#trying to not be a perfectionist right now and edit these drawings a million times

[blorrbo]

Nothing burger doodles hrgghrgthh kicks pebble

[nighttimepixels]

i!! have a question i don't think has been asked before? we always see the skeletons being incredibly talented in their chosen fields of expertise, but what are some things they're just downright terrible at? which of the ladies can't draw for shit, who would rather sit at the bottom of a pool for a few hours than be responsible for a few kids, who always forgets to throw away empty milk cartons? stuff like that! gimme them Character Flaws tm because honestly i rarely see people focus on them??

Ohhh, this is a good one! I’m generally someone who aims to be positive so i tend to steer away from angsty asks, but that’s very different from character flaws; thinking about this sort of thing is a lot of fun too. Plus super important! … Also, I’m wheezing at “who would rather sit at the bottom of a pool for a few hours than be responsible for a few kids”.

So here goes! The major character flaws of the ladies, while also trying to not overlap/repeat (since several definitely share a few, but I don’t want to rehash, heh). (post-answer edit: woops these are all straight up character flaws, rather than ‘bad habit’ flaws, ahaha! that’ll have to be for another ask in the end XD )

Plus a bit of silver lining after all to heal any sad hearts ;v; Under a cut to save your dashes =v=b

Serif: Getting her to be honest about her negative feelings is like pulling teeth, oh stars. She’s a laidback lady, it’s not like she’s overly effusive with praise or anything; but positive and/or neutral feelings will come easily from her, with general honesty about it and not really hiding it. Sure she might tamp down on some flustered/’oh no she’s hot’ type reactions, but to a normal degree. And she’s fine with being honest with casual critique/review if it’s asked for. Any negative stuff bubbling up in her though…? Nope, no way, her mouth is shut tight. It’s to the point that you have to know her very well to tell the difference - and it’s definitely to a bit of an unhealthy degree. If she’s angry, or strongly upset, or so on, she just doesn’t talk about it.

Remember that line from Undertale? “nothing can be done about it, so there is no point in being morose?” It was something of a common theme in her Underground, but with all her responsibilities and her general personality she internalized it hard. It’s important to be able to relay negative feelings or just let yourself be mad, but you just won’t catch it with Serif. This one’s gonna take a lot of work to work through…

Vellum: She’s blunt. Now, this isn’t always a bad thing; honesty is great in a lot of circumstances, and she always hopes Serif will catch on too-! However, in any society, you have to know… when to curb yourself. You get yourself into trouble, others into trouble… you hurt feelings, or miss cues that might inform you better about a person, and sometimes even end up a bit self-centered. Vellum’s an absolute joy and a wonderful friend, but her bluntness can sometimes rub the wrong way.

Sometimes a softer touch is needed, you know? Reading people isn’t easy, and I certainly don’t think we should discount anyone who isn’t the greatest at it; but it’s also important to recognize as a character flaw. She’s not… the greatest at it, still. She has a bad habit of accidentally insulting people in utter good faith, making for a head trip and a bit of a struggle if you get into a tight spot with her where subtlety and creative liberties with the truth would be preferable.

Sapphire: Is absolutely bullheaded. She does any number of obscenely stubborn things with a grin and a good attitude, however, so a lot of people don’t realize it until she’s sort of… bowled over whatever else might’ve been happening. Think about in-fic, how she charged into your apartment; sure, it was with the good intent to get Addy before she could wreck shop, and with all the charm of her million-watt smile and sapphic-hand-holding powers, but she didn’t stop to ask, or explain much at all. Luckily for her, it ends up working out well because she is at least good natured…

However, it doesn’t always. She’s accidentally caused people to clam up further by trying to get them to open up, on the rare occasions she does get mad it’s hard to waylay her from a headstrong attempt to ‘right things’, and so on. It can be a bit exhausting to face or to reason with her, even more so because she is extremely smart and skilled enough to accomplish a lot. This side of her takes patience and, well, a lot of work to get through to.

Amber: is extremely soft-hearted. She looks laidback, yes, and often comes across as a chill charmer-next-door, but she has a soft spot a mile wide and untold fathoms deep. This seems like a good thing on the surface, but it also leads to her having a bleeding heart (… so to speak); she tends to negate her own feelings or sweep them under the rug in favor of others. Whether it’s not expressing her own frustrations often, or quietly taking into account everyone else’s preferences, weighing which one would make the most of them happy, and casually suggesting that as if it were the same as her own choice - well. It comes through in countless ways.

