Falling

The beauty of falling
Delicious with feeling
A freedom's embrace of air
Rushing against bare skin
Or a golden halo of hair
Floating in escape
A fleeting moment of time
Where nothing matters
Except the sheer rapture
Of falling.


I found an article in the Guardian about the photographer Ryan McGinley who shot this highly colour-saturated, painterly shot. Seeing it reminded me both of the Rider Tarot cards and the famous jumper from the Twin Towers – a shot of tragic significance and yet incredible fleeting beauty in a way.

Falling is so multi-layered in meaning – we fall head of heels in love, pride comes before a fall, the fall of the roman empire, so is it a negative or positive action? In these shots, it's most definitely a thing of great beauty. McGinley likens it to the poetry of chaos and that inspired me to write the short poem above about the grace and beauty of falling.

Here's what McGinley says about the shot:

Falling is a movement that endlessly fascinates me. I guess this action traces back to activities from my youth: skateboarding or diving from stages or into pools. I want to capture the feeling of weightlessness I would get jumping from a speaker and landing in a crowd, or flipping backwards off a diving board.

I love Amanda's face in this photo: she looks like she's in a trance within the chaos of the hay. I shot for about four hours, rotating models. I never know who is going to end up in the final shot, or if there will even be a successful image. I guess that's the fun part for me: finding the moment where everything lines up. Not knowing what's going to come back is like a present: it's the poetry of chaos.