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Besa Tetova
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Introduction to Bessa Tatova and her Inspirations
00:00:22
Speaker
I'm very excited to have Bessa Tatova here on the show, photographer, model, artist. We're going to chat, Art, but can we start with photography, Bessa? I love photography. your ah photograph What does photography do? It catches your eye, right? So I saw um both your modeling and um your photography, and it caught me. And the the the photography itself, that feel, that snapshot feel, the Polaroid, um as something about photography, the instant aspect of it that that pulled me in. But ah yeah, so so talk about, let's let's talk about, it tell us about your photography and what you do artistic artistically and creatively.
Influence of Childhood and College Experiences
00:01:12
Speaker
Well, thank you for having me um and thank you for the compliment. My photography really started, I think, as a child. My dad was kind of, be he was a little bit obsessed and he took a lot of photos of me. And I think even as a child, I started like picking up on things where he'd be like, oh no, move this way and like sort of like how people frame things. And then I, in college, I started getting more into it and experimenting and ah working with like local film kids and
00:01:46
Speaker
I started to kind of ask questions more. And I was like, so you know like what what goes into this? like how How do you see a shot? Because I think photography is just about like your own perception in one like snapshot of a moment in time. And I think everybody has their own unique perspective and their own vision.
Nostalgia and Film Photography
00:02:08
Speaker
For me, I really like nostalgia. I like to play on nostalgia. So I like to kind of um have this aesthetic that makes you kind of question, like when was this taken? It makes you pause a little bit to wonder about it.
00:02:26
Speaker
And I also really like the fact that with film, you really have to slow down and you have to kind of be more thoughtful because you only have like 36 frames in a roll film usually. So it's kind of like, you can't just like snap off like a thousand photos like you can with like a digital camera. Yeah. Yeah.
00:02:46
Speaker
And so you kind of have to like cherry pick. You have to be like, oh, ah let's move this. Or here, this lighting isn't quite right. It's not quite what I was looking for. you know Let's switch this pose up. And I think just kind of over time, your eye becomes strained. And I think for me especially, like I learned so much about photography through watching movies, through cinematography.
Inspirations from Cinema
00:03:13
Speaker
And um like Sofia Coppola is a big inspiration to me. yeah I like that in her films, she like builds these worlds and there's so much attention to detail and she kind of like makes you nostalgic for something that you didn't really experience because a lot of her movies are set in like different times. And I wanted to kind of try to replicate that feeling when you look at my photos.
00:03:41
Speaker
Yeah, when you said about um trying to place it in time, I like that because it's something that disrupts the brain a bit, right? Because I'm looking at it too, right? And for and for me,
00:03:53
Speaker
you know my first contact with photography because I'm in my early 50s, so like when it comes to you know the snapshot itself or let's save two pictures for the end of the party because there's a physical limitation on how much film is there. right like A whole different way of approach and and thinking. and um I'd say my dad really influenced me with the Super 8 camera. like i couldn't i couldn't I couldn't love... I actually still have it and I've used it. So my pops got that from me. he He got it because I had a little little kiddo in the early 70s and capture everything and um
Emotional and Sensory Connections
00:04:39
Speaker
that's going on. And I later
00:04:41
Speaker
I later on used it to do some ah just some you know just some fun filming, ah three-minute roles in Minneapolis at the time, old buildings, that type of stuff, which is super great.
00:04:56
Speaker
um yeah and dumb What's really cool is I have the projector and I can project ah films of myself when I was 18 months.
00:05:07
Speaker
That's amazing. yeah Like that happened just in in movies and I'm like, oh my God, I would love to be able to sit down and watch somebody's childhood like just projected from like a super eight because like the way that film is so incredible and the way that like it expresses just kind of like this warmth that when you're viewing it, yeah it's beautiful.