Her amicable nature trips up even more under the fact that most people don’t realize she’s such a bleeding heart, because she doesn’t act the way most people would think such a person would. So it becomes a spiral, where she ends up negating her own feelings more and more in favor of spreading a little more happiness to everyone else, in subtle ways they don’t even see. It closes her off to other people’s understanding, somewhat ironically, so it ends up being hard to get past that ‘wall’ of her own overactive empathy to actually get her to open up and think about herself and share more personal details and opinions.

Crimson: surprising no one, Crimson is quick-tempered. And I mean quick. For such a laidback lady, more than happy to joke and flirt and laze back with the handful of people she cares the most about, she can just as quickly snap, on her feet and barely - if at all - held back by those with her. It comes from a logical place - her entire life, she had to prove she was fierce and fiery enough to protect her little sister, to prove they weren’t going to be walked all over, to prove she was a force to reckon with. It’s embedded in who she is, now; and it can make it hard to broach certain topics or to get her to be vulnerable, emotionally most of all.

Her harsh temper is mostly directed on anyone who’d cross her and hers, but it can leech out and become a bit hairline in general if something’s gone down; she ends up hurting the people she tries to protect, and it kills her inside. She doesn’t want to be mad, not at them anyways - it puts her in a worse mood, hating herself for it, and self-perpetuates until she can find a way to eventually calm down enough to reset her temper. Her tendency to lash out like a wounded animal makes her all the more reticent to truly open up - after all, what if she lashes out when you’re even closer? Surely, surely that would hurt worse.

Scarlet: The most impatient of all the Lilytale crew. She can’t stand lateness - in herself or others; and she has very, very high standards. In fact, this comes from upholding herself to the highest standards, under the shortest of timeframes. See, growing up, as she caught on to all Crimson was having to do to protect them and make sure they were even fed, and Scarlet could get to school with at least a modicum of safety and dignity in being decently dressed/prepared and so on, she started to put pressure on herself. She didn’t have time to dawdle; she had to get smart, get strong, get fierce enough to be able to protect her big sister in turn. This feeling only grew as she did, and now, while she can have patience for strategic reasons (she’s impatient, not foolhardy), it runs very thin. Think to the fic, where she literally picked you up to take you to dinner.

Her impatience costs her the most in interpersonal relationships. Her own creeping need to be her best at all times as quickly as possible causes her to perhaps call things too soon with some acquaintances (especially in a peaceful world), or causes her to act rashly when an invisible clock has run out. She struggles to relax and take in the idle moments, something inherently critical for distressing and cultivating softer moments with those around you.

Pepper: happens to be the biggest perfectionist of all of them. As Cinnamon’s older sister, she had to help raise her in a world that would happily kick weak kids to the gutter if they didn’t prove themselves; she quickly became fiercely exacting, desperate to ensure she was the most capable fighter/protector, a stable provider, a monster to think twice about being messed with. She tried to give Cinn as regular a childhood as one could eke, while also encouraging her to develop the things she showed aptitude for… and trying to figure out ways to help her improve terrible weaknesses.

It’s something that comes from a… good place, but is inevitably a terrible weight on those around her if not checked. While currently she can at least acknowledge that she’s a perfectionist, she’s still not… apologetic about it, especially towards herself. Her entire life required her to be constantly pushing to be better; it’s part of who she is. And she’ll keep doing it, even as it sets her on a lonely island distant from others, if only to continue ensuring her & hers are safe & secured. This one’s another that’s hard to break through to.

Cinnamon: is, secretly, the most self-deprecating of all of them. It’s harder to see than most of the other flaws listed so far; insidious and quiet, it leeches into her mindset and affects her relationships to a strong degree. Perhaps the flipside of Pepper’s perfectionism, Cinnamon never feels like she’s good enough. She’s intelligent & observant to a degree that exacerbates this; she knows too well how things should go/what she should have done/better qualities to cultivate, but when she inevitably falls short, rather than a roadblock, it’s an affirmation of her status as ‘not good enough’.

