one year of poems

A post shared by N. (@natalie_raymond) on Feb 20, 2018 at 11:23am PST

I started the poem a day project one year ago with the vague idea that it might be kind of fun to write 100 poems in 100 days. Now it’s been 365 poems & an entire year.

I never really had an end game in mind for this project. It was always just sort of a thing I did for practice. Creativity is, after all, a muscle. I haven’t really decided or even much thought about where it would go, so in that vein I think I’ll keep going for now. Maybe two years of poems has a nice ring to it?

Thank you for reading along.

made a trek to death valley & badwater basin a few days ago. the desert is my favourite type of environment, & I find death valley to be mesmerizing.

the plan was to experiment more with my new nikon d7500 dslr & it was a success. captured some fun photographs & shot some cool video while out in the desert wilds.

1: sunset at zabriskie point.
can the dslr do time lapse videos I wondered? yes it can. managed to capture this amazing shot of the sunset in death valley on my first ever time lapse experiment.


Sunset at Zabriskie Point, Death Valley from Natalie Raymond on Vimeo.

2: poem film - badlands.
got out on the salt flats at badwater basin & thought: why not take some videos just to see? ended up with a few cuts which I've pieced together with my poem for that day (day 354 of the poem a day project). my first ever video shot with the new camera, experimenting with frames per second & the like. it ended up a little wobbly, but I still like it. I'm learning as I go.


Badlands from Natalie Raymond on Vimeo.

3: the real goal - photos
initially headed out to death valley to take some pictures, & got some fun shots of my friend/road trip companion. I've added a digital photography section to my website where more portraits & other photography will be added regularly.

red skies at night, sailor's delight

caught the sunset in malibu yesterday.

first excursion with my new dslr camera. 

 

 

more digital photography added to the website.

have you ever wanted to wake up in california?

resolutions

spent my day thinking about what resolutions I wanted to make for 2018... each year I list out all the things I'm thinking about for the coming rotation & carve them down into "resolutions" for me to work toward... for 2018 I'm not sure what I want, I'm not sure what life I want for myself, but I'm starting with these ideas.

in the bones

BONES (full poem/film) from Natalie Raymond on Vimeo.

My first excursion into the overlapping space between poetry & filmmaking is this experimental short called BONES. I wondered: how can we bring poetry from its flat life on the page into the dynamic world of visual experience? I imagined a kind of music video for poetry. BONES is the result of these imaginings.

More: natalieraymond.com/bones

This short will likely be the last time I am *in front* of the camera. As I was editing this piece, over a year ago, I was almost unable to watch the clips I was in. Instead of being a kind of "actorish" modesty I felt like I looked uncomfortable. Many months later I had my aura photographed & one thing that was mentioned to me was that my aura read as me being unsure of if I want to be photographed or not. The photographer told me: you're not totally comfortable in front of the camera.

This is true. In the months since I've been thinking about this, turning it over in my mind. Really, all the time I spent fancying myself an "actor" was forced. I was never comfortable in front of cameras or on stages, but I was able to conceal this by not being myself, by trying to become the character. Of course you cannot ever really become a character, there are always still shards of you inside. When I watch myself in my acting projects I feel acutely aware of the viewing experience. You can see me being watched in my body language. What a liberation it is to now be the one doing the watching!

skies out there

new hobby:

walking around los angeles taking photos. 

see more black & whites.