A poem on a napkin.
It all started with a piece of napkin, a first photopoem handwritten on a napkin, and a challenge to create a new concept, a unique vision, poetry and photography into one: photography
This is how the concept of photopoem started.
A first poem handwritten on a piece of napkin and a plan to create everyday photopoems.
photography & poems 2021 © DACIANA LIPAI ~ Turning Black into Color – The Poem on a Napkin
After losing a person I loved, my life was falling apart. I was falling apart. I was losing interest in everything, I was no longer eager to write or create photography. I couldn’t find joy in anything anymore. Nothing made sense. By the end of the year, I knew I was in a deep depression, I just didn’t want to admit it.
I had a good friend notice this and challenge me to write poems, to create each day, to start a new project, to document, to create something new. I’ve told him that it’s so easy to write poems, to create photographs, or even to write a book, but the marketing part is difficult. It’s easy to create a unique concept, but if is new, nobody will care, if it has potential, it will be stollen. The discussion was long, and he supported and encouraged me all the way, he was always saying, “don’t worry about anything, about the outcome of what people will say, just create, from your heart, something original, something unique”.
The challenge was simple: each day to write a poem, documenting how I feel, and find a way to create a photopoetry out of it.
I didn’t know how this is going to end up, or if I can do this. I just knew I had to create. Being an experiment, I didn’t share much of my work. I’ve spent one year developing the concept which ended up in a beautiful art book.
The biggest challenge I had was writing in English, not being my native language, and finding ways that poetry and photography would work together. At that time, I’ve read a lot of comments that poems and photography couldn’t work together, because one will lose, either the poem will be stronger, either the photography. And a constant remark that I have to choose, I can be a writer or a poet, but not both.
The last year when I was in lockdown the feeling of the dark days was so present and I remembered how much it helped me hearing others’ experiences, knowing that I am not alone. I knew I have to make a smaller and more accessible book. Working more and more at the concept, it all started to outline into Turning Black into Color – photopoems for the brokenhearted book.
Even now, reading my word, my poems, I am surprised at how real and present they are. Aren’t we putting every day to balance, trying to decide our path, trying to decide what is good and what is bad, what is lost, with fear to look into the future?
Daciana