Because of her life growing up, it’s a flaw that’s even harder to pick up on; she doesn’t seem to outwardly second guess herself, and doesn’t even react much to ‘failing’ a task. It would be dangerous to show that sort of thing (she’s more likely to show a bit of irritation if anything, if really stressed - but it’s all inwardly directed). She’s extremely skilled at countless things too, but it’s never enough to her. It triggers depressive spirals and an aloof, laidback attitude that’s something of a protective barrier to keep from drawing attention to what she perceives as her flaws, and makes it harder yet for her to actually be emotionally open with others.

Blade: is what might best be described as… morally unscrupulous. Considering her background, this is perhaps of… little surprise. What most has to go when you get to the point in a famine to consider eating other sentient beings is, well, your scruples. Stark morality has no place in the world hers became; while she wouldn’t call it a weakness, exactly, it only hurt worse the longer time went on. She had to abandon it or risk Falling. It lead her to being a bit more… callous, shall we say, a bit less concerned with just how grayscale ‘morality’ had become, how well you could reason through a lot of terrible things if it meant she and her sister - and, slightly lower but still important - their little community could survive to see another meal.

Nowadays, obviously she’s happy to not have to worry about cannibalism, but it definitely left a deep, unshakeable flaw in her personality. She only believes in the ‘morality’ of ensuring the well-being of her and hers; she tends to shrug off… well, crimes, especially ones that don’t hurt people in particular. She doesn’t understand people who get twisted up about morality, and tends to get a little annoyed, more and more when it comes to ‘playing nice’ especially ‘just for looks’. She’s survived a famine and came out permanently fucked up in something as deeply personal as her ability to use magic, to say nothing of her head wound; she hates pretending, hates niceties for the sake of niceties, and is liable to shut out (or, physically, kick out) anyone who tries to get her to be more accommodating according to their own standards, or more understanding of what she now perceives as wishy-washy moral banalities.

Twist: is, for lack of a better word, deeply rebellious. This one may come as a surprise for some, but like with Blade, it’s deeply rooted in their background and what took them from being “Serif and Vellum” to “Blade and Twist” - some of their backstory is still under spoiler-based protection, but essentially she and Blade got their… worst injuries a significant way into the famine. What happened - and what had been building - effectively disillusioned her in a lot of ways. She refused to bow to anyone’s rule anymore, knowing that terrible sacrifices did need to be made, but believing…. better ones could be made. Their lives were extremely rough beyond just the famine, to put it succinctly…

That rebelliousness really implanted in her; it’s one of her greatest flaws now. She questions leadership to a bit of a fault, and you have to really earn her believing you can make weighty decisions. It’s obstinate, and causes a lot of frustration when it really would be faster to fall in line; it also leads to her having a slightly devil-may-care attitude and needing a lot of convincing (and probably her sister’s direct opinion, who Twist trusts the most & for good reason) to not flagrantly disobey the law (eg, magic acts while out on the town on rare occasion, etc). It’s exhausting for those that do have her best interests at heart, but she’s extremely disinclined to listen to casual opinions; it’s a very good thing that she’s smart and can figure out the why of many things on her own, or she might cause a lot more trouble, however well-intentioned.

Alpha: is perhaps the most overconfident. It’s not without reason; as an AI, she’s obscenely capable & vastly ultra-intelligent, and has the tech access (/can perpetually gain access to it) to ensure she can learn anything needed or get anything needed. While not in bad faith or anything, it’s inevitable that this leads to something of a superman complex; she feels a bit invincible, and while some things take time or are inconvenient at a given moment, she knows it’s largely just a matter of time before she figures it out/overcomes the temporary obstacle.

This leads to, however rarely, a miscalculation in her own abilities - perhaps a less quantitative variable that she didn’t perceive as important enough before something terrible happens. It also leads to weakness on the interpersonal side of things; it can be a bit daunting to be emotionally vulnerable with that kind of confidence… whether for her, or for someone who might consider being emotionally vulnerable with her. As of yet, she hasn’t had to… challenge this overconfidence too much; at most, just better cultivate a bit of reluctant patience. It’s going to cause more troubles as time goes on, however, as she’ll be forced to face that not everything is as easily, or at least with steady work, solvable.