00:05:28
Speaker
and um Yeah, let's let's stick on Super 8 for a bit. like i um When you run it, there's a smell that comes out of that projector. It's ah just a little fume or something. It's some sort of chemical or something, you know? And in the heat and the heat and it and it it runs and it it kind of pulls that in as well. And um and there was some Super 8, I don't know how it worked. All I know is this is the Super 8 that is um either in color or in black and white and no sound, right? So what's funny too is that when I was a kid, my dad would play them and he ended up creating his own narration. So they'd be like these silent films or films of us. And I know what he would say because he would narrate the thing because there's no sound. And it was so radically different of a way to
00:06:23
Speaker
You know, kind of interact in digital is fantastic. I mean, this is absolutely all I got the things you can do and we could talk about that, but the experience it's just a difference of the experience and there's this. um There's this familiarity or something i said you said or this closeness or something like that about yeah about the intimacy or something with the Super 8. So we're big two us two big Super 8 fans. That's huge. yeah ah ah the way that like You kind of have to use imagination.
00:06:57
Speaker
a little bit, but like you were saying, like your father narrated it. And so it's like, that's kind of something that you'll associate with watching that. You'll also yeah ah see the smell and it's like, it's such a joke full sensory experience. Whereas like obviously digital is too, and there's so much we can capture and that's great for certain things. But I think sometimes like just ah the nostalgia alone, just like the sentimentality of it all just really can't be beat in my opinion.
00:07:26
Speaker
Yeah. What do you think about that feeling? I'm always fascinated by the feeling of nostalgia, right? Because like people say it a lot and it's this weird kind of concept where there's like deep warmth and feeling at And nostalgia is the absence or being away from a home, I think is the roots of the word, is way away from home. um So it's always twisted when I talk to people about nostalgia because some people are like, I feel so good. I'm going to watch this for a while because I feel that way. And others are like,
00:07:59
Speaker
i' drifting away to something that doesn't exist. you know like It's kind of a weird. Can you tell me a little bit about how you think about like nostalgia or in the fact that you yeah have your ah photography kind of create that? I think um I've kind of always been somebody who was like just prone to feelings of nostalgia even when I was younger. I think that might be a generational thing. I think we millennials are very nostalgic creatures. Yeah.
00:08:27
Speaker
I think nostalgia, to me, the way I feel it in my body is like it's like a pulling. It's like this feeling that is pulling me toward something, not usually a way and there's like kind of a warmth that like radiates throughout the body but also just kind of this like little piece that's like longing for something. And I think that with photography, it's an excellent medium to explore nostalgia because one, you can use like different props, sets, like the whole set design and that aspect of it. Sure. But I think also like
Exploring Time Through Art
00:09:04
Speaker
you can get down to like so many minute details with like hair and makeup and clothing and even posing like, you know,
00:09:13
Speaker
because everything has its own context in time and I think sometimes it's really cool to pull from different parts of time but things that are kind of like well known enough to where somebody would recognize it and try to put it all in one photo because it really confuses this concept that we have of time in that.
00:09:34
Speaker
Um, it's like all of these things that are just in one, one, one snapshot that don't necessarily correlate like linear in time. And I think that's really fun because I think it's interesting to explore time as like a social construct and an artistic construct. You know, the way that like we do flash forwards and flash backwards and like movies and film and in writing and literature. And I just, I think you can explore it in photography too. And I think it's fun.
