“Shoot yourself. Give us a glimpse of your photographic primal scream.” - Stuart Paton
---------
Last week a doctor threaded a snake with a movie camera in its eyes through my mouth. It crossed my tongue, my throat, oesophagus, duodenum and stomach as if my guts were stations of a subway line. I've felt like screaming because of the discomfort, humiliation and the fear that cancer was discovered. However, I could not shout anything loud, just silence and saliva. I think this is my truthful primal scream: a fake silence. And saliva. Shame I hadn't my mobile with me to make a selfie: I might have shot a cool response to Stuart Paton's instruction.
So, I just have my bats, now. I explain. I've almost given up street photography. The cause? Since Arindam Thokder's instruction, I've become obsessed with the bats that live under a massive bridge near my home. Eptesicus serotinus is the species they belong to, or perhaps Eptesicus isabellinus, or both. Or Rip-rip, Adaleria, Arthurius, or even Xnyjfcgnjfcwcgyvozitch. Almost every twilight I take a walk with my camera and a flash, and I try to photograph them. It's a bit ridiculous: I'm using a prime 28 mm lens equivalent, and they are such tiny creatures... And I have no more than fifteen, twenty minutes - then, the night falls, and they become invisible.
I think bats experience the world as an always mutating stuff as a result of their unpredictable flight that defies any inertia laws. I don't fly, but I see the world in that way too. Because time flies. Moreover, bat's primal screams are silent as mine; it just happens they manage to use them to avoid walls and trees and to hunt mosquitoes, and I am too clumsy for that. So, they are like me, just in better.
The night has fallen, and now I'm returning home. I can't see any bats now, but I know they are still flying over my head, hunting mosquitoes through a dark city sky where no stars can live. And inside that gloom, screams no human is able to listen to are happening everywhere. Perhaps darkness filled with silent screams should have been my submission, but I'm too coward to submit a black frame. Yet. And, apparently, nothing too serious was detected through the endoscopy.
So, I prefer one more photo of the crepuscule with a bat. It's just fifteen, twenty minutes. Our lifespan. But with primal screams everywhere and their source slightly visible.
Use Flickriver Badge Creator to create a badge linking to your photos, your group or any other Flickriver view.
You can place your badge on your Flickr profile, Blog or Website.
Add to your iGoogle or Netvibes page
Flickriver widget for iGoogle or Netvibes can display almost any Flickriver view - most interesting today, by user, by group, by tag etc. Once added to your personalized homepage, just edit widget settings to select your desired view.
Clickr on one of the buttons below to install:
Embed on your Web site
To embed this view, Copy and Paste the following HTML code:
Add 'Search on Flickriver' to your browser's search box. Works with Firefox and Internet Explorer.
Install search plugin
"View on Flickriver" Greasemonkey script
A Greasemonkey script that adds Flickriver links to various Flickr photo pages - user photos, favorites, pools etc, allowing to quickly open the corresponding Flickriver view.
Also, allows quickly viewing any Flickr photo on black background in large size.