Glyph: is the most ephemeral. Fancy word, I know, but fitting; she’s excessively hard to pin down, both literally in a physical location, and emotionally. She’s transient to an extreme; she only very technically has a home with the Lilytale crew. It isn’t that the girls don’t want her there, they’re totally happy to have her and consider her as part of their motley crew, but Glyph herself gets… restless, if she’s in one spot for long. She tends to at least stop by once a month, sometimes staying for a week, others only passing through a nearby town to meet up for the day. But outside of that she’s constantly drifting from place to place, experience to experience, new sight and open sky to the next.

This… sounds pleasant, but it’s also very much a flaw. It comes down to an inability to plant roots, to feel permanent, to not want to. It’s something she is deeply uncomfortable with thanks to her backstory, and avoids beyond the way the Lilytale crew managed to make her one of their own - and even with them, she hesitates to get close. She has very few close relationships of any kind because of this, and is rarely emotionally open or available. While she’ll show up when she’s needed, she feels unreliable for how brief each appearance of her feels in the long run; for how unlikely it is you’ll get a proper hold of her at your convenience. Sure, it’s not necessary in the slightest to be at someone’s beck and call, but it’s also deeply isolating to never be available in your average day-to-day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oof! Now, all that said… I do want to point out the fun, warmer part - the silver lining, so to speak. All of these flaws… are also a big part of their strengths! Essentially, take their flaws, and pose them in a different light…

Serif: won’t reveal negative feelings, but is a great mediator and leader

Vellum: is blunt, but tells the truth at the most critical points where it’s hard to speak out, & inspires honesty in others

Sapphire: is bullheaded, but is reliable; gets even the hardest tasks done

Amber: is excessively soft hearted, but has the greatest sense of empathy and understanding of others no matter the circumstance

Crimson: quick-tempered, but is the first one to speak/act out against injustice, and to protect her loved ones.

Scarlet: is impatient, but is conversely dedicated and will never let the important things fall by the wayside.

Pepper: is a perfectionist, but is a hard worker that won’t accept failure and will ensure her loved ones get the best of anything she can provide.

Cinnamon: is self-deprecating, but conversely can see the best in everyone, and knows the inherent value that everyone can bring to the table.

Blade: is morally unscrupulous, but also can most clearly see what’s truly important in everyday life and overall; will always see to the well-being of her family/found family.

Twist: is rebellious, but can cut through the red tape and not fall into trusting someone/the status quo to the point of missing red flags; inspires others to question habits/expectations put on them in a healthier way.

Alpha: is overconfident, but also inspires the positive desire to take chances & to have confidence in yourself - all while knowing she has your back.

Glyph: is ephemeral, but brings all kinds of new perspectives to the table and has a way of seeing the world that broadens everyone’s perspective.

[rileypalmer-blog]

Get To Know Mun!