00:10:04
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I love those, say you know, philosophy, right? Philosophy, art art and philosophy show, right? Like time and like displacement. I, you know, one of the things I have this ah habit, which most everybody knows me, finds curious, but I think loves about me is I was about 10 years ago, I had a female friend and I found myself looking through her like fashion mags, right? And like I was like,
00:10:31
Speaker
thrilled, right? But there's all these cultural pieces around it, even then where I was like, I don't know, like, people look at me weird, you know, like at a stack, I get the fall vogue and I get all that stuff, right? But me, you know, I lived away, you know, but it's always become more comfortable. So I did that. And what I found is there's something about the nostalgia piece that always seems to be there because within fashion and new fashion stuff, I look at a photo, a beautiful photo, and like the dress on the woman is like, is this 1979? Is this 2022? And it's modern, right? And it's fashion and it's new, but it's that same type of thing where it messes with your head or like you see this shot with galoshes and stuff like that. And then like you know it's like, what is this? and
00:11:18
Speaker
Is this right now or is it 78 or something? I love that displacement. Yeah, I think fashion's a really great medium to kind of explore the idea of like time being cyclical because the way that it comes back, like trends come back in like, you know, a 10 year, 20 year, like timeframe. Whereas what you were saying, like you would see a photo in a magazine from like 20 years ago and you could walk down the street and potentially see like that same outfit on someone else. Yeah.
00:11:52
Speaker
And I think that is really like it's something we talk about, but I don't think it's something we really acknowledge as much as we should because I think that that doesn't only apply to fashion. I think there are so many other different avenues where we find that like the past is not only repeating itself, but it's also like imprinting on the future in a way.
00:12:14
Speaker
I love it. I yeah i found that on that I don't get to drop into fashion too much on the show, although I try to, but I found this weird little wrinkle that um some of my favorite painters, because I adore painting, I lose my brain for painting, and that they were also really into fashion.
Interplay of Fashion, Painting, and Art's Impact
00:12:33
Speaker
And I think in looking at what they did, a lot of times it was like connected to form and material and like the depiction of that. But it was of quality I never expected like that I was seeing maybe something in their painting and their background. What it really electrified me is that they had a back run or eye towards ah fashion. So it melded it in my head because you think of fashion of kind of It's always changing, and right? It will float away where a painting is, you know, ideally, you know, they're forever, you know, and more permanent. um I like that interplay. Let me ask you one of the big ones here, because we could talk about a lot of things. But what is art? I mean, we're talking, you know, art photography, all this great, great stuff, like, for you, Besso, what but is art?
00:13:24
Speaker
I think art is anything that connects to your own inner experience, like either your emotions or just like something that is triggered inside of you when you look at and anything. I think it's it's great that art is so subjective because I believe that there is a niche for everyone and that there is and ah not just an aesthetic, but we all have like our own visual tastes because we are visual people. We live in a visual world. and At least for me, art is just something that when I look at it, there is something that's pulling at me to examine it within. I like that because it's the thinking part of it. you know i yeah they always say like I don't know if my show sometimes is a variety show, an art show, philosophy show. But ever since I started, um when I looked at art for me,
00:14:20
Speaker
It was the same experience of philosophy, being like, howda how the hell do I explain this? like yeah what are the words like you know like What are the words to say what that is? Or why? I'm an emotional person, you know not prone to crying, very comfortable with crying. but How is it that when I look at a particular painting, like it's a reaction like that? like he like What is contained in that? you know As the philosopher thicker, we're talking about it. like Where's the thing that causes you know that causes that in me?
00:15:00
Speaker
yeah or you yeah Yeah. You can be so cerebral as a person, but but you're in front of the right piece of art and then it's like you have this like emotional response in your body and you're like, what's going on? You try to find like what it is and sometimes we have the language and sometimes we don't. I mean, we're humans. We don't have like you know the most precise vocabulary all of the time to like access what we're really trying to say.
00:15:26
Speaker
And I think that art is just, ah it's the only medium that really kind of like transverses all of the senses where it's like, yeah it hits everywhere. And I think that as humans, we need to be like sensory, sensually involved in order to like maintain our connection to our humanity and like the human condition.
