Feelin’ Blue (2012). Model: Aubrey Carr
The blues was like that problem child that you may have had in the family. You was a little bit ashamed to let anybody see him, but you loved him. You just didn’t know how other people would take it.—B. B. King
[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I listen to a lot of music while I’m sitting here editing pictures. Walk in on me during one of these sessions and you’re likely to hear anything from The Gaither Vocal Band to Florence + The Machine. The playlist that I hit most often, though, is four and a half hours worth of the Blues. Everything from remastered Robert Johnson and B. B. King to Bonny Raitt and Aretha Franklin is on that list. The Blues get me through those sessions when I’m just not feeling it; when I’ve lost the emotional connection I might have had with a picture. One thing photographs have to do is make people feel, and if I’m not feeling anything chances are pretty high no one else will, either. The Blues gets me over that hurdle because the Blues are little more than pure emotion given some rhythm.
Contrary to popular belief, having the Blues doesn’t mean one is depressed. Depression is a serious mental illness. The Blues are just the realities of living and the challenge of living them. A Blues singer wails about what’s bothering them, whether it’s a lover that’s done them wrong, a boss that demands too much, a car that won’t run, or a leaky roof. Sing it out. Sing through what you feel. Put it out there, let it be what it is, and then move on with your life. A good Blues song doesn’t try to solve life’s problems, but unites us all in the fact that we all have the same issues, that we all survive, and we all keep right on going, because that’s what people do.[/one_half]
[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Musically, the Blues aren’t especially difficult to play. Take a smooth walking bass line and drop three, maybe four, chords over it, and then take that wherever you’d like to go. The Blues don’t require one to have a lot of musical skill or training, but simply that one has the ability to feel. Sure, there are some people who do it better than others, but it’s the emotion, not the music skill, that they bring to the song that makes the difference. The deeper one can feel and communicate that feeling, the better the song.
So, all this week, we’re going to have the blues. The pictures are all processed with a blue tone, using a variety of different processes. No two are processed alike. Then, we’re going to pair those pictures with some of my favorite blues songs, which I’ll include with each picture. The pictures don’t have any direct connection to the songs chosen, but our hope is that between the photograph and the music your day will be a little bit better.
What’s important in life is that we are not afraid to feel, and that we find positive and appropriate ways to communicate that feeling. We don’t need anyone else getting upset and picking up a gun, or taking out their frustration physically on another person. Sing it out. Even if you can’t carry a tune, you can still sing the Blues. We don’t mind. Go for it. Feel better. Enjoy the Blues.[/one_half_last]
Pain
Attic Fashion (2011). Model: Sarah Harris. Hair & Makeup: Christopher Thompson. Styling: Tiffany Gilstrap Scott.
Without pain, there would be no suffering, without suffering we would never learn from our mistakes. To make it right, pain and suffering is the key to all windows, without it, there is no way of life.—Angelina Jolie
[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Humans are designed with a built-in warning device called pain. We feel it soon after we are detached from our mother’s umbilical cord. Hunger is our first experience with pain. We cry and someone feeds us. The pain is our body’s way of telling us that something isn’t working correctly, that a part of us needs attention. Yet, as a society we are intolerant of pain and just as we remove the batteries from smoke detectors so that we don’t have to put up with the screeching sound going off at unexpected moments, we try to mask or cover or ignore the pain we feel. We shove the pain into our emotional attic and try to forget that it exists.
As young children, we are taught that expressing our feelings of pain is not acceptable. “Walk it off.” “Suck it up.” “No pain, no gain.” Our intent is to dissuade children from complaining about every little insignificant boo-boo they encounter. “If it’s not bleeding, you don’t need a bandage.” The longer-term effect, though, is that from those very early moments we teach children that feeling and expressing pain is a bad thing. No one wants to hear about your pain. Ignore it and it will go away. Be tough and play through the pain.
Often, however, that strategy backfires on us. My father’s youngest sister succumbed to cancer perhaps sooner than was necessary because she chose to treat the pain, not the cause. Rather than being consistent with the chemotherapy, she chose alternative treatments that only covered up the pain. Only when the pain became intolerable did she return to her doctor, and by then the cancer had spread too for treatment to be effective. She didn’t even communicate to her family that anything was wrong until the pain became debilitating. She didn’t want them to worry. She had seven children and wanted to put pain aside to care for them. While her attitude might seem noble, in the end it took her from them sooner than might have been necessary.[/one_half]
[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Part of our problem in dealing with pain is that we look at it as an inconvenience and a bother rather than the warning system it is. When, as a child, we first encounter something hot and we pull back from it, learn to treat it with some respect and don’t touch it again without taking appropriate precaution to not burn ourselves. That is an appropriate response to pain. Consider what causes the problem. Fix it, if possible. Respect what caused the pain and then take steps to not repeat the pain again. Yet, we don’t apply that formula too often once we pass the age of five. We prefer to ignore the pain and keep going.
Philosopher/poet Kahlil Gibran penned these wise words:
As we get older, pain becomes a more constant part of our reality. There are some pains, both physical and emotional, that will never go away no matter what we do. Â Our challenge is to not look at our pain as an inconvenience, but rather an opportunity to learn.[/one_half_last]
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