tagged by :  @prettyboygcnius

1. What is your middle name? Anne 2. How old are you? 28 3. When is your birthday? December 23 4. What is your zodiac sign? Capricorn but I am a cusp so some Sagg. traits 5. What is your favorite color? Deep red 6. What’s your lucky number? 13 7. Do you have any pets? A dog 8. Where are you from? Indianapolis originally 9. How tall are you? 5′6″ 10. What shoe size are you? 8 usually 11. How many pairs of shoes do you own? Uhhhhh 7 I think? 12. What was your last dream about? I see my best friend for the first time in 13 years, we go watch fireworks, then he tries to kill me 13. What talents do you have? Writing, drawing.... I can lick my elbow, is that a talent? 14. Are you psychic in any way? Eh, tiny bit maybe. I’ve had some instances... 15. Favorite song? Almost everything ever. RN, probably Do You Feel It? by Chaos Chaos 16. Favorite movie? Breakfast Club 17. Who would be your ideal partner? IDK, the Ronin Jin from Samurai Champloo isn’t real so... 18. Do you want children? I have one. I’m done. 19. Do you want a church wedding? Didn’t do that either, lol 20. Are you religious? Yes 21. Have you ever been to the hospital? A couple of times 22. Have you ever got in trouble with the law? Do speeding tickets count? Got one of those. 23. Have you ever met any celebrities? Nope 24. Baths or showers? Showers for getting clean, baths for relaxing 25. What color socks are you wearing? None! It’s summer time, hopefully I won’t wear any for a month but when I DO wear them they don’t match. I haven’t matched my socks since I was 14, I don’t plan on starting that again 26. Have you ever been famous? Nope 27. Would you like to be a big celebrity? Depends on what I’d be famous for 28. What type of music do you like? Pretty much everything but mainstream rap 29. Have you ever been skinny dipping? Yup 30. How many pillows do you sleep with? Two 31. What position do you usually sleep in? I’m everywhere 32. How big is your house? A little on the small side but it works just fine 33. What do you typically have for breakfast? Cereal. Or pizza. Mostly cereal 34. Have you ever fired a gun? Yup, I own a couple 35. Have you ever tried archery? Had a bow a long time ago 36. Favorite clean word? Wait, there are clean words?? Uh.... soap? 37. Favorite swear word? Fuck or dammit 38. What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sleep? I can’t remember. I love to slep tho, so no more than 24 hours I think 39. Do you have any scars? Yup. Biggest is a c-section scar 40. Have you ever had a secret admirer? Not that I’m aware of 41. Are you a good liar? Maybe *squints* 42. Are you a good judge of character? Eh, so so. My main rule is, don’t trust anyone until they’ve earned it 43. Can you do any other accents other than your own? I tend to do an English one if I watch too much BBC 44. Do you have a strong accent? Um... I have no idea?? 45. What is your favorite accent? Oh jeeze... I can’t pick just one 46. What is your personality type? Laid back (except when a topic interests me), easily bored, creative, semi anti social 47. What is your most expensive piece of clothing? My boots 48. Can you curl your tongue? Yup 49. Are you an innie or an outie? Innie 50. Left or right handed? Right-handed 51. Are you scared of spiders? Depends on how big they are 52. Favorite food? Hmm... pizza I think... Or sweet and sour chicken 53. Favorite foreign food? Chinese or Italian 54. Are you a clean or messy person? Ordered chaos 55. Most used phrased? “What the fuck?” or “You’re killin’ me Smalls!” 56. Most used word? Dammit or fuck 57. How long does it take for you to get ready? Normally, like 10 minutes 58. Do you have much of an ego? Nope 59. Do you suck or bite lollipops? I’m not big on hard candy 60. Do you talk to yourself? Yup 61. Do you sing to yourself? Also yup 62. Are you a good singer?  My family is musically inclined, but not me. I guess I’m about average 63. Biggest Fear? Car accidents, losing people, looking in mirrors in dark rooms.... 64. Are you a gossip? No, not really 65. Best dramatic movie you’ve seen? AAAnd I have officially forgotten the name of every movie I’ve ever seen 66. Do you like long or short hair? Long on me, depends for other people tho 67. Can you name all 50 states of America? Maybe? 68. Favorite school subject? Art. And lunch. Yes, lunch is a subject, don’t argue 69. Extrovert or Introvert? Semi introvert 70. Have you ever been scuba diving? Nope 71. What makes you nervous? Too much to name 72. Are you scared of the dark? Nope 73. Do you correct people when they make mistakes? Depends on the correction/mistake 74. Are you ticklish? Yes but it pisses me off 75. Have you ever started a rumor? No 76. Have you ever been in a position of authority? When I worked at Subway 77. Have you ever drank underage? Yeah 78. Have you ever done drugs? No 79. Who was your first real crush? My step cousin when I was like, 3 80. How many piercings do you have? One. My left ear is a 12 gauge 81. Can you roll your Rs? Yup 82. How fast can you type? Eh, so so. If I’m in the mood it’s pretty fast 83. How fast can you run? Run? What is this word you speak of? 84. What color is your hair? Reddish rown 85. What color is your eyes? Brown 86. What are you allergic to? Bullshit 87. Do you keep a journal? I am addicted to buying them, but I rarely stay interested 88. What do your parents do? Mom works in a deli, dad’s a mechanic 89. Do you like your age? I don’t have an issue with it, I just have an issue with what people say I should’should not do at my age 90. What makes you angry? Too much to list 91. Do you like your own name? No. It’s too common 92. Have you already thought of baby names, and if so what are they? I have a little girl named Katheryn but if she would have been a boy we would have named her Gauge 93. Do you want a boy a girl for a child? I wasn’t too partial but I have a girl now 94. What are you strengths? Creative, patient to an extent, empathetic 95. What are your weaknesses? Stubborn, messy, empathetic 96. How did you get your name? Mom says it’s for her step sister, grandma says it for her grandmother, dad says it’s from a Boston song so, who knows? 97. Were your ancestors royalty? Not that I know of 98. Color of your bedspread? Goldish 99. Color of your room? Gold and dark red 100. Favorite celebrity? Matthew Gray Gubler, David Tennant, Johnny Depp, and Alan Alda.

