Painted Walls

THE FLEETING SHADOWS COLLECTION:

ko-fi.com/s/b2de2ef9e9

You can now buy some NEW AND PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED photography (with the exception of the fourth, which will rotate every two weeks from my old work.)

$20 prints at 12x18"

Hey, this is Heather Graves, I used to do photography under @paintedwalls.bsky.social but now I do music under this account, should have an EP out by the 30th assuming moving goes well.

Gonna use this thread though, to give a shoutout to jan, who has absolutely killed it with his first photo album.

freezepop.itch.io/after-noon-r...

paintedwalls.itch.io/thank-you

6 years, boiled down to 142 photos, the other photo albums? unlisted now.

This is a compilation photo album of my best work over the last few years.

Name Your Price.

It is interesting though, I'm reflecting a bit more this afternoon after reading more of my writing pieces, and while no one needs to or should read "floating in space"

I have rewritten the first part of it.

medium.com/@hgravesc22/...

And thank you all for reading, and supporting the project whenever y'all could.

- Heather Graves.

worth of love that I have for you, and frankly I never want to lose someone like you again, it hurt like shit the first time, I still hold you in very high regard, despite us talking less over the years as well, timezones suck.

I hope you continue to be well, thank you for all the support.

It's a miracle that we not only became friends again, but became really close friends again, you are one of the best people I'll ever meet, and I hope that one day I can show up on your doorstep in Sweden and share a drink with you.

In every silly interaction we have, there is a nearly decade's -

You were mad at me, but still wanted me to do what I kept doing, and even when we cut each other off, you didn't hate me, even if I was angry at you.

I am so sorry that I was such a toxic piece of shit, even if we both were, what had happened wasn't something either of us deserved to go through

When I first put out my photography, you were supportive and somehow impressed at what I was putting out, you actually really liked what I put out and a few of the photos I put out I took with you in mind. When I had deleted all of it for the first time, you had archived all of it

You're not on social media anymore, I'm sure you'll find a way to read this, we don't tend to have really serious conversations anymore, but you were the reason that when my childhood friend passed away, that I wasn't completely alone.

I want to name people, that over the years have been so supportive of my photography:

April, Izz, Rama, Eastwood, Freddie, the plenty of discords I was in

but one person, more than anyone else, deserves a shoutout:

Emily.

It's funny that a lot of these photos that were so personally charged in nature, and have so much backstory to em, meant something to other people, it's even gotten other people to do their own photography, which means a lot to me as well, I am not an inspiring person.

All in all, I don't wish I had done more with my photography, I'm happy that I even picked the hobby up in the first place, when I see people use my photography for their own personal use, whether it's for rhythm game charts or their discord banner, it warms my heart.

My final photo album, Suicide Note, however, had no narrative, the name seemed concerning, but, it was just a way of saying "this is the final one, thank you all for looking at my photos"

It was about one of my closest friends passing away, he had tried desperately to get me off of drugs, but died himself to his own drug addiction.

I didn't put out much else though, Painted Walls VI and VII weren't really narrative projects, but Painted Walls VIII was a return to form, it had an alternative title though:

saving someone from drowning while not knowing how to swim

When I moved to Brisbane, my photography had no purpose, really, I just wanted to put out photo albums, All Eyes On Brisbane I was dogshit, but All Eyes On Brisbane II was pretty neat.

Floating In Space, however, uh.

It was a giant piece of writing, that I had a photo album for. This piece of writing is no longer on the internet for public reading (except through the itch page for the photo album iirc), for good reason.

For a while, I had stopped doing photography, but when I had my teaching job, I had actually gotten back into photography, these photos arent bad, but this period of time had the first photos where I wanted to tackle with myself as a rape victim.

I also did writing pieces for these ones, but I will leave this section with the following:

"I just hope you see my colours when I depart"

My best photo album, forever and ever

...Painted Walls V.

I had suffered a really bad fall and got a head injury as a result of it right before making this, this is about someone's last day on earth, not from suicide, but just, their last day, so they choose to reflect on people who have died in their lives.

I would steadily improve over the years as well, 2021 in particular had some of my better works to date.

So you're probably wondering "shit we must be a couple years in right?" With the exception of Painted Walls IV every photo album here was released in 2020. This was basically my first year.

And especially program photography, which didn't have a narrative, but was a technical showcase of my improvement as a photographer/editor

that second photo is one of my best to date, if not my best to date.

Other highlights from this point include "you should be scared of what's to come", which is a photo album about a couple committing suicide together (suicide comes up a lot!)

Painted Walls IV was a message to my best friend, who had taken his own life, and it, similar to Painted Walls II, was a photo album about keeping hope.

I love this photo album, but maybe that's because I loved him more than I'll love anyone else. RIP, you should've still been here.

"blow your fucking brains out", however, is an album I wish I could erase from time, not because of the quality of photos, but because it was from a point where I was extremely suicidal and I'm fairly sure I had attempted suicide shortly after the release of the album.

Melancholia was a very short project, 5 photos, but it had what was to me my best photos, the third photo here in particular shocks me now, because I think it holds up quite well to my later work.

Steadily improved, but wasn't really finding my footing here, but my next album would be pretty massive for me.