00:15:49
Speaker
Yeah, I completely agree with you. I don't know what to say after that. Hey, of film, I want to talk about a film or a little like a wrinkle of a thought here
Cinematic Elements in Photography
00:15:58
Speaker
again. um My, ah you know, when when we started talking about photography, Jim film, of course, you know, that idea of photographs, many photographs combined together, ah you know, um obvious connection between the two, but um I ended up finding that you know some of the big directors for me and the ones that I adored had so many incredible photos in their film or shots. I'm thinking Kubrick, Tarkovsky,
00:16:31
Speaker
um ah you know I just thought the top of my head of where it's not just the film itself and how beautiful the film can be. It's that there's these striking images that are singular within it. but one And that's where there's this such strong connection where I'm like, yes, it's something about the photographer's mind and those when they capture it, the directors. And in Coppola, like you said, the same same same type of thing. do you Do you think about it in that same type of way of maybe you go at it? Yeah.
00:17:04
Speaker
Yeah, um I definitely feel like sometimes when I'm watching a movie and I'll see like a shot and I'm like, oh, they're setting this up so beautifully. And then it's like the camera kind of pauses for a second. It's almost still as the way a photograph would be. And I'm like, I know what they were doing there. And I think a lot of times for me, even when I'm doing photography, I try to incorporate a little bit of movement.
00:17:30
Speaker
because I want it to kind of feel like that moment in the movie where you it is a picture but it's also a movie so it's moving and there's like a rhythm to it.
00:17:41
Speaker
I wanted to ask you about ah modeling. So you're the subject, right? You're the subject and and and and in this case. What is the what is the experience for for you as a creator or the interactivity?
Modeling and Photography Techniques
00:17:53
Speaker
That's an open question, because like I just want to know. So you're the so you're just you know you're the subject now, and what do you do within that space to create some of the effects that you talk about that you like, or you know how much you're part of that?
00:18:09
Speaker
Um, for me, it's kind of about like getting into a creative like flow where it's kind of like I lose a bit of my internal dialogue and I kind of move into this like mind-body connection where it's kind of like I count on muscle memory to be able to like, you know, make the small adjustments that really make a picture pop. So it's like lock your knees, you know, pose this way, like chin a little bit down, stuff like that. I think it's kind of something where it's like, the more you practice and the more um it can just become an unconscious thing for you, the more authentic your photos will look because it's really just about like,
00:18:53
Speaker
teaching yourself. And when you're in that, it's like you're dancing, you kind of just like go with the flow and sort of try to forget that you're in a body, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, it does. It it does make sense. i Every two or three weeks, try to get out um dancing for a long stretch of time and it's ah moving out of the body or out of the mind or into what's occurring yeah in the scene.
00:19:25
Speaker
yeah I feel like a lot of um modeling is kind of like that. And it's like, also you are sort of dancing with you and the photographer. It's kind of like, you guys have to be able to, I mean, obviously you can verbally instruct each other and kind of be like, okay, I want, you know, a little bit more sass from you. I would want a little bit of a pal in the shot and look this way. But at the same time, I think it's much more fluid if you guys can kind of becomes symbiotic, where it's like, you're not really speaking.
00:19:59
Speaker
but you guys are both sharing a vision and you're doing your parts together, but you're not like, okay, do this, do that, where it becomes like rigid. And I think that a lot of times for me, I found that the more comfortable you can make your subject, um just the more authentic you'll get of like their own expression and the way that you know they shine there their light and their talent and their beauty.
00:20:28
Speaker
And that's something I really strive for as a photographer is to make my subjects comfortable because I know how uncomfortable it can be to be the model and be in a situation where you feel like you don't have like autonomy in that way. Yeah. And you know power dynamics, vision, or what you'd like to do, comfort, you know different idea. and employee, employee you know like all these type of interplays. and and um
00:20:59
Speaker
ah Jumping around a bit, which is super ah to me. I want to go back to one of the questions I tend to ask a little bit earlier, but I'm always really curious. Was there a moment you said you saw yourself as as an artist? um When did you see yourself as an artist?
