When COVID-19 peaked amidst the first lockdown, after the initial wave of realization hit “home” definitely and certainly, I used my lunch-time breaks to take short trips either to my mailbox or to the main gate… I noticed two bicycles parked in the corner of adjacent parking lot… they were covered, and looked rather “unused for ages”.
I started taking photographs of them. Frequently, “artistic vision” begins with a mere instinct of curiosity. I have a series of a good few dozen, most likely more, of the images of these bicycles - under different conditions of light and extreme weather, of peace, un-necessity and abandonment.
After the first 3-4 spontaneous shoots I realized that I am transferring (projecting) my own - author’s sentiment - of being left in limbo, forgotten about, unread and undiscovered, onto these two objects - two vehicles. Stationery, when must race. Unmonitored, when must be controlled by the rider. I can elaborate on the empathic connection, but the ultimate truth was that I, as a human, related to inanimate objects. They have become my symbols - the mascots of this campaign.
…as a professional, I have an embarrassing admission to make, … “I AM LANA and I PHOTOGRAPH BIKES. Compulsively.” Indeed, since 2016 - I have “bicycles” in NY, Philadelphia, Toronto, Sydney, Winston-Salem, Greensboro, Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham, Milan, Miami, San Diego, Washington, D.C., Edinburgh, Scotland…. and believe it or not! I even found a few in Iceland!!! And here - it was like a “Eureka!” - idyllic, trackable, measurable, analyzable pair of “collectibles” - right under my windows. I thought “this is it!” and from about February of 2020 - I was meticulously monitoring their lifecycle…
Often by taking a glance for changes, making sure they were there, and if they were - I would nod and drive by… However, there were - what I called - milestones, those I documented in photographs.
In fact, for the sake of this case-study I went back through my visual assets and discovered the dates for all sessions:
March 22, 2020, March 28, 2020, April 19, 20020, May 20, 2020 (the session for the cover), June 3, 2020, June 9th, 2020, July1, 2020 (they had a "baby-girl"!), July 18, 2020, August 21, 2020, September 4, 2020, October 30, 2020, December 26, 2020, December 28, 2020, March 23, 2021, Match 30, 2020 (the last shoot, they were uncovered, eager for road... and, like if their dreams came true - next morning they disappeared).
In April and May I was in the studio, recording my first album of audio poetry. The mind was looking for a title, the mind was questioning and examining all the visuals. The heart was burdened by what the COVID-pandemic meant for all the nomadic-minded ourselves. I had travel plans, I had people-centered ideas. All I could think of was how to put it all together. The title came suddenly, at the same time that I walked out of the door in the morning. The night before it was raining, wind and thunderstorm… the bicycles had been “revealed”, the cover, like a mantle was flowing gracefully…. “something shifted” - it was! One of the tracks in my album - a stream of consciousness audio recording, spoke of a paradigm shift in how we perceives selves… We may be just a couple of dirt-bikes in the corner, waiting to hit the ground running… but the mantle - that’s our attribute… of honor, of duty, of servant leadership….
I used Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator for the editing of the image and minor image manipulation. I increased the amount of background around the object, to give me the image proportion I need, I edited out distractions. Applied needed adjustment and filters and extra layers, with opacity, blending / fill settings. In illustrator I applied typography with its layers, effects and styles and exported at 12 x 12 @ 300 dpi. I resizes the cover-artwork based on iTunes, Spotify, etc. requirements and then preflighted artwork separate file in Ai and Adobe Acrobat (CMYK / SWOP conversion) - for the digi-pack.
On-the-disc artwork created in Adobe Illustrator - to compliment the album-cover, preflighted for digital print in Acrobat (shown here with the "template" overlay, printed without it, obviously.)
Further design work was done in Photoshop, Illustrator and Acrobat for softcover, hardcover and digital format “Something Shifted” book with lyrics and photography.
Yes, of course, this was supposed to be a "case study", to show my design aptitude, not philosophy or even a behavioral analysis of one individual with “bike” fetish, but if I may say so, in "our industry", if we can’t “relate” - we can’t create…
That’s the point, and the message and a slight learning curve for this one author and design… data or not, empathy matters daily… and especially in a year like 2020…
Thank you for you time, thank you for your attention and thank you for this opportunity to make a conversation happen. I spoke. Through my weirdness, through my poetry, through my visuals and you spoke through your silence… and I actively listened as well…
...when we take even one photograph - it means we saw. When we even a few words - it means we thought, and when we create - it means we lived.
And once we publish our life - it means it was real. And it it’s here to remain. No matter where we are - rain or shine, riding or parked…. covered or not…
© 2020 Audioggi | © 2018-2020 Lana Shkadova | Text + Images - All Rights Reserved
