spaces change

I've begun a new visual blog on my newly completely redesigned website: natalieraymond.com

Since I'm moving more into image making I thought this apt.

I'm not sure what will happen/what I will do with this blog, but it's been around since 2012 so I am disinclined to delete it.

hearing with your eyes

I think a lot about the McGurk effect. The effect is a perceptual phenomenon in which a person "hears" what they see when audio & visual do not match up.

I feel this is the foundation of concrete poetry. Something I've been playing with recently as part of my poem-a-day project.

day 467 - falling

day 469 - cacophony

day 472 - lady dawn (after sappho as translated by anne carson)

Poem-A-Day #471 - Going from Natalie Raymond on Vimeo.

finite

what would you do if you were all alone?

watch the trailer for my new short film FINITE:


FINITE - trailer from Natalie Raymond on Vimeo.

leap

today I turn 30. 

yesterday I jumped off a bridge.

Bungee! from Natalie Raymond on Vimeo.

thinking

how time moves
like a bat
between trees.










the river seine. a snapshot taken when I wandered paris alone as a teenager.
it seems like a moment from another life.

alone

ventured out into the wilds this past weekend to shoot my newest little short film project.
fossil falls is a spectacularly weird geological feature about 2.5 hours north east of los angeles.

the film, finite, follows the last human being alive as she makes a decision about what remains of her life.

our lives

I've always had a secret fascination with photojournalism.

I don't think I'm very good at it, but I like to try.

I started photographing protests with my 35mm film camera in high school when I attended the large anti-war protests in Portland. This past weekend I ventured out to the March for Our Lives in downtown LA. More photos on my instagram. 

learning

 

working on learning how to take portraits.

lucky so many of my friends are actors/models.

more.

places

oh the places I'd love to go.

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.

layers

iphone collage no. 1

on top
on top
above

let it all
blend in.

+++

making collages on my phone while I lay in bed.
my brain turned toward what has never been.
I've wanted I've wanted I want--
but desire is the 8 of wands,
arrows lost in the dark

pieces

"the body on the side of the road was a metaphor."

mexico city portrait.

+++

I'm writing a novel & that's the opening line.
poems seem far away by prose is harder.
prose is solid lines.
poems are fogs gathering in valleys.

+++

some blogging about mexico city.

"I am a mixture."

- Frida Kahlo.

mixture
late middle english
from latin

how many parts
can make you
up.

dreaming of frida

I can't remember when I first became infatuated with frida kahlo. it was later in life than most creative young women discover her I think. she was always a bit mythic to me & I was content to view her paintings from a distance, & flip through the pages of books about her in museum gift shops.

in a few weeks I'm heading to mexico city. I've wanted to visit for many years, but never found the time or the justification. this past summer I thought: I want to go to the frida kahlo museum. & scheduled the trip for that purpose. I'm excited to see her blue house & maybe feel closer to this women whose picture hangs on my wall. she's always been a symbol of permission to me. frida says: ok. now go.

now I want to know more about her. she is quite enigmatic. but the biographies I've found center her as a "married woman" & seem to gloss over her bisexuality, her politics, her contradictions. this is not uncommon in the ways we think about women artists. most often they are asked to be flat things. not allowed the flaws & problems of their male counterparts. I wonder: what will history erase of me? what will it erase of my female friends writing & painting & making art...