Bessa's Journey to Becoming an Artist
00:21:23
Speaker
I don't think I ever had like one singular moment. um But I do think for me, while I was an undergrad, I studied creative writing. And so there was like the same aspect of where an artist can have like a little bit of imposter syndrome. And when people would ask, I'd be like, oh, I'm an aspiring writer. I take these classes, that kind of thing.
00:21:47
Speaker
by I like just, you know, in conversation with my peers started to just ask like, well, what makes a writer? Like what are my standards of what a writer is? And how does it compare to what everyone else is saying? And that's kind of when I realized that if you write, you're a writer and it can be as simple as that. It doesn't have to be like a convoluted um like achievement that comes when you're published and when all these other things happen when you get accolades. I think I just kind of like took that mentality and applied it to all of the other things that I do. But yeah, I guess that maybe my moment was in undergrad.
00:22:28
Speaker
Yeah, moving more into it. I find it such a fascinating, you know, it's like identity questions, right? um You know, and some guests are like, yeah born into this world, you know, I don't know. There's been my freak flag ever since I was, you know, doing my own thing. And that's like, that's great too, you know, it just kind of wins.
00:22:49
Speaker
um and I think I'm also interested too when it happens because for me it happened much later. I've always been artistically bent or sensitive. But for so long in my head, I had this gulf between the artist out there, I was an art enthusiast of others, and wasn't really looking at my own creativity of being like, hey, like from your side too, which was there, just I hadn't seen it.
00:23:20
Speaker
I've seen an otherness to it. right Thank you great artists for enter for do entertaining me, thrilling me, all these types of things. and So that integration process for me has been more recent and very liberating. ah But like you said, a singular moment, I myself can't really, you know it's just like you get into it. and um For you, it's around conversations about when you find out there isn't that much space between the language that you're using. This person's a writer and I'm doing that or I'm a writer. I'm writing. I'm a writer.
00:23:59
Speaker
Exactly. I think um for me, it was a little bit similar to your story in that like I did not really see myself in that way because I was just like, oh, well, look at all of this beautiful art and look at all of these like talented people. And I just like didn't see what I could contribute in a way that would deem me as being their equal, not their equal, but like in the same category, I would say.
00:24:24
Speaker
Yeah. And I think sometimes that's like an iceberg that kind of takes a long time to melt depending on who you are. Yeah. Yeah. Um, uh, photographers, you lose your mind over. Um, so this is funny. I get this question kind of a lot. And, um, for me, I really love Lee Miller.
00:24:47
Speaker
I think um I connect to not only her photos, but just like her story as being you know a model and working for Vogue and going off to do you know like on the ground photojournalism for them and kind of getting mixed up in the horrors of like World War II and and actually photographing it and writing about it and having it published in Vogue at that time just crazy to think about and you know just sort of a woman ahead of her time and I think there are so many others that I could name but just like she's the key figure that comes to mind for me at least. Yeah yeah I uh you can have that strong but it at the the
00:25:36
Speaker
You get asked that question. like know Sometimes it's a strange question when I ask about photographers or I talk to authors. you know It seems like a standard question, but in the back of my head, I'm always like, who do you freak out on me all like you know as as as the artist? you know Yeah, I think too for me, I try and take inspiration and like direction from what's around me. So like a lot of what I would say are just people that you know, I know and like photographers I know in real life and people that I've worked with and also kind of
00:26:12
Speaker
like just um different people that I remember from childhood who weren't necessarily professional photographers, but like, you know, it was a hobby of theirs or just kind of a way that they use to express their own creativity and make memories. And I think just for me, it's like a cornucopia, but I would say Lee Miller is like a central figure in there. Very cool. Very cool. I have to ask you another kind of Good question. ah You like found footage, found footage harder harder, that type of thing, or is that in your... Yeah.
Grittiness and Artistic Expression
00:26:48
Speaker
I like i was thinking Super 8. Part of the thing I was thinking on and asking you that is for me, ah I like the immediacy of horror film and the different type of ways um that it's filmed, in particular, found footage and Super 8 and that type of like kind of like real documentary type of thing.
