"The photographs are quiet, lyrically poetic, and intellectually provocative."

- Cambridge Dictionary

I was scrolling through my blog posts and found one I wrote back in 2017 about “how to be lyrical". In that post, I gave readers tips on creating lyrical work, mainly focusing on drawing inspiration from music. This involved analyzing personal feelings when listening to melodies or interpreting lyrics if they exist.

Now, 7 years later, I realize that doesn't fully answer the question of how to be lyrical. So, what does it mean to be lyrical? In the past post, I mentioned it as a verb meaning “expressing the creator’s emotions in an imaginative and beautiful way.” While that's one way to describe being lyrical, I want to emphasize the word “emotion.” Expressing a feeling that exists inside and lasts for some time is not easy, especially when creating imagery. To achieve an expressive yet artistically beautiful quality is tricky, particularly with unusual or ambiguous feelings. After years of practicing being lyrical, there are times when I need other sources to guide me in digging deeper into a certain emotion I want to convey. Symbolism helps a lot, but creating that emotion for the audience so they feel it too takes time. I realized that not everyone can feel a certain emotion unless you provide some visual aid or other guidance. Some people with similar knowledge to mine can understand what I'm talking about immediately. However, not everything is based on personal experience, is it?

For example, a few months ago, I created a personal work called “Consciousness.” It was not the same concept of consciousness as Freud’s; it was another concept known as the “spectrum of consciousness” that I found accidentally on the internet. 

Based on that concept, I needed to create three different images for each stage presented. I had to differentiate each one by using different colors, compositions, or poses. Thanks to Sasa, my talented Hungarian model who is also a professional contemporary dancer, she managed to give me different feels through her movements and expressions. She delivered each stage of “consciousness” effortlessly.

Day dreaming

Denying reality

Near-death

For "daydreaming," I used white boxes and random elements, along with a sky-blue dress, to symbolize an imaginary, relaxed, yet confusing world. It's full of curious things but in a good and happy way. For "reality," I wanted to show how often we deny our reality and how distorted and cruel it can be. I used yellow as the neutral tone to represent human quality. The movements created by Sasa here were more "closed" and "painful" than the first ones. For the final stage, the "near-death" phase, the overall tone was much darker, and Sasa's movements were more violent, creating a blurry effect. It was like a shadow, leaving one's self behind as a representation of regret at the edge of life. On the other hand, the poses were grander and larger than the previous ones, because I believe death is more significant than life due to its eternity.

Selecting the right objects, tone, and other visual elements in a lyrical work is more crucial than choosing the best model, dress, concept, or whatever it is. Focus on the deeper emotions you feel while creating the art and imagine what your audience will see. Keep these two points in mind, or even imprint them in your heart.

Can you now understand what it means to be lyrical from my explanation?

Hello everyone!

It's been 4 years that I didn't update anything here. I think I wrote a post before about my life updates in 2021 but ended up didn't post it due to various reasons, well more because of personal reasons.

Anyway, i'm still alive and living (quite) well. For those of you who followed my Instagram, of course you know what I've been doing. Since I came back from Korea, my life took another course and I guess it ended up better than I thought. At first I was skeptical of what I can be in Indonesia, despite my photography has been known here. I was so afraid to be back at zero again, building up my brand here. Thankfully I have so many friends and people around me that supported me to move forward. Long story short, I've built 2 brands with some friends, one is a streetwear brand and the other is a perfume brand. I'm still doing my photography work and still dreaming of becoming an artist one day. 

Before I write this post, I was looking through my old photos in Facebook and other places, reminiscing my old youth days. Not saying that I'm old now, but I feel that I'm a different person than in those pictures. Probably not many people notice it though, because I still 'act' the same. I'm still me, but changed to the better.