now everything that was big is small
I've had this idea for a while now rattling around in my head. The concept of taking a single photo representative of life. Not something photoshopped, pasted from elements wide and far. Just an image either film or digital. Not necessarily my personal life, but 'life' itself. Yes, the two terms are most certainly related, and therein begins the difficulty. What is life made of and how do we visualize it? How do we assign elements from something so broad and all encompassing? For it is made of memories, experiences, friends and family. Light and colors. Brightness and darkness. It is different for all of us. Is there a definitive vision? Most certainly not. Which is why I've been pondering this for so long. There really can be no single image because there are so many elements that should be included. What does one see when they visualize life? And I mean this more in the conceptual sense than the literal. Most certainly, one would attempt to include all those dear to us in a photo, but that’s not quite what I was after. For example, ever since I was young, I've had a visual representation of each day of the week. Never seen on paper, but it bounces in the back of my mind each and every day. They all have differing colorings and abstractness. They all interleave in somewhat of an optical illusion to form the cyclical work week. So perhaps, could there be a similar visualization for 'life'? How does one go about and record something so fleeting, so visceral?
I think possibly, the roots of this concept originated from my exploration of street photography. Trying to capture a candid moment that depicts personality and emotion. Obviously, too literal but it could very easily be a subset of life. A narration to the overall theme of life.
As time went on, I realized that I didn't have the answer, nor probably never will. I would need a camera with the collective megapixel power of a black hole in order to suck in all the elements to make up a proper photo. Yet I still thought it would be interesting to attempt a continual pursuit of recording the life abstractly in an image. A Life-stract. [borrowed from Ministract] Over time, as the images or fragments increased, maybe there would be a definitive favorite; maybe there would be a collective grouping. I still don't know. But that's the concept, at least for now. I'm sure many of you now believe that I've cracked. Fallen off the back. That very well may be true. It is as difficult to put into words, as it is to try to photograph. This is only a first draft, so I will be revising it as time brings clarity.
As for this image, the first, it is simplistic in the depiction of this dream state we see (or have the opportunity to see). Elements of earth, light and time, the home place, a simple image with no textures applied taken straight from RAW and into JPG. The motion is from panning the camera. It is crude and murky, potentially representative of what one sees between blinks, maybe on the back of our eyelids, maybe in the moments when we awaken from a dream in the early morning light.
(if you’re still reading)
(and haven’t nodded off)
(to be continued)
(maybe)
now everything that was big is small
I've had this idea for a while now rattling around in my head. The concept of taking a single photo representative of life. Not something photoshopped, pasted from elements wide and far. Just an image either film or digital. Not necessarily my personal life, but 'life' itself. Yes, the two terms are most certainly related, and therein begins the difficulty. What is life made of and how do we visualize it? How do we assign elements from something so broad and all encompassing? For it is made of memories, experiences, friends and family. Light and colors. Brightness and darkness. It is different for all of us. Is there a definitive vision? Most certainly not. Which is why I've been pondering this for so long. There really can be no single image because there are so many elements that should be included. What does one see when they visualize life? And I mean this more in the conceptual sense than the literal. Most certainly, one would attempt to include all those dear to us in a photo, but that’s not quite what I was after. For example, ever since I was young, I've had a visual representation of each day of the week. Never seen on paper, but it bounces in the back of my mind each and every day. They all have differing colorings and abstractness. They all interleave in somewhat of an optical illusion to form the cyclical work week. So perhaps, could there be a similar visualization for 'life'? How does one go about and record something so fleeting, so visceral?
I think possibly, the roots of this concept originated from my exploration of street photography. Trying to capture a candid moment that depicts personality and emotion. Obviously, too literal but it could very easily be a subset of life. A narration to the overall theme of life.
As time went on, I realized that I didn't have the answer, nor probably never will. I would need a camera with the collective megapixel power of a black hole in order to suck in all the elements to make up a proper photo. Yet I still thought it would be interesting to attempt a continual pursuit of recording the life abstractly in an image. A Life-stract. [borrowed from Ministract] Over time, as the images or fragments increased, maybe there would be a definitive favorite; maybe there would be a collective grouping. I still don't know. But that's the concept, at least for now. I'm sure many of you now believe that I've cracked. Fallen off the back. That very well may be true. It is as difficult to put into words, as it is to try to photograph. This is only a first draft, so I will be revising it as time brings clarity.
As for this image, the first, it is simplistic in the depiction of this dream state we see (or have the opportunity to see). Elements of earth, light and time, the home place, a simple image with no textures applied taken straight from RAW and into JPG. The motion is from panning the camera. It is crude and murky, potentially representative of what one sees between blinks, maybe on the back of our eyelids, maybe in the moments when we awaken from a dream in the early morning light.
(if you’re still reading)
(and haven’t nodded off)
(to be continued)
(maybe)