Inspiration can spring from the most unexpected sources, even a discarded tissue on a wooden stool. Here's a visual journey through an early interaction with Midjourney to see if it would 'see' what I saw and interpret it into a corresponding image.
How did this start?
- I was inspired by a tissue on a wooden stool (see above).
- I was inspired by a tissue on a wooden stool (see above).
Do you often get inspired by pieces of paper that may have dubious material secreted inside?
- It wasn't in use, and I'd put it down there for a few seconds, honest.
- It wasn't in use, and I'd put it down there for a few seconds, honest.
Ok, I'll believe you (not sure anyone else will).
- I was quite taken with the shape; it reminded me of a woman's head with a bun from Toulouse Lautrec paintings and drawings. I liked the contrast between the wood and the crisp white tissue. And so, I wanted to know if I could use it to inspire Midjourney.
And how did that work?
- Well, I uploaded the image, but I also had to add some text, and I found that my text prompts took away from the original image too much, so I had to work around that for a while. The images were of a girl with a bun, which I had to prompt for, the wooden background was recognised for what it was. I then had to make a point of the white tissue and the white came up in the shirt (note that I'd said woman with her hair in a bun - and no other details such as age or ethnicity.) One of these images held some promise in the white hair scrunchy.
I had to 'draw the attention' to the image being of a tissue and to reference the face. This began to produce some rather interesting results.
At one point, it was like me and the AI started working together, and I began to get images of a head merged with the tissue. These corresponded to a mash-up in my brain made up of Surrealist photography, a scene from "The Tales of Hoffman" film and the Lady in the Radiator character in 'Eraserhead'. - I wasn't sure where this was going, but I liked it, and with prompt edits, the AI continued to give me odd but compelling combinations.
It was a bit of a back and forward process, as soon as I took out some results the image went back to 'nice'. I especially liked the expression on some of the faces. The challenge was to get the essence of what the tissue was doing but seeing if it could actually become a face, if a face could be tissue-y.
The above image shows too tissue-y moving too much the other way into not tissuey at all and then arriving at a face I felt was almost a translation of the original tissue.
And then the same thing again, you almost get there and then it slips away again - "was it something I said MJ?"... probably.
Then I saw something that made me think of paper curls and ai, and I began to bring about these, what I'd call Prairie Ladies (so from France to America). The paper became interesting hats and headdresses, and then the paper started flying around, and for some reason, I started to think of the phrase "Inherit the Wind' used as the title for the play and the film, and the ladies became school teachers - moving amongst the flying pages torn from books...
This inspired a poem that became a song that became a video.
Sometimes, the unpredictability of this collaboration is frustrating; I feel I'm 'lost in translation', and yet I cannot expect to get exactly what I want, to find the perfect prompt; this is a symbiotic relationship where each side influences the other, resulting in a marriage of ideas and expressions.
I really need to find more storage for all the images I've bene producing - the ones I want to keep and the ones 'in-case'.
