The picture above is made of three overlapping images and is very special to me. It reminds me of a funny event and also represents my personal flag for Planet Citizen Integrity.
FUNNY MOMENT
In 1981, I arrived fashionably late to the photography exhibition opening in Mexico City– actually I was detained by security at a nearby bank for taking pictures. How was I supposed to know it was illegal? There were no signs posted. And besides my cousin had told me earlier in the day – “Dude, you should take pictures at that bank, they have a wicked fountain statue”.
So I missed the exhibition opening ceremony, but I was still excited to see two of my 35mm photographs at an international show. But when I saw them.. WHAT? One of my photographs was hung upside down! Both photographs are color abstracts but one of them was displayed upside down! So I inquired about getting this fixed with the local staff. They told me where to find the maintenance guy and he could fix that right away.
I knocked on a closet door and found the maintenance guy’s office, I told him about the issue and identified myself as the photographer that took the picture. “I’ll fix that right now. No worries”, as he grabbed a hammer and some nails and we walked over to the display panel. He looked at both abstracts and asked me which one is upside down. “Isn’t it obvious?” I thought. But I said nothing and I pointed to the picture made up of 3 overlapping images. He removed the photograph and nails and re-positioned it. “Yes that’s good.” I said. So now here at Mexico’s Palace of Fine Arts, the equivalent of the U.S. Lincoln Center for Mexico, while art aficionados in their finest attire walked around us with hushed murmurs, the maintenance guy lets loose. Bang! Bang! Silence. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
He starts banging the nails into the new position. But in these large building institutions every sound is amplified and reverberates and sounds way louder. The hammering cannot be ignored. I was pleased he was fixing my photograph. But the patrons nearby didn’t look as pleased as I was. I laughed inside. I thought about the high tech camera used to create the photograph and found it humorous that basic low tech tools were used to correct and display it. The event also acted as an unintentional marketing ploy as it attracted people’s interest to my photography. Spirit works in mysterious ways.
INTEGRITY
This triple exposure image is a door to deep thoughts about identity, purpose and service. It is my personal flag for Planet Citizen Integrity, For me, Integrity is being honest, responsible and accountable to myself for the integration of the three persons I am as one body mind spirit temple. Consciously exploring WHO you are, WHY live and HOW to serve and give your unique gifts into community for all, pretty much describe a Planet Citizen of Integrity. Three persons integrated as one - just like these three images integrated as one. When you follow your bliss to discover the trinity within, you live in integrity.
However, back in 1979 when I created this image, I did not have depth, appreciation or insight. At the time I just organically created it according to my life style. It was a typical night out of bar-hopping after work and during the week - with my brother Mario and best friend Gus. As we drove across 1970’s Los Angeles, the car cassette player blasted out a mix of New Wave, Funk, R&B and Rock… the Police, Steely Dan, Rufus, Earth Wind and Fire, Santana and the Stones. Our first stop was Sloan’s Saloon in West Hollywood next to the “Blue Whale” Pacific Design Center- having brewskis and playing video games. Asteroids, was the new video game and the latest rage. Drove over to a Westwood movie theater then drove the LA freeways back home. At this point in my life I was exploring the WHO component of my trinity. I knew myself as a 35mm self-taught photographer and life was a 24/7 safari hunt, ‘shooting from the hip’, to capture beauty in the urban setting. I carried my camera bag with an assortment of lenses everywhere I went. This night was different. I went out with a photography project in mind – to create a multiple exposure image and use only the night lights of the city.
NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY PROJECT
The intention was set and all I did was follow my bliss to “feel out” three beautiful moments of the night to photograph. Over the course of about 5 hours and as we roamed across town, I previsualized a composition design for each image subject. For you photography buffs, I was using the top of the line Minolta XD-11. It was the first 35mm camera with a computer chip that allowed greater creativity. I could set the aperture and the camera would figure out the shutter speed for the correct exposure. To create multiple exposures on the same piece of 35mm film, the trick was to press a button on the underside of the camera body. This would hold the film from advancing. The next image you’d shoot would be overlaid on the existing exposed image. I’d seen several double exposure pictures but I wanted to push the envelope so I repeated this process three times that night to create a triple exposure. And at the end of the night I wondered if the experiment would work? Today in 2015, we get instant images from our phone. Back in 1979, I had to wait about a week for the lab to finish processing my Kodachrome 64 transparencies (slides). And seven days later, I drove to the lab to get my processed work. Paid for the box of slides and rushed back to my car to review them. The first time I held this slide with my fingers up to the light….Wow! I saw wild and beautiful vivid color patterns. To me they were astounding and marvelous. The experiment worked! Thank you!