[devinamehtaps]

Interview with Christian Hopkins

We at platform PHOTO recently had the pleasure of interviewing young photographer Christian Hopkins, whose images experiment with combining self-portraiture and conceptual techniques, achieving dramatic and emotive results. Christian’s path into the photographic world was instigated when he received a camera as a gift and despite his reservations, forced himself to start photographing. Photography made him see the world in a more beautiful light and soon became a tool for Christian in battling his demons, providing a form of therapy in coping with his depression and allowing him a channel to communicate his emotions. Here, Christian opens up to us, offering an insight into his often arduous and meticulously thought out photographic process.

platformPHOTO: Hi Christian, please tell us about yourself, your life and how you discovered photography.

Christian Hopkins: It’s difficult to talk about myself with any sort of brevity, not quite because I have so much to say about myself, rather, talking about myself and my life in such a small space means I need to identify the most defining aspects of myself and how I’ve spent the last 20 years on this earth. I can say with confidence that I cannot confidently say I know what those are. I had always been a wallflower. My opinions were simply a reflection of whoever was speaking to me, and to describe my true self was akin to describing the color of a mirror. Ironically, I had simultaneously held a feverish desire to break away from the mundane and seek undiscovered beauty. I was often called the “creative” one whenever I was in a situation that involved art or expression because I was never satisfied with taking the obvious path and becoming forgettable. I wanted to take that path and mold it, twist it into something that was beautiful, yet made you question the reality of the path itself. Indirectly, it was that desire that got me into photography. I was going on a trip to China and my mom bought me a high-end point-and-shoot that I wanted nothing to do with. Since I was stuck with the thing, I forced myself to take a lot of pictures out of guilt for this “gift.” Of course, I didn’t want to just take pictures, I wanted to take GOOD pictures, or at least try to. Some might say being glued to your viewfinder while on vacation makes you “miss the moment,” but for me it magnified it. I started noticing things like complimentary colors, interesting perspectives, the behavior of light, and everything before me became richer. Since then, that lens became my third eye with which the world become so much more beautiful.

platformPHOTO: Your photographs come across as beautiful and somewhat haunting. To you, what makes a good photograph?

Christian Hopkins: I actually have a mini checklist that I go through when both creating and viewing photographs. It’s all still a bit amorphous, but I’ll assign a handful of attributes to a photograph, and I’ll like a photograph if each of those attributes are unique or engaging in some way. I usually start with subject matter (that’s pretty self explanatory), color, composition, perspective (that might not be the right word, but examples would be like a wide panorama or a tight crop of someones face or an aerial view of the ground), and a some others. Most importantly though are depth and purpose. Depth is the ability for you to get lost in a photo. Where all the prior attributes swirl together and draw you inside the image. These are the images that you just stare at, and you keep seeing something new the longer you look. I also feel a photograph can have a lot more power when it has a meaningful purpose behind it, but keep in mind that none of these are required. They’re just things that I try to change up with each photograph. Never have the same attribute twice in a row (of course not even I can follow these “rules” most of the time).

platformPHOTO: How do you articulate your ideas, from conception to creation and post-production? Tell us about your creative process.

Christian Hopkins: Most of my concepts start with an emotion, particularly one that I cannot explain or identify. I get extremely uncomfortable whenever I’m not in control, and it’s particularly unbearable when that loss of control is coming from something as personal as my own mind. When this happens, I usually sit down and try my best to put that emotion into words. For example, with my picture “Defense Mechanisms,”, my general words were: “I love photography, but I’ve reached a point where my personal expectations of my own work have exceeded my skill level. Now every time I try to take a photo, I get frustrated because I’m never satisfied with the result, but I can’t stop taking pictures because so many people are waiting to see what I’ll make next. It’s all so unbearable that I’d forever cut photography out of my life,  remove something that is so close to my heart, just to stop feeling this.” And once the words are there the picture just kind of…appears.

platformPHOTO: How challenging is it to be working alone when creating often complex self-portraits?

