sliver to silver
every one you think you know, you don’t: you know a sliver of them. Some people, that sliver may not even be large enough for you to really notice. Others, the sliver is so large and has worked itself so deep that at times it is all you know. The true qualities of these slivers are rarely understood until they are gone. The small sliver may leave you wishing it could have been larger, that the absence of it could have ripped the skin a little deeper. The large sliver, ripped from your body, leaves you wishing it would have torn you in half instead, finished the job so that weren’t left with the burden of this gaping wound that refuses to be filled and will not close.
traditional photography is silver based. Light brings about a latent image in a silver solution that is realized through development. Fixing then stops the oxidation and allows that sliver of time to be caught. The moment when the light fell on the lake that way, or when you fell in the river, or when we were happy. Some pictures are strong for the absence of the person that really should be there, that would have been there, if you had asked.
i used to express emotions through drawing: graphite and charcoal. I do not know if i am up to the task with photography. Photography gives me a wonderful, safe, role as a spectator. It is time for the quiet spectator to dig at the slivers, however, and not be so afraid of which slivers turn into silver.
EDIT: I took this post down, but then my horoscope said that, while i am not typically one to expose myself emotionally, i will feel like it over the next few days and i should just go for it. As uncomfortable as it is, maybe this is part of the fear that i need to get over? Who knows (not i, that is for sure)? In any case, my horoscope is very occasionally dead-on, so i might as well go for it.
February 28th, 2006 at 15:45
Nice, safe role as a spectator, huh? It will take me a while to verbalize my response. Or will that be rant?
And as far as expressing emotion in photographs, check out Mapplethorpe, in person if you can. Whenever I look at his work, I’m brought back to the first time I had to break a glass pipette in science class, that feeling of crystalline shattering in your hands.
February 28th, 2006 at 20:35
Candids. Those are where I feel most comfortable, and when the shots are the most revealing, emotionally, for me. Not only of the subjects, but also of myself and my role as voyeuse/capteuse. It is hard to achieve that space of unobtrusiveness in a crowd, even harder with only one person, where the photographed can be free of the photographer, but it is wonderful when it happens.
Enjoy. I can’t wait to see what develops.