THREE IMAGES AS ONE
Pre-visualizing the final image, I started building it up small. The first image would fill only the left third of the frame. The second image would fill the background overall. The third image would run across the bottom of the frame. The visual plan was set.
The first image exposed on the film was a time lapse of the Asteroids video game at Sloan’s Saloon. Asteroids by Atari, was a space shooter game. You’d shoot asteroids in the dreaded "Maelstrom" asteroid belt. So while my best friend Gus navigated the rocket firing at oncoming asteroids, I handheld the camera and kept the lens open for about 60 seconds. Yes, alcohol was consumed before and after the event as a ritual to motivate the brain cells and fire up the imagination of ‘good times’. On a side note - ‘Good Times’ have the potential to evolve because everything evolves and change is constant.
The second image exposed was a Westwood theater marquee. I had just purchased my first 50mm – 135mm zoom lens and I was looking forward to experimenting with the ‘zoom out’ effect on the multi-colored marque light pattern. I drove my VW bug in front of the Bruin theater, stopped across the street and took the shoot performing the ‘zoom out’ effect. There were no take-overs. It had to be done correctly the first time. I had only read about the effect and how to do it but never tried it until then. Basically, as you press the shutter release button, you grab the end of the zoom lens and pull it closer to you so the lights look somewhat exploded outward. This assumes that you’ve already focused the shot. Today in 2015, with our auto focus cameras ….when was the last time you had to focus a picture?
The third image was exposed while driving back home eastbound on Interstate 10, the Santa Monica Freeway near the Hoover exit. The freeway is level and with a long view of the cars on both sides of the freeway. While driving around 65 mph I had the driver’s side window rolled down. And while holding the steering wheel with my left hand, my right hand held the camera just slightly out the window looking forward so it would ‘see’ both sides of the freeway traffic. For added interest, I made circles with the camera as I held the shutter open for about 5 seconds. Prior to this I had replaced the zoom lens with my favorite lens – a 24mm wide angle. This would keep the freeway lights small in relation to the picture and close to the bottom of the image being finalized. So when I was driving at 65 mph and grabbed my camera, it was ready to shoot with the desired lens. On a side note – I’ve observed that playing chess really helps one to think ahead and this skill can be applied to your life’s activities such as photography.
So that’s a summary of what happened during 5 hours one night in 1979 to create just one image from three separate exposures of three different areas in Los Angeles. Fast forward 36 years to 2015 and this triple exposure image becomes my personal flag for Planet Citizen Integrity. For me, Integrity is being honest, responsible and accountable to myself for the integration of the three persons I am as one body mind spirit temple. Consciously integrating and exploring WHO you are, WHY live and HOW to serve and give your unique gifts into community for all, describes a Planet Citizen of Integrity. Looking at the energetic pattern of each time lapsed photograph reminds me of the vibrations of my own self integrity -three persons as one. When you follow your bliss to discover the trinity within, you live in integrity.
1981 EXHIBITION OF THE 1979 PHOTOGRAPH
Pedro Meyer is an award winning photographer and one of the pioneers of digital photography. As president of the Mexican Council of Photography, he organized and curated the Latin American Photography Colloquium in 1981 at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City. I had the honor and privilege of having two of my photographs accepted for public exhibition for that show in 1981. One of the photographs was this triple exposure that was accidentally displayed upside down. Following my bliss led me to the Palace of Fine Arts. I invite you to see where else it has taken me in 30 years as an independent thinker of Systems and Art for Conscious Evolution and following my bliss outside my professional life as a Systems Trainer and Programmer Analyst. My website is www.PlanetCitizen.info .