Photographic Malady

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Photographic Malady by Melodie Yvonne Ramey

The length of three songs. It’s like a heartbeat in time, but it passes in slow motion. The band charges onto the stage, and begins to gain speed as my eyes dart back and forth inside my eye piece. Time crawls slowly like a train holding up traffic, but in the end it was really not even close to long enough to drink in the scene and digest. There’s a whispering behind my eyes all the while as I work creating a rhythm to my madness. It engulfs my mind and body until I succumb. Shoot, edit, repeat. Shoot, edit, repeat.

Shoot. Edit. Repeat.

It’s a kind of preternatural chanting that hangs heavy, and smears through the air painting a grin across my face. The incantation rises up to the stage with the heat of my desire, and melts itself to the melodies pouring out to the crowd.

I take my eyes outta the lens, and set them back in the real world. I pray that I managed to capture at least one soul to later feed my addiction. I eclipse my face once again with my photographic guise, and scan the crowd with an insatiable hunger that overrides my fears. The three songs might be over, but the night is still young, and the crowd is particularly spirited tonight. Plenty of time. Plenty of room in my bottomless pit of a heart… Shoot, edit, repeat… Shoot, edit, repeat… Shoot. Addict. Repeat…

SHOOT. ADDICT. REAP IT.

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Melodie Yvonne

Melodie Yvonne Ramey, owner, editor, & contributor at Photographic Melodie, grew up in the small southern Indiana town of North Vernon. She picked up her first camera at the young age of 5, and was immediately hooked. Every trip, even just to the local park, was turned into a fantasy scene of her own imagination that would later be turned into epic tales in word and photos.

Melodie spent her teen years learning from and mentoring under professionals such as Richard Young, John Sheckler, and The Grand Conundrum. She received an Associates of Applied Science in Visual Technologies majoring in Photography from Ivy Tech in 2002 after studying under acclaimed professors such as Hoosier photographer Darryl Jones, Jonathan Wilson, and many other masters in the field.

Melodie’s main focus has always been music photography. Growing up with photography and listening to amazing musicians inspired her dream to create visual images that made people feel the way they do when they hear the music. She wanted to help people SEE the music by capturing every magical moment of concerts that she could only dream about as she gazed into music magazines like Rolling Stone and Spin.

Melodie has done numerous jobs around the country ranging from working for bands to even being the official photographer on many southern Indiana Poker Runs. Her specialties are in nature, music, and candid event photography, as well as one of a kind photographic creations. Melodie published her first print book Photographic Memories: In the Beginning, a collection of poetry, in 2011, and has since published 2 more print works, Photographic Memories: Meet me in the Middle and Hoosier Heavens, her first photo book. Melodie currently acts as publisher, editor & lead contributor at Photographic Melodie and does freelance work with many other media outlets, venues, and artists.

Melodie says, “I started out with a Tweety bird camera and a dream and I never let go. I will always love photography and the vessel it has given me to share the images of my heart and mind with the world. I have found that every single person on this earth visualizes the world in very different ways. Some people are optimists, some are pessimists. Some people are daydreamers, and others keep their feet firmly planted on the ground. Photography allows me to show some of these different visualizations. It allows the rationalist to see that it’s okay to dream, it can show the monsters hidden in the dark, and it can show even the saddest of people that there is still joy in the world.”

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