Here's a nice picture i recently shot. I'm very excited about something ive started doing with my shadows. I hate black shadows. normally you dont see a lot of black shadows when flash is used because the flash comes from the axis of the camera and kills the shadows. you see them in pictures taken in direct sunlight at an angle from the sun (picture a sundial). and you see them when the flash is used indoors or in low light off camera where the ambient light isn't enough to light the shadows. and you see them in fashion landscape pics where the model might have two lights on her and the sky is perfect but the land behind her looks like a black cut out. This last scenario is only remideed through a dual exposure but i never really cared enough to mess with that. Also i dont have a good tripod and i like to move around a lot when i shoot anyways so i never really messed lately with tripods except in light paintings and self portraits
For what it's worth... nobody owns me. Nobody discovered me. Nobody made me. Nobody taught me. Nobody gave me money to get my start. I didn't get a job to fund my art, I didn't get a loan to fund my art. I didn't follow a formula for success; I just live and follow my heart at any cost. I have my parents to thank more than anyone for being parents, getting me out of trouble, and giving me a place to stay while goofing off in my troubled younger years.
I'm now 31 years old. I do things my own way more than ever now. I don't hold myself up next to anyone to confirm what makes me similar or different. I just do things the way they come out. I'm more defined by my limitations than my abilities. I'm motivated by death more than life. I'm taking my time, because there is no hurry. Age is a myth, and so is fame. People will gladly believe anything you tell them. In this all new world anyone can be anything they really believe they can be... the easiest thing in the world to be is a celebrity. The cost is high but simple... it takes everything you have and nothing less. You litterally trade a life for a life. I always think of two stories...
There was a student of kung fu who went to a master and the master led him to some water and held his head underwater until the student started fighting for his life.
The second story is of the music fan who told one of his favorite musicians that he would give his life to play like he did. The musician simply said "I did"
Success (whatever form it takes), is not something you buy or add onto who you are, It is who you are. You can not step outside of it, or remove it when it is real.
I never planned on being 'Mojokiss', it just happened, and not overnight. When you know me, if you get the chance to spend time with me, you'll see I'm not much different than most people on the outside. I walk, breath, poop, eat, obsess about my appearance at times, drink too much and eat too little. But you will soon learn I am a servant of the people. I put my friends first and myself last. This is creativity. This is change life for those around me. Creation has nothing to do with patents, and logos. It has to do with being, living, moving, changing, consolidating, gathering, breaking apart, passions, fire, risk, chance, luck, kindness, trust and pain.
You can't say "I'm going to be an artist" - you either are, or you are not. Art is something that we have put in a box and labeled but, we didn't create the concept of art. Art is another form of breathing, it's another form of communication, and it's another form of creation, among many forms of creation that we touch every day.
Is this art or is it not? Well, just to make sure it is, we label it. Labels are important, but we have to always remember that though we need labels to help us make quick choices and to learn and grow, they are there to help us, not to make our choices for us. A label such as "dark art" is a tool. It's a name that enables us to categorize theories, features and elements for the sake of learning, growing and appreciating the finer things of expression. It is an answer to what has been made, felt and experienced. It should never be the goal to "create dark art" and it shouldn't be the goal to feel one way or another, because this is false ego and is dangerous, deceptive and arguably the biggest error that can be made in modern society because it leads to creating gods out of symbols and replacing our hearts with a ticking clinical machine, instead of keeping us thinking and working out of our own constant observation and vigilant discernment of searching ones self and creating a path daily, to process our complex energy, and thereby bringing to life new accidents, such as much of my music and photography... "art" has done.
~matt mojokiss
