As I mentioned last week, when we were in the Cinque Terre I was just drawn to doors with peeling paint. Here is another one from Riomaggiore, I love the green paint, against the grey of the door and the chips of it on the red brick of the doorstep. It must be the light, the texture, or as one person commented on that post, “I would like to chunk them off and mash them in my palm with my thumb.” I realized that I feel the same, there is an interactive nature to these photos, a desire in me to participate in the removal of paint from the surface, to pick off flakes and crumble them to nothingness.
Now, I could not have said any of that at the time I took the photo. All I knew at the time was that I was drawn to these spots, compelled to take a photo or two. After the fact, I see that this desire to take pictures of peeling paint is coming from somewhere other than my rational brain. The theme this month for the Creative Every Day challenge has been intuition, and it’s really caused me to sit back and look at how I use and follow my intuition in different areas of my life. I realize that when I take photos of a subject like this, it’s my intuition talking. I can’t explain it rationally in the moment, but I act on the feeling then and there. And, usually, it results in images that I like, and that have something to show to me later.
Even if the message is just that I have an obsessive urge to crush paint flakes.
and the message is a ripe one, one that is passed along, one that makes others look at paint peeling differently.
Marvelous post… so grateful!
I was just looking at the labels on your sidebar and Cinque Terre jumped out at me. I've been there once and it's a place I've always wanted to go back to. A friend of mine and I went there in'99 while backpacking around Europe. We didn't plan on going, in fact we never heard of it, but people in our Hostels kept telling us we had to go…so we did. sigh….amazing! I keep telling my husband we need to go so he can see it too, and so I can get back there. One day. Also, I understand your love of peeling paint, I am drawn to it and have many pictures of it…maybe it's the history you can see in it…I don't know. Beautiful photo of it!
Esther