RB3Photography.com Blog » Spiritual

It’s BEEN WAYYYYY TOO LONG since he’s updated.

Randall Bellows III — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 08:48:00 +0000

Just like the man said, it’s been way too long.

My art is beginning to take it’s own form of chaos. Wait, is that an oxymoron, form and chaos? I’m just having fun at this point, but please allow me to further this serious point.

In the past, I’ve always shot in the theme of spirituality. Spirituality, although highly personal to me, something I don’t usually like to talk about with other people, has always come naturally to my photography. It is the one true thing that I feel I express clearly with my camera (key word, feel).

In the past, I have taken shots that might resemble ghosts, or spirits… something beyond the ordinary that I find in my everyday life… But this time, I’ve gone past that to explain something more. I’ve decided to call my show: Transdimensional… This show is going to exhibit the transition from physical life into a spiritual realm of being.

My soul has never truly felt at home in its vessel, as if I was never meant to have a vessel. If you imagine all the possibilities of being conscious without a body, they are truly endless. Imagine to be just pure happiness, or pure sorrow, or just excitement, and absolute joy, instead of always knowing in the back of your mind that this feeling will eventually fade into obscurity. We are physical creatures of habbit and need. But to rid our self of limitations, is to be “pure being.”

My show aims to tackle this transition, explain its process through imagery, and help myself understand what I cannot see.

Transdimentional opens December 9th @ Space Gallery.

Love, -R

Transdimensional - Traveling Through Time and Space

A New Frontier…

Randall Bellows III — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 15:12:09 +0000

My work just has a way of making up its own mind about who it wants to be and I’m beginning to feel that I am the one who has to shape its chaos. As a friend of mine said, chaos is all around us and has a strange way for becoming something beautiful.

I’m so high on creativity right now. I feel with this work, I am only further departing from reality, as if sinking further into the lake of dreams… I’ve becomes increasingly detached from reality, much like how I despise the cold and harsh truths that people have come to know through their daily lives. I am trying my best not to accept these truths in favor of believing my own created reality.

Life can be viewed as either a beautiful excursion, or a hell hole of unsatisfied needs. It’s hard to stay continually focused on the former, but it is wise to at least do your best when following the path of light.

On a technical note, where I usually photoshop the hell out of my work… using this filter and that adjustment, I’ve hardly touched these; just a simple clean up from the scan.

Last, but not least, I’d like to say a shout out for a friend: Hank, I really appreciate you and your faith.

-R

Beautiful Clouds on the Horizon

Randall Bellows III — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 23:39:40 +0000

Literally and figuratively, beautiful clouds float on the horizon. Big, tall, orange and blue ones, majestic, brilliant ones. I’ve been feeling pretty inspired lately, the only problem is, the film that I’m waiting on, is sitting in canisters to be developed. That’s like saying, “to be continued,” because it’s definitely leaving me hanging. I want to see the fruits of my labor, but when your labor of love cost you a fortune, you have to take things slowly… Darn it.

303 Magazine called me today. They want me to do a shot for them. It will be pro bono, but I have no problem with that. Anything to get my work out there will make me happy. It’s a slow process. In addition to that I’ll be heading to New York in the beginning of August. I’m going to meet with a gallery curator and also try to gain some more contacts. In fact, Pete, who works with Rare Gallery, has allowed me to stay with him when I am in New York. I’m excited for the opportunity to get to know Pete better and also the New York scene.

I will be having a show at Space Gallery in December. I have to get my financials together enough so that I can afford the show. I’m sure I’ll figure out a way. Last time I had a show, it cost me tooooo much. This time around, I think I can figure something out so I can afford the work.

Hey, for those who have continued to read and support me, THANK YOU! I got about 130 hits on this website last month. It makes me happy that people are becoming interested in my blog and photography.

Keep reading. Don’t forget to write back: randall@rb3photography.com
I love to write back.

-R

Spiritual Night Abstractions

Randall Bellows III — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 04:54:48 +0000

For those of you who have known me a short time, or just miss some of my older fine art, here’s a much needed taste. This series, Spiritual Night Abstractions, is the birth of a revolution in my photography. I was influenced at the age of 16 by a wonderful photographer Chris James, whose work is based exclusively at night. He taught me a wonderful formula for developing black and white film to achieve excellent shadow/highlight detail in such contrasty conditions. I eventually moved to color slide film because of the wonderful color that can be achieved through the different color temperatures emitted by lights at night. The most commonly found, being orange/yellow, other wise known as sodium vapor lights. On top of the different light sources, there are different films that perceive the light to be a different color. With these different films, the color can also change from brand to brand of film. It is a fascinating playground for a photographer:

Here is an example of the different colors found at night. The yellow is the sodium vapor as interpreted by the film. Of course we see that light as orange with our eyes. The Skate Park is lit by florescent lights. The film interprets that as green.

This is the same sodium vapor light that is found everywhere as seen through Fuji Film T64 (the “T” representing tungsten, for tungsten lighting). Notice (how could you not), how everything has turned blue! I got sick of that yellow after a while. Not wanting to have a portfolio of yellow images, I mixed up my use of film to create variety.

This image is of ice, at night, with a sodium vapor lamp a few yards back. It is taken with Kodak’s EPY T64. In comparison, there is a huge difference at night between how the two films react to light. In my final conclusions after working with these films. Fuji is a better film. I love the green that the Kodak gives off…. but the Fuji Film scans soooooo much better!

This is image is the result of a sodium vapor lamp (would have never guessed, huh?), but I have done some tweaking to the images to make the yellow appear more golden. I also forced the green that used to be in this image into shadow. This created a more dramatic atmosphere for this image.

A side note, all of these are shot with a 6×7cm, medium format camera. Some of these shown here (two of them) have been blown up to be 4×5 feet in print. They are beautiful (and for sale). Film is really the only medium to take such images with. Digital has not over come some of its problems that make it impossible to take long exposures with… In addition to a comparable camera being $40,000 in price.

-R

…I want to scream!

Randall Bellows III — Wed, 20 May 2009 08:05:22 +0000

My innards pulse with life and my brain with ideas. This night, as we near the new moon, I feed off of the night’s energy, in restless motion. I want to work…
I think about the ideas that I have and the need to physically manifest them in this reality. This is what drives me nuts, I’m like a painter without a canvas.
Let’s revisit my favorite shoot to date:

As a Child…

Randall Bellows III — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 02:59:18 +0000

You know, just as much as I know, that this is a photographic blog, a makeshift recording of the spirit of a young man who’s destiny has been intertwined with fate to produce a library of interpretations of vibrations from god himself that illustrate what beauty life can present to us …But I am going to speak of myself as a child this moment… and the transition that I have made into manhood….

I was a strange child; I came from a strange existence. My only comforts were photography, a man named Kenny Be, and the promise that I held in my heart that I would one day break free from the prison of life in this body. My pursuits are not to become famous, not to become rich, but that one day when I die, my body may go to another place where I am not bound by atoms or rules, but that I may have perfect freedom, what ever that may mean. To me, it means infinite love. Can you imagine yourself being loved infinitely? The few moments in life that you are standing, drenched in the rain with your lover… The whole world stopped for you and her. You didn’t think it could get any better, but then the sun shone, light splitting in the falling mini prisms to created a rainbow for you two to wish upon that you may make heaven on earth. As if those few moments were enough: They are not…

That was the dream of my childhood, and now with a man’s mind and body… My spirit’s destiny may make it’s way in this world.