Sunday, September 27, 2009
"In the empty restaurant, Sipke closed his eyes and was back in Algiers, crawling on his hands and knees towards the man, the stranger. He had wanted the camera to speak for him, to make something out of this suffering that, in the end, could never be forgotten. But the photograph was only a shadow, a question waiting for a response, for someone else to take it in his hands and recognize all that it wished to say, all that it had failed to express. He wanted to call her down, to throw stones at the window, break the glass and tell her that for the rest of his life he would love her. He said her name over and over, but only the noise of the city answered."
- Madeline Thien, Certainty
For some reason, this picture describes how I feel these days
- read into it what you will.
For some reason, this picture describes how I feel these days- read into it what you will.
A smile tug at the corner of our lips when we look at a picture of a long-lost friend, a long-deceased childhood pet, a candid smile at the camera. We feel the urge to document each and every occasion with photographs for fear of losing the significance of the moment into the depths of memory, and yet, we rarely pause to question the reason why.
When I collect photographs, am I merely trying to piece together my life in fragments, create a logical sequence to the story of my existence? If a photograph is only a shadow of life, a captured quotation frozen in time, am I merely investing it with a meaning it does not have when I reminisce fondly over it? Is a photograph only a poor imitation of something that is no longer there, can no longer be there, by trying to evoke something that is long gone, by embodying something that perhaps never existed?
If a photograph is a signal to be decoded by the viewer, where then is the voice of the photographer? Easily distorted, misunderstood, forgotten, where is the voice of the subject? When the directness of words is subsumed into the ambiguity of images, how then do we discern our story from the story of others?
Or perhaps, by demanding too much from the photograph, we are merely yearning for something that is unattainable. We are merely trying to invest our lives with meaning, when perhaps, none after all exist.
When I collect photographs, am I merely trying to piece together my life in fragments, create a logical sequence to the story of my existence? If a photograph is only a shadow of life, a captured quotation frozen in time, am I merely investing it with a meaning it does not have when I reminisce fondly over it? Is a photograph only a poor imitation of something that is no longer there, can no longer be there, by trying to evoke something that is long gone, by embodying something that perhaps never existed?
If a photograph is a signal to be decoded by the viewer, where then is the voice of the photographer? Easily distorted, misunderstood, forgotten, where is the voice of the subject? When the directness of words is subsumed into the ambiguity of images, how then do we discern our story from the story of others?
Or perhaps, by demanding too much from the photograph, we are merely yearning for something that is unattainable. We are merely trying to invest our lives with meaning, when perhaps, none after all exist.