mistake

Oh, my God, what have I done?
Oh, my God, what have I done?

Wouldn’t you love to be
On the cover of a magazine?
Healthy skin, perfect teeth
Designed to hide what lies beneath

I feel the darkness growing stronger
As you cram light down my throat
How does that work out for you
In your holy quest to be above reproach?

Process:

This is quite easily my favorite song on the album.  It also has one of my favorite drum beats ever recorded on it.  If you’re reading this and you’re curious to listen to one of these songs, this would be it for me.  I love everything about this song. At some point in the last ten years, I remember reading an interview with Bazan where he shared about the songwriting process to this song.  He said he had been inspired by a Spin Magazine feature on the band, Radiohead.  The band all had their own individual pictures taken, each holding up their own piece of cardboard with written directions to the photo editor as to how they would like to be photoshopped.  In example, Thom Yorke requests that both of his eyes look the same.  Google it, it’s pretty awesome.

So according to Bazan in this song, this is a reflection of not only the couple featured in the story, but also society as a whole.  He says that half of us live in wickedness, while the other half live in arrogance.  So if you’ve been listening to his story thus far, looking down on the character, then you fall into the arrogant file.  And the wicked respond to the arrogant by saying, “Are you an angel, now?  Or a vulture?…”  And I think it can be taken a couple different ways.  I think that it could be directed at the listener to make sure you realize that we all fall into one of those two categories, or it could be him talking about his “holier than thou” wife, and how she continues to try and cram “light” (or essentially, Christianity) down his throat.  Thusly, making his darkness grow stronger out of rebellion.

For the picture I was completely stumped.  I took a few days to think about it.  Eventually, I came to the idea of doing a magazine style of cover.  I snapped my own face again with my Nikon and tripod and did two completely different edits.  On the left, I cloned out some freckles and moles on my face and also used the “Noise Reduction” feature, both in Filterstorm.  Then the face on the right, I just went nuts using the “drama” option in Snapseed.  Blended the two together and made them black and white using Filterstorm.  And of course, added the text, this time with Easy Titler.

Rehearsal

Lyrics:

It’s so priceless when you say you have to work late
When we both know you’re at a motel
Here’s the thing that’s so much more depressing
Than the infidelity itself

Darling, you are so unoriginal
Each move more obvious than the one before it

You know I always said that I would kill you
If I ever caught you stepping out
Now I see I did not know the half of
What hatred and revenge were all about

Darling, you are so unoriginal
Each move more obvious than the one before it

And I guess I could be bigger but I’d rather make you pay

Darling, you are so unoriginal
You’ll see that I can be so unoriginal just like you
Process:

Oh, my how I love this song!  And I love the part of the story!  Here, it shifts gears, and now we get to hear from the wife and her perspective of what has been transpiring in her marriage.  Essentially, she’s planning to kill him.  She’s fed up, and she’s gotten bored.  She figures she could be original and just leave him, but the “unoriginal” thing to do when you’ve caught your spouse cheating, is to kill them.  It’s depressing and amazing all at the same time.

For the shot, I thought a good long while about this one, days in fact.  I thought about all sorts of different ways to capture the wife contemplating about it all.  As my wife and I thought about how to shoot this picture, she pulled out a knife to cut some cantaloupe.  I stared at it as she cut it, all shiny and glistening.  It looked rather like a mirror.  Eureka!  I love when inspiration strikes.  It took awhile to get the angle just right of my wife.  It’s hard to tell exactly what she’s doing, but she is supposed to be applying lipstick.  My wife however, does not own any lipstick.  She is a lipgloss only kind of girl.  I couldn’t believe she didn’t have any.  Originally I was going to do some selective color of the just the lips and lipstick, but I figured black and white would have to do.

Second Best

Lyrics:

The impact
The aftershave
The European cigarettes
The taxi
The alcohol
That lingers on your breath
The lipstick
The street lamp
The woolen overcoat
The front desk
You tell yourself
It isn’t over yet

Second best, oh, second best
I can learn to live with this
Plus, I really need a rest
After all, what’s wrong with second best
What’s wrong with second best

The motel
The distances
Cave into kisses, cold and wet
Familiar exchanges
Like needle pulling thread
The empty movements that once were so inspired
Desperate attempts to fan the flame without the fire
The mattress creaks beneath
The symphony of misery and cum
Still, we lie jerking back and forth
And blurring into one

Second best, oh, second best
I can learn to live with this
Plus, I really need a rest
After all, what’s wrong with second best
What’s wrong with second best

Process:

As this story starts to come to a close, we see the husband yet again, cheating on his wife.  Although, this time, it’s just different.  He’s maybe gotten bored himself, cheating on his wife no longer carries the thrill it once did.  We see he’s trying to “fan the flame without the fire.”  He recognizes that maybe this is all there really is for him, so he kind of just, gives up.  He settles for “second best.”

