What did you discover accidentally then?
Leah says: “…I got an idea of the ‘faded glory’ or ‘faded beauty’ from the doll, and this ’sounds-like Hollywood’ Las Vegas picture derives from my memory.”
Leah: There is a scene where two black-and-white images are shown together, one of a doll and the other is a picture of Las Vegas. They weren’t intended to put together at first. However, I’m attracted to something that has a completely different character within… ambiguity, I would say. I like something lovely but scary, or something sad but fun… that kind of thing. Dolls are usually lovely and to be treated with care, aren’t they? But the one I found on a street in New York was so miserable, and I couldn’t help taking a picture of it. Afterwards, I somehow thought of putting this picture next to the Las Vegas picture. That’s because I got an idea of the
faded glory or
faded beauty from the doll, and this
sounds-like Hollywood Las Vegas picture derives from my memory.
“There was a walking man just before me, and that was when the images of the man and of the shoes’ owner tied together in my head!” says Leah.
So the doll and Las Vegas somehow connected in your head?
Leah: At that point, yes. For example, the images of
shoes and Lee’s poem called
Richard were put together in the same way. These shoes were neatly put on a step of a street, and I wondered:
Why on earth did the owner left these shoes like this? What happened to him? As I took the picture, I was imagining many stories about the shoes. Then, there was a walking man just before me, and that was when the images of the man and of the shoes’ owner tied together in my head!
Lee: My poem
Richard is about my university friend whom I haven’t seen for a long time. We overlapped this poem onto the images of the shoes and the walking man, and guess what? The man became Richard to us.
“Why on earth did the owner left these shoes like this? What happened to him?”
Leah: Even between completely different things there is a synergy or connection. And, it is you to find out about it. If you put this broken fire engine photo next to the shoe photo, you’ll see another story. Lee and I found this fire engine when we were driving in the countryside.
Who in the world brought this truck to such a place, and how? we thought. Comparing these two photos, I see some connection, like
a pair of shoes and
a pair of tires, right?
Another combination of images to result in a connection - or friction.
The film,
Mother and Child, was originally just an image of a pleasing parent and her child that one of my friends shot long time ago. I re-shot the film with reversed colors, and that gave kind of a negative impression. Also, by projecting it with a slow rotation, it even became a cruel scene as if the mother was pushing her child. I thought it was really interesting that one thing could give a totally opposite impression or meaning.