There are photographers for the art, photographers for the craft, and then people like me who take photographs to help register in their own head the way they feel in the world around them.
It's not imagining your life as different than it is; it's just a way of orientation; finding your footing and asserting the things that perk up your attention when other people don't see anything. It's trying to make sense of confusion or alienation or love or boredom or wonder or lightness or weight, translated into color, shape, perspective, expression, and action. It's voyeuristic, it's self-reflective, it's cathartic.
I am obsessed with Erin Toland's blog: My NYC in Color
All these photos are hers. I find them relatable, wondrous, obvious (in a good way, as in, the punctum is so clear), and inspiring. It's not that they necessarily remind me of my photographs--but they remind me of why I photograph. Because how could you not?
A photographer friend likes to chide me by quoting Lost in Translation "I guess every girl goes through a photography phase,"--and I like to think it's outright bullshit (and patronizing at that)-- ..."You know, horses... taking pictures of your feet." It probably isn't entirely untrue. Then again, people have been drawing uncomfortable parallels between me and cliched Scarlett Johansson characters and i do not like it one bit.
Incidentally, you can see some of my photography on this very blog!(you see, i clicked on the "photography" label, in essence, doing the work for you!) here
love this post. i thought that was you in the first photo. and your post perrrrfectly (and quite eloquently!) sums up my use of my blackberry camera.
ReplyDeleteps that website is innnncredible
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