Finally, all the traveling I do was going to pay off.  This shot is of my queen size bed in a hotel I stayed in at the Holiday Inn Express in North Platte, Nebraska.  I didn’t agonize too long with the edit.  I used PXL to do all the square shapes in the back, using Filterstorm to blend them in behind the bed.  Made the picture black and white, added the text with Easy Titler.  Lastly, I used PicFX for that orange tint.

Priests and Paramedics

Lyrics:

Paramedics brave and strong
Up before the break of dawn
Putting poker faces on
Broken bodies all day long
The neighbors heard a fight
Someone had a knife
It must have have been the wife
Husband’s lost a lot of blood
He wakes up screaming, “Oh my God!
Am I gonna die?
Am I gonna die?”
As they strapped his arms down to his sides
At times like these they’ve been taught to lie
“Buddy, just calm down, you’ll be all right.”

Several friends came to his grave
His children were so well-behaved
As the priest got up to speak
The assembly craved relief
But, he himself had given up
So instead he offered them this bitter cup
“You’re gonna die,
We’re all gonna die
Could be twenty years, could be tonight
Lately I have been wondering why
We go to so much trouble
To postpone the unavoidable
And prolong the pain of being alive.”

Process:

What an ending!  I love that priest!  It’s a perfect capstone to an already incredibly depressing story!  One of the things I love so much about this song, is the music that Bazan has playing behind these lyrics are actually very “happy” sounding.  Which contradicts the rest of the album, usually the lyrics fit the mood of each song perfectly.  I can’t say it enough, this song is pure brilliance.

For the shot, I had to go with the funeral for my image.  But, I was in North Platte and working the entire time.  I remembered that I shot a graveyard back in Seattle some time ago using Hipstamatic.  Thank God, that you can re-download old pictures from Hipstamatic onto your iPhone.  I had shot the graveyard with some black and white film.  And actually, just beyond the hill in the picture were a ton of evergreen trees, which is not conducive if you want text in your shot.  So using a white background, I used Juxtaposer and started manually erasing everything behind the hill.  And lastly, I used “Burnt Film” in PicFX for the orange.

Rejoice

Lyrics:
Wouldn’t it be so wonderful if everything were meaningless
But everything is so meaningful
And most everything turns to shit
Rejoice

Process:

This song is technically the end of the story.  But, it’s more of a “summary” or an “afterthought” from David Bazan, himself.  He’s expressing his opinion about his story.  And while, it resonates depressing and somber, truth still rings in this short piece of poetry.  It reminds me of Solomon’s writings in the book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament of the Bible.  He says, “Vanity of vanities . . . ! All is vanity” (1:2). He laments that everything in life is endless and meaningless.  A quick, but incredible read if you’ve never read Ecclesiastes before.

For the shot, I wanted to focus on the “Rejoice” part of the lyrics.  That, everything is meaningful.  I didn’t want to focus on the part of everything turning to shit.  So there was a very small pond just outside my hotel room.  VERY SMALL.  I took a couple of shots and thought I could work with it.  I blended two shots together.  I used drama in Snapseed for the water, and softened the sky with Noise Reduction in Filterstorm.  Blended the two together, purposefully overlapping the other side of the pond, to give the illusion of being in a much bigger body of water.  And lastly, I used PicFX’s “Old School” filter for the color.

If you’re still with me, I’m sorry it was so long.  If it makes you feel any better, I wrote the first half 3 weeks ago.  I couldn’t even bring myself to finish it.  Obviously though, I finally got around to it today.  I hope you enjoyed the pictures and stories.  I had a blast doing these pictures.  It was incredibly challenging.  So if you’re like me, and you’re suffering from some inspiration problems, maybe throw a curveball in the mix, and think outside of the box.  It might be very rewarding for you.  Also, if you haven’t listened to Pedro the Lion, I would highly recommend you do so.  And go say hi to Dave, he’s on Instagram as @davidbazan.