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Concavity

Just me and my bed.

By deadnycePublished 4 years ago 3 min read
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Comfort doesn’t get any better than this.

We’ve all been put in a position where the perfect picture is immaculately played out in your head but you don’t have a photographer or steady tripod to fulfill your desires. That’s precisely what happened to me in this photo. My mom and brother are always in charge of taking pictures of me when we go on family trips and adventures but, sometimes, they don't cut it. They take selfies from odd angles. They have no perception of proportion or lighting and I always manage to look either 15 years older or younger than I actually am. Although I do appreciate their efforts, I’ve decided to take on the challenge of doing certain tasks myself. It was really hard to take this picture but it came out so well and I was super excited about it. It granted me the ultimate power of perseverance, too!

My goal was to take a birds eye view of myself laying on my bed, in evident comfort. Although it’s very different, I was actually inspired by ceiling mirrors. I remember seeing a selfie of a man laying (evidently comfortably, as well) on his bed using the mirror on his ceiling. In the world of love and everything that comes with it, a lot of couples choose to install mirrors on their ceilings for their own sensual reasons. I’m not sure who this man was or what the context of the photo was, but I loved everything about it. I can’t even find the photo today, I just remember it being something I saw that stayed with me.

So… my process. A couple of years ago, when everyone was taking selfies like maniacs, I purchased a selfie stick. It had been sitting in my drawers ever since and, while I was figuring out how to take this picture without any help, I remembered my good ole stick. I have an iPhone 11 so, at first, I simply attempted the photo using wide mode. It didn’t work out because you could see my arm reaching out in it. I wanted it to look as though someone else had taken the photo. That’s when I resorted to the stick. It was super flimsy and I was terrified that my phone would fall on my face and break my teeth but, after several tries, it worked. For it to work, I also had to plug it into my phone but the stick was created for older versions of the iPhone with the headphone hole so I had to use a self timer instead. I attempted to take the photo with the front camera of my phone as well but I ended up using the selfie camera so that I could see what I was doing.

My selfie stick!

I decided to name this photo “Concavity” because my bed is actually painfully broken. Most beds have wooden slabs under the mattress that hold it up but approximately 5 of my slabs are broken in half and there is now a sort of “dip” in my bed. It feels like it sucks you in sometimes. Other times you don’t notice it at all. I actually sleep the other way around (like crossroads!) so it’s virtually invisible to me.

After the picture was finally taken, the only thing I added to it was a simple black and white filter. I applied the MONO filter that comes with Apple. To achieve this filter, find your desired photo in your photo album, select “Edit” in the top right corner, click the three overlaying circles at the bottom center and scroll until you find MONO. It is towards the end. Once you’re done, select “Done” in the bottom right corner and you’re good! Voilà!

How to achieve the black and white MONO filter.

We all lay in bed at night and wonder about the world. That is the emotion I wanted to capture in this photo. We just lay there, vertebrae bent dangerously, wearing clothing we’d never wear in public. Blank expression, staring into space. We think about alternate dimensions, homework, the time you embarrassed yourself in public. Maybe a happy thought or two but… probably not. I mean… it’s like what? 2 AM?

I’m personally a conversationalist and dreamer so I will lay there and dream up entire movies in my head with Destiny’s Child playing as a background in my brain. All my best conversations are made up, I’m not going to lie. When I look at this photograph, that is what I am reminded of. The inclusion of the art supplies and disorder around me symbolizes how people don’t just get into bed and voluntarily converse with the ceiling. It comes naturally. You were drawing 3 minutes ago now you're talking to your soulmate from Ireland. How’d that happen?

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