VISU1311: Creativity Blog #5
My first camera, I suppose you would call it, was a Polaroid One-Step Express. At the time that I used it, it was around the year 2001 and the show Stanley’s Great Big Book of Everything was my favorite. In it, a boy named Stanley, of course, used a camera to take pictures of animals; he would then put them in a scrapbook that had everything. I wanted to do that. I wanted to have a scrapbook; and so, my mother got me a photobook and we took pictures of my stuffed animals, because I had so many of various species, and I made a Great Big Book of Everything (Sabrina style). That was the first time I used a camera and I fell in love. I next fell in love with the camcorder and the flip-phone camera. That was my childhood and I loved it. I am now grown and my love of photography, specifically film photography, still sticks around.
I talk of Polaroids and film photography so extensively because of Keith Richards’ story with how he first began to play the guitar. I suppose I began to reminisce on the old times, as he had. One thing that he talked about which really stuck to me was his discussion on having a base. In regards to him and acoustic guitar playing, he says, “you have to have your grounding”—your beginning. For any conscious photographer, they will say that film is the basis to photography and to any Photoshop program out there—that’s how we know to change exposures and contrasts and etc. Richards says, again in regards to guitar playing, “learn the feel and the touch of the frets. Then you can add the effects.” I translate this, as an aspiring photographer, to learning the feel of the shutter and the blindness of the darkroom before you get in the more advanced aspects of photography—before getting into the effects of customized developer, toners, and different papers. Another interesting topic that Richards talks about is the concept “there’s two sides to every story”. In terms of guitar playing, he says that this relates to the communication of the left and right hand to the strings and frets. I translate this, as a photographer, to the communication of the human eye and the camera eye, the lens.
All in all, I thought that “Guitar Moves” was a great show and that Keith Richards was a wonderful guest that brought aesthetic coolness to the interview. He brought his history, his memories, his skill, his cigarettes, and his charm. I think that it is a very inspiring video and I enjoyed watching both parts of it.
