A Sense of Play by the River Vlatava

Creative. Sweaty. Inspirational. Dirt-covered. Spontaneous. And loads of fun. That is how I would describe our photography class this afternoon. We went with Miro Svolik, our guest teacher for this week, to a bridge a few stops on the tram away from our school building. The bridge allowed us to shoot in his style which is essentially the following: arrange people, scenes, props, etc on the ground, using the asphalt as the canvas, and then go up on the bridge, high above, shooting down, so that the scene that we have constructed below comes alive. Key component of the shoot: people arrange themselves on the asphalt as if in lying down they are actually "standing" up in the world of the asphalt or cobblestones. I may not be verbally explaining it right. But, it essentially means that we are posing on the ground, lying down, but creating the effect that we are, in fact, merely walking along...

Anyway--we started out with Miro's plan. He had us "walk" along --which really meant that we all lay down on the nasty cobblestones by the river, complete with cigarette stubs embedded around us and some of the weird smells emanating up from the water, and he shot from above. The effect was really cool. We looked like school children walking along holding each others' hands!

Once we did that, he got our creative juices flowing. The great thing was that our class, four of us, worked together to talk out ideas and concepts and set up scenes on the ground, so that we were able to be photographers, models and scene setters all at various points throughout the afternoon. And, the most amazing thing was the way our ideas and brainstorms built off of each other. For example, Bryon, our classmate who went first, created two stick figures using his clothing and then random "found" objects for the body (like tripods for legs and bags for heads and a large water bottle for an arm...) Then, we photographed these figures from above and they looked fun. Very cartoonish. Then, I was going to do my concept which involved trying to illustrated my character from my short story Eliza Looking Away. I had bought this beautiful flower (a pink lily with three blossoms) on the street to bring as part of my props. My idea was to show Eliza as lying down, sleeping (since, in my story she is hit by a bus and in the hospital). She would be holding a flower and then I would have two guys fighting over her. That was the scene I intended to set up. But then, as we spontaneously got ideas, we realized that Beth, one of our classmates who was wearing a beautiful white sundress (which later became a huge part of the shooting we did throughout the day) could lie down and then these two stick figure guys we had used for Bryon's scene could be the ones fighting over her (instead of using real human models...) So, we set it up. Someone had brought a long sheet of red crepe paper which we lay down for Beth to lie upon, since it heightened the color and separated her from the two stick figures. Then, we laid the flower over her. It was quite beautiful. She looked heavenly, while the two stick figures were a hilarious contrast! It was this type of organic inspiration which really made the day meaningful. The juxtapositions and funky shots we got were different from what we expected, but even better because of the way they evolved out of our sense of play and creativity.

Then, it was super hot (literally one of the hottest days here...) so we took a beer/water/coke break at a nearby bar. After about 45 minutes, we returned, and it was cool because we did seem to be rejuvenated and have new ideas. Miro's son was with us. He is 16. He "painted" a model of the earth on the cobblestones using flour. We then posed in various "walking" states all around the globe. Later, we photographed just Beth in her beautiful white dress sitting atop the globe. And later still, we photographed Bryon "holding up" the globe as the lay on the cobblestones underneath the globe.

It was geting very cloudy and windy. Prague weather is very fickle. Or rather, it is quite predictable--on really hot days, it will always rain at around 5 pm--in a monsoon-ish down pour with wind and sheets of rain and cloudy dark skies. So, we were trying to get in one more shot before the rain. Maran and Bryon "drew" a large wine bottle out of flour on the asphalt and then two of us posed within the wine bottle drawing in various states of apparent drunkeness. Hard to describe, but the scene we shot was a hilarious view of drinking! And, as we lay there on the cobblestones, it began to rain. But we continued lying there posing as Miro shot from above--he protected by his umbrella, and showing out "Good!" "That's great!" "Hold that!" etc etc while we all became soaked below. It was hilarious. But we were so into the process we didn't want to stop--and were "suffering" for our art! hahaha.

Anyway--a really exhilarating day--and a great artistic experience. Honestly, the sense of inspiration and play was amazing. And, it was the type of thing that we all had to do together--the way our ideas worked off of each other and the way we got ideas in a split second from looking at our scenes was so fun. We were truly in the midst of a sort of deep flow there for awhile.

Afterward, we escaped into the tram just as the rain came down in sheets. We watched people outside the tram running for shelter, and Miro pointed out that these would make great photos! We headed to Cafe Slavia, an old cafe in Prague that has the look of the 20s about it. Many actors and artists from the National Theater used to go there since it is right across the street. We ordered food and drinks and talked art with Miro. He is a very nice man who was very pleased with our day of shooting--it was great to have felt that way myself and to also see that he too had been inspired by our day.

Finished off the night with going to a reading at the Ypsilon Theater. I took my dirty sweaty self there right after Cafe Slavia. Stuart Dybek and Cynthia Hogue read. I really liked Cynthia's work. Now, I am home, packing for our photo overnight trip to Lednice and Brno--the Moravian wine region. Looking forward to it, especially after all the work we did today!

Good night!

P.S.--Since I know it is hard to picture our shots as I describe them on here, I will be posting them soon on facebook. If I am able, I will try to post a few on this blog too (in the next few days)...