Numb

“I breathe,
I breathe again.
My mind
Is set to ‘stun’ again
And ‘make you dull’ again.

Not all of my scars are visible,
Not all of my thoughts are pitiful.
My exaltation’s chemical, uh.
I know that I’m stuck inside a rut
But now that I’ve taken twice as much,
Oh, oh yeah,

I just feel nothing at all
And I’m not stopping till I detach from you.
I just feel nothing at all
And I’m not stopping till I detach from you, uh.
I’m numb.

I breathe,
I breathe again.
I need to find some release
Until the fever ends
And I slip away again.

Not all of my scars are visible,
Not all of my pain is physical.
This apathy is beautiful, uh.

I just feel nothing at all
And I’m not stopping till I detach from you.
I just feel nothing at all
And I’m not stopping till I detach from you.
I’m so numb.”

[ Numb – Hurts ]

Pretty much a counterpart to Somebody, Numb is another of my “revenge photoshoots” inspired by that same situation. Indeed, I applied the same rationale of going to the location where I had the last photoshoot with that specific person and build the image around that.

This time, you probably won’t recognise the place because that photoshoot I’m referencing was that person’s passion project and I let them publish it without bothering doing it myself; but if you have figured out whom I’m referring to, you can check their Instagram and recognise the very distinctive rocks in the background.

On a little tangent, that specific photoshoot does make me angry in retrospect because the person had just arrived in town after two flights, but they weren’t too tired to go shooting their passion project straightaway, while one of the excuses to dodge the rescheduling of Stay was they had a pleasure boat cruise in the morning and that would make them too tired to shoot in the afternoon. Like, seriously? A-are you for real?

Moving on, Numb is almost industrial in sound, with an obsessive beat and prominent rough-sounding synths. One reason why I decided to reference that shoot was the terrain would provide a nice visual link to the music, with the multiple segments recalling the beat and the bare rocks the texture of the instruments. Also, the song feels very dynamic, which the natural diagonal lines would easily convey.

The only problem with that location is that I envisioned a diffused light, so I had to wait for the perfect day to shoot, namely cloudy but without too much wind. The reason you can guess looking at Storm’s End: when the weather is too bad, the waves completely leap over the rocks, so I would have caught a cold and destroyed my camera in the process. Speaking of Storm’s End, yeah, the photoshoot with my former friend and the ensuing disappointment are what I was obliquely referring to with the title and in the description, but getting closure is still a work in progress on my part.

As for the modelling, I kind of immediately figured I’d be holding a knife in it and be ambiguous about its purpose: might be an embodiment of the pain the protagonist went through, an item to cut the person off, a toy to play with because the numbness won’t make him feel any pain, or maybe I’m just about to jump off the photo and cut some bitch. I also considered but eventually decided against including blood because, that way, whatever wound would be invisible and metaphorical as in the lyrics.

The pose was very uncomfortable because there was basically no room for my legs and I had to keep them at a weird angle, which made me look unsettled but, against all odds, contributed to the dynamism of the image, as did the impromptu coiffure a gust of wind gave me. I’m particularly proud of that because, while most of the photo was carefully planned down to what kind of monochrome I would turn it to and what light would make it look its best, I managed to make those little unplanned details work in favour of the shoot.

And in many ways, that’s the very basis of this photo: I took a situation that kept bogging the Inspiration Hurts project down until it reached a boiling point and escalated outside of photography, and used it to fuel the project itself. I don’t know if I would have come up as easily with concepts for Somebody and Numb if I hadn’t had all this shade to serve.

That is not to say I’m thankful to that person, though. Even outside of my petty squabble, there’s one thing I want to say: never be thankful to the people who hurt you. You haven’t grown up thanks to that pain, you did despite it. They have no business flattering themselves by taking any credits for it.