Contact Sheets/2

Photographer-less Portraits

An idea I had for a school project a few months ago.

This photo of Jimmy was supposed to be with the last post

I don't like editing posts after they've been posted. Post-posting you'd call it I suppose? Anyways I don't like it so a whole post for just one photo...

I miss black and white film

It's been mostly digital recently. I've got to get going with setting up the darkroom here. These are from around Christmas I think. Dublin and Galway anyways. Had a dream about living back in Dublin last night, a stress dream. But it reminded me of these photos so I went looking at them again.

 

Jaunt 3: Ways

                                      

Sometimes I wonder about how I come across when other people look at my photographs. Whether people see something in them that relates to me as a person and how they react to that. Probably someone looking at these assumes I'm comfortable with showing them off, that I'm aware of all the symbols in them because how could I put them here for anyone to see otherwise?

I'm not aware of everything in the photographs I take; I'm sure there are patterns in them that I don't see, and only an objective observer would see (if they were bothered to look that closely). This small series-thing is mostly about verticality, but in terms of content I think the word I had in my head while taking them was "Ways". Which could refer to an infinite number of things, but if I really limited my thinking on it the next sentence would have something to do with escaping, ways out. Definitely, I like drawing comparisons between seemingly unrelated things ie canals and alleys and windows.

I like the orientation also, I like tall photographs; I think partly because it