I am a photographer, and many times when I create something in studio, it comes from a previously sketched out drawing of my own, or from seeing a painting that has sparked an idea within myself. For this 2D project I decided to work on something that I have been stuck with for many years.

 

For quite a few years, I have been STUCK on an idea which stemmed from a Dave Matthews song “If I Had It All.” In the first few stanzas of this song he says:

 

Sometimes I can’t move my feet it seems

As if I’m stuck in the ground somehow like a tree

As if I can’t even breathe

Oh, and my screams come whispering out

As if nobody can even see me

Like a ghost, sometimes I can’t see myself

Sometimes, then again, oh

These words have prompted a vision in my head of a studio (or on location) shoot that I have sketched out SEVERAL times over the past several years. I remember the first time I was inspired by this song. I was in my late 20’s, completing my undergrad work at Farmingdale University in Visual Communications.

 

I remember I was driving when I heard this song. When I got home I sketched out the idea. Having limited drawing skills at the time, my first real mock up was a mixture of pencil and collage. It would be a woman, breathing out into the air, her lower extremities turning into the trunk of a tree, her arms outstretched and becoming branches at the forearm, hands and tips; her long hair, up in a whirlwind, breathing life into leaves… Of course, this is how I see it in my head… what I’ve been able to record on paper is something entirely different. J Although, the sketches have gotten better, or transformed throughout the years.

 

This gif animation is yet just another drawing from my minds eye of this future elaborate shoot. Perhaps one day, I will be able to complete it.