Para empezar aviso que este post es un ejercicio absoluto de egocentrismo, una auto-satisfacción por las miles de fotos, encuentros y practicas de cuerdas que no he colgado (pero lo bien que lo he pasado) y por ultimo, una forma de mantener un texto que me parece precioso, que puede desaparecer en culquier momento y que quiero tener para poder leer en un futuro.
Hace algunos meses decidi mandar a forumbondage unas de las fotos que hicimos Edelweiss, Ocho, Eris y yo en el edificio abandonado. La primera serie de un conjunto de fotos de bondage que estamos haciendo, y que evoluciona lentamente, pero que no olvido ni un solo segundo.
Dude un monton. Tanta critica local sobre lo que hago con las cuerdas, pues como para mandarlo a Londres, y encima al foro de Esinem y Harper. Tras 3 o 4 dias de duda, al final me decidi. Si la foto es indigna, mejor saberlo antes, y al fin y al cabo, es el mejor foro de bondage que he visto y donde mas información hay.
Asi que envié la foto, esperando que no recibiera muchas respuestas. Recibi una.
Esta es la foto:
Y esta la respuesta de Harper, el administrador del foro junto a Esinem.
>Zor: Hope you like it.
I do. A lot. In fact I'm going to give it the ForumBondage Administrators' Outstanding Art-Bondage Photo Of 2009 Award - if we get one to beat it before the end of the year I'll be surprised.
It's a fascinating image, whether by accident or by design I don't know. There's a lot of interest in the composition, and sooner of later I'll come to the feature that started me looking closely and analytically. And finding a ruler to measure bits of it...
But before we get to that, we always have to think about the safety stuff. I'm not going to ask you what you used for an anchor point, how you evaluated it, or how many Shibari Suspension Inspectors you called in to certify it as safe and suitably over-engineered. And I don't want to know whether or not they used Official Kinbaku Klipboards. I'm just going to assume you know what you're doing.
The first thing about composing pictures that everybody meets is the Rule Of Thirds. You divide the frame into thirds horizontally and vertically, and you put the important visual elements on (or close to) those lines and junctions. Thirds are supposed to be interesting and dynamic. But this image is full of the Rule Of Halves And Quarters, which is generally supposed to be bad practice. It's a good thing that Rules are made to be broken, when you're good enough to break them with style and purpose...
The main suspension line literally draws a line straight down the middle of the frame. And it's continued, like a series of dots indicating an extended line (_____ . . . ) by the brown splodges below the model. And even one white piece of something-or-other on the floor. The left edge of that dark ladder-like thing is almost exactly on the three-quarters line, as are her elbows. And the other end of her body (toes) are on the one-quarter line, emphasised behind her by a pale vertical line on the wall. So the model occupies the middle two quarters.
Looking at it horizontally, the line of the top of the tiles splits the frame into top and bottom halves. And each of those is cut into quarters by strong horizontal lines. And the whole straight-line, right-angles theme is echoed throughout the background in too many ways to list.
Then, brightly and dramatically lit against that graph-paper background, we have that slightly off-kilter triangle formed by the suspension lines and the model's body. It's the juxtaposition of triangle against rectangles that gives the shot its visual dynamic.
Just as the basic structure of the background echoes itself in an almost fractal self-similar way, the triangles are echoed with smaller triangles - the suspension ropes, the arms, the crooked left leg against the straight right one, and that patch of light on her right foot.
The compositional subtlety of this astonishing photograph doesn't end there. Look at that vertical line of three round things in the background. In a nod to the Rule Of Thirds, the middle one (the most brightly lit) is almost spot on the junction of two of those thirds lines. And there are three of them! Still more echoing - the brown splodges below the model on the centre line again... Would the photo work quite so well without that touch of thirds to counterbalance the even divisions everywhere else?
While on even divisions, the one thing people always tell you not to do is to put the main point of interest in dead centre. But look where the middle of that triangle of suspension ropes and body is! You have to be GOOD to break so many rules and make something so beautiful. Or very lucky, of course...
Now for the thing that started me off on this. The one weak spot that for me rings slightly wrong. And "rings" is the clue. The highlight on the suspension ring drags the eye towards it, and the thing that is slightly wrong to my eye is that it isn't hanging quite in line with the vertical rope. Because most of the model's weight is on the right-hand rope, the ring is shifted slightly to the left. I wondered whether using a carabiner instead would have solved the problem, but that wouldn't work because the ring is also the centre of a whole new set of circular visual references with the three round things and the wheel of the bicycle. Maybe a smaller ring would have been better, or possibly a larger one. Or a bit of tweaking of the light (or Photoshopping) to take that reflection down a couple of steps...
Anyway, I think this is a superb "art-bondage" photo and the best we've carried so far. My congratulations to everyone involved in making it, and I'd be fascinated to know how much of it was calculated and how much was instinctive.
But the wonders of this photo don't end there. It's also very educational. There's a whole course of Euclidean geometry of straight lines, rectangles, circles and triangles in there. Maths textbooks should have illustrations like this. If they did, a lot fewer people would say they never got on with maths in school, it was sooo boringgg...
Como ya he dicho es un ejercicio de egocentrismo absoluto. Pero eso no quita que me haga muchisima ilusion. Este comentario me animó a seguir haciendo fotos, encuentros, etc. Al margen de la satisfaccion de que a alguien le haya gustado algo que hemos hecho. Y sirve para acordarme de lo bien que lo pasamos ese dia :)