00:27:06
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. um I think that there's there's this theme music I really like where if you play a record or like you listen to stuff that was recorded a long time ago, there's like a grittiness and there are these like imperfections, but they just add like a quality to the sound that really um like that really emphasizes it. And I think a lot of the times when it's like a found footage situation or a Super 8 or something like that, I think like all of those imperfections really add to the story or just like the visual richness of something.
00:27:42
Speaker
Yeah, no, i that's a great way great way of describing it too, because those extra sounds, yeah the grittiness that you find. um ah My favorite type of albums, and I know of like two or three types of them are, um I'll give you an example, there's this band Neurosis,
00:27:59
Speaker
metal band, you might be familiar with San Francisco, and they have a side project called Tribes of New Rock, and they released two albums. And one is kind of like, one is like kind of metal, like wonderful metal album. The other one's a little bit more, I don't know how to say it, it's like electronic or like more soundscape.
00:28:19
Speaker
And then then you play them at the same time, and they're the same length and everything, and it creates a third-something sound. And um yeah, yeah i yeah when when you mentioned about like the sounds that are on the record, of that greatness like there's these kind of overlays I really dig on that too. where like You can hear, if you know a vinyl really, really well, and then you hear it on radio, you're like, that's not quite how that song sounds. It sounds a little bit different than it sounds like my record, right? Yeah. It's really cool.
00:28:52
Speaker
I actually went to this experience in New York and um it's this old apartment building and they don't really tell you too much before you go in, but you have to take your shoes off and it is just entirely powered by sound waves. And there are like kind of mirrors and interesting things like that. But depending on where you are at in the room, like if you're sitting, if you're standing, if you're laying, you will hear something.
00:29:19
Speaker
Different like the frequencies are all aligned in a way so that the way you move through the room depends on like what you're hearing and what you're experiencing. And I think that the the album thing you were talking about is like a play on that as well. And it's just so interesting when you're in that space and like to kind of have those things come together and to be able to like manipulate sound in that way is so cool, I think. Yeah, yeah. I liked that a lot too. ah We were chatting about the the perceptual question about what art is. um Do you feel art has a particular role?
00:29:58
Speaker
ah and yeah in society and what it does for us. what What's the role of art? um I think art plays a couple of roles. I think that its main objective is to keep humans connected to the human condition and to each other and our like sense of our we sense of our souls. And I think also art kind of is supposed to encapsulate the times depending on, you know, what's going on in the world and what isn't going on in the world and what is the same, and what will always be the same. And I think art is like the most ah profound way that we express ourselves. And without it, the world seems a little soulless, I would say. Yeah, yeah, have that.
00:30:45
Speaker
have that feeling. I found the the mystery around where the role is kind of like tends to be in the the indescribable or the difficult to describe like in philosophy. like yeah you know like Like I was talking about before, talking a little bit about like the struggle for words to encapsulate, like the ineffable, you know, it's. Yeah, it's intangible. It's just something you're grasping at. It's like beyond the veil kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, beyond the veil. Yes, that's what this podcast is beyond the veil. with That's what we're exploring here. um What about the big question then of the show? Since I do the conceptual stuff, why is there something rather than nothing?
00:31:26
Speaker
Well, I think that if if you ask the question, the just in order to question, it it kind of implies the existence of quote unquote something.
Collective Unconscious and Existence
00:31:41
Speaker
And I think for me, in terms of my own like philosophical journey, learning about the different branches, I think for me, I don't really,
00:31:55
Speaker
I've never really been a fan of like nihilism. I like to believe in a kind of a more like, um, I would say like psychological psychology where like Carl Jung talked about the collective unconscious. I think to me, the collective unconsciousness has proved that there is something rather than nothing. Yeah.