Christian Hopkins: Yes…..very, very, yes. I use a remote shutter release, and up until recently, I had this dinky little infrared remote that had an effective range of 10 feet and you had to hit this sweet spot on the camera, so I would spend so much time staring numb at the camera while I futilely press this button and then suddenly the red light will go on and I have two seconds (and no this couldn’t be extended, I tried) to frantically pose, then wait, then *click.* I would have to run and check how the picture turned out after every shot because if I took a whole bunch of poses at once and I didn’t realize I was out of the frame, then all those pictures would be unusable. With some shoots taking hundreds of attempts because I’m a bit of a perfectionist, let’s just say I get a lot of exercise. Also, clamps are a solo self-portraitist’s best friend.

platformPHOTO: Can you give some information about the post-production process to create your images. Do you usually have a clear vision of what you wish to achieve during editing or is it something that happens while you are editing your images? Are there any particular techniques that you use?

Christian Hopkins: Most of the time the photograph is already finished in my before I even pick up the camera. I don’t usually even sketch anything out. I already know what it looks like. I’ve seen it. Taking the picture is just a formality. With my composites, I don’t really have a consistent technique because each one is so very different. What you might call a “technique” I would just call common sense. Start building the background, then cut out and add all the subjects, then match their hues and tones to the background, then overall touch ups, and finally start working with all the adjustment sliders to solidify the tone of the image.

platformPHOTO: Are there any photographers or artists working with other mediums that have been inspiration to you? Perhaps because of their style or the subject matter that they tackle within their work.

Christian Hopkins: Nope.

platformPHOTO: You started photography as a form of therapy in coping with depression, but now it seems as though this medium of expression has become a challenge in itself for you. Have you found that channelling your feelings through conceptual photographs has helped you in dealing with or understanding your depression?

Christian Hopkins: It’s the only tool I have in this fight. How do you fight an enemy you cannot touch, cannot see, and, most distressingly, is yourself? When I create a photograph, it is more than just an image. It’s the manifestation of some demon that has been haunting me to the point where I can no longer function. It’s then that I need to create this picture to take that demon out of my head and onto the screen in front of me. It’s strange, some weeks I’ll refuse to leave my bed because the smallest inclines become mountains, but suddenly it’s 4 in the morning and I’m running around a fog filled field camera in hand for hours trying to find the perfect place to compose this image that I already finished the moment I got out of bed. It’s the sense of control that leads me to create. It’s knowing that now I am the one now who is creating the image, I am the one who chooses what goes where, who does what, and why they do it. Being able to convey an emotion through something I create proves to me that I now understand this emotion enough to accurately communicate it to others.

platformPHOTO: Last week, you posted a blank image on your flickr account saying goodbye to your followers and that you have decided to give up photography, stating: “I can’t do this anymore….I’m at the point where my expectations have exceeded my capabilities…” Do you still feel this way and would you be able to elaborate on what brought you to this conclusion? Is there any chance that you may return to your personal photography in the future?

Christian Hopkins: Imagine a crowd of over 4 million people, and the spotlight’s on you. There they stand, far beyond the limits of your vision in an infinite black void, all waiting for you to say something, but of course you have nothing to say. Yet they do not budge, and the stillness starts to crush you. Every new moment in the growing silence pushes every word down your throat, and that silence grows stronger because of it, creating an eternal loop of suffocation. And you cannot run, you cannot escape into your mind, because this is your mind. The crowd is there when you sleep, when you eat. It’s under your skin and in your blood, and it drives you mad. That’s what it felt like, no matter how untrue or irrational it seems, that’s what it felt like. Sometimes it would get to the point where I would just hold onto my camera and rock back and forth for hours. That is why I had to stop, but I’m still here, and I’m not done. I’ve found new ways to communicate these emotions through images, and they’re silently screaming to get out.

platformPHOTO: Thank you so much for your time today Christian, we have one last question for you. If we sent you to a desert island and allowed you to take only one picture with you by another photographer, what would this image be?