00:32:23
Speaker
Yeah, that's it. That's me. no i liked that I like that. I asked that question towards 300 times and I always always love to hear it because it's like, yeah, with the art stuff, you know it gets absurd too. i mean i think I think part of the point is like philosophy for me, like I have a weird interpretation of philosophy. like For me, philosophy is in other things except um a lot of jokes and a lot of breakdowns and laughter, like not necessarily clarity, like more of a tool to be like to prompt our head like to our brains, but not necessarily. to like Why is there something rather than nothing? like you know like what type you know like I've studied it, but I can't speak coherently.
00:33:15
Speaker
Who began in 2024? Well, that's true too. I have Yeah, du that's that's that's that's the whole other topic. ah All right, so you think a lot about art and love photography and film and films such. So tell me about Sofia Coppola and like and why why she's like why you her right right off the bat. What's so important about Coppola?
00:33:45
Speaker
So for me, um I kind of grew up in the suburbs and there is a uniformity to like what you experienced growing up at a certain time and where it's like we're all watching the same movies or reading the same books or dressing the same, we're acting the same. We live in like cookie cutter houses, you know what I mean? There's a lot of uniformity there. I think for me, my first experience where I watched something that wasn't like a blockbuster like uh, you know really just kind of like a twilight or like a harry potter Was I watched um the virgin suicides when I was in high school. Oh my gosh Yeah and that movie like really impacted me. I I watched it and re-watched it and I mean I I still watch it sometimes to this day but i'd never really kind of thought about film in that way that it could be you know
00:34:40
Speaker
you know as like as detailed and as intentional and as narrative-driven as the way that her films are. And when i when I really started exploring photography more, I kind of wanted to build my own little worlds in my photos.
00:34:59
Speaker
And I think that's something that she does really well. And I appreciate how like concise some of her dialogue is in her movie, but how you know like she took the to the most minute thing, it'll be something of that period, if it's a period film. And or the way that the the way that the cinematography of the shot is is just really intentional. You can tell that, I think. And I really wanted to kind of be that person where it's like my creative direction is going to be something that is world building, something that is um nostalgic for something that maybe you haven't experienced, maybe you have. and Yeah, that's but's my experience with Sippy and Kapila. I really enjoy that. When you mentioned virgin suicides, for me, that one, a lot of different ways to talk about it. but like
00:35:53
Speaker
The music by ear, the soundtrack is... um She has crazy soundtracks in all of her all of for films. Yes. Yeah. Marie Antoinette, she was like one of the first people to not choose to do like you know something that would have been heard at the time or like classical music. and She kind of took it in a different direction. and Now, it's not like an uncommon practice anymore. But at the time, it was very controversial. and I feel like I really appreciated that soundtrack in a film.
00:36:24
Speaker
that's that's I love how you mentioned that. The um virgin suicides, I'm not on that nostalgia theme, right? So ah in C Now, watching it, like I picked up on the kind of the the young men, the witnesses, right? As a male of of them, of like watching with adoration and wonder and like particularly like if you look, the one like the older, you know, the older Lux and the different characters and like what world are they living in and like adoring them and like not getting into all the complications of all that dynamic right there, but it's just raw. And that's what it was. And that's what she portrayed where they're singing odes to them and, and, and, and lamenting their loss. Like in such, it's such a happy, beautiful,
00:37:23
Speaker
It really is. It's an ode, in a way. um And I also feel like she depicted them you know as these as these like admirers, but in a way, the way that they shoot it is like they're voyeurs. And I think that's such an interesting thing to think about because I think, especially living in this day and age, like we're kind of all our own voyeurs. And I i really love the way that she, ah the way that she told the story using them, watching the girls.
00:37:59
Speaker
and the like relationships with the girls instead of like you're getting the experience of the girls, the firsthand perspective. I like that it was just through that kind of like flawed narration where it's like not omnipresent. And so it's just for their thinking. Well, it's in the category of like when you, when you love a devastating movie. Yeah. Like, you know, the, the steam rollers coming at you and you're like, I know, I know it's coming.
00:38:29
Speaker
It'll be done at the end of the movie. yeah the ah Yeah. Thank you for and for talking about that. and in Thinking about film, I've been on ah you know at this time of the year, just kind of a film jag at night, you know getting back late from working this and that and you know having folks in the house and in you know ah getting some experimental horror and thriller stuff and things like that.
Film Watching and Online Presence
00:38:56
Speaker
It's just so fun.
00:38:58
Speaker
to watch movies right now. Oh, isn't it like, I don't know, it's like September 1st, we're declaring nowadays, maybe you're the same, you know, just declaring September 1st, not just like Let's freak out." you know Yeah, that's fall. like It's time for film. It's time for shows. I love to do a re-watch of like Sopranos this time of year and um just kind of like get into all of my favorite like noir movies. I just think there's something really fun about like when it gets dark early and you're watching something and it's kind of cold outside.
00:39:33
Speaker
and There's kind of nothing you can do other than just be locked in and thinking about it and noticing things that you might not have noticed before. Yeah. Well, you mentioned Sopranos to Volante. Forget about it, right? I mean, geez. Come on. ah um Love that. Betha.
00:39:52
Speaker
um Tell us like where we find your stuff. like I was lucky enough to encounter it and for us to be able to chat on my show, but like ah where where where what do folks do to find you in your creativity, your work, you?
00:40:08
Speaker
So right now you can find me on Instagram at Bessa shoots film. I am in the process of upgrading and there will be a little more to come where you can kind of buy prints and you book me in a better and a better atmosphere and a better environment. Yeah, right now I'm just on Instagram and enjoying every moment, making new connections and putting myself out there. It's a beautiful thing. Yeah. Um,
00:40:38
Speaker
best at tiova um so It's been really great to chat with you and um you know hail to photography, right? like um ah yeah you know it It didn't destroy the there the beautiful art of painting as many thought that it would and developed on its own. But I got to tell you out of this too, thinking a lot about that stuff. I want to see, ah I got to go see if I can track down that ah that's Super 8 and maybe share some clips of that because... You should. I know. I know. it's so
00:41:15
Speaker
It's so um you know in in my brain and the way it's in my brain. Like I said, I think it because it was the sensory thing, it was the sound of the reels, the smell of the thing running through. and like There's there's like these scenes where I know i exactly what I do exactly right at that moment, like when I'm uncomfortable and I'm on film and I do some little quirky type of thing. and I'm like so tiny and I'm like,
00:41:41
Speaker
it's I get to see that. That's the one thing that's captured. in um So anyways, great film. um Wonderful work, Bessa. That's why I wanted to chat with you and and to ah talk about um photography and in in film. and Really enjoyed the chat. And and we get to collaborate or something ah ah together somehow, sometime. We try to build a community with the show. and
00:42:15
Speaker
um Absolutely. If I ever find myself in your neck of the woods with a Super 8. Then we'll have two or three two or three yeah two or three Super 8s there. um You know what's good on the Super 8? Maybe we'll end on that.
00:42:31
Speaker
um One of the better places to get a Super 8 to get film and to maybe have a process is in Portland, Oregon, because I've explored it all.
00:42:42
Speaker
know um well here's okay There's a spot of two. There's a spot of two you can buy Super 8 film off the shelf. I'm writing this down. I'll send you the links. And I'd imagine that even in a place like Portland, you know, a few dozen of folks like Custer would be like,
00:43:02
Speaker
I'm gonna buy that suit, that color suit right off the shelf for her. I wouldn't want to look at the price tag, but... That's none of my business. It exists. Yeah. Beth, a great chat with you. Thanks for coming out to something rather than nothing. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure being here. All right. I'll be in touch. All righty. Bye now. Bye.
00:43:41
Speaker
This is something rather than nothing.
00:43:50
Speaker
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00:44:38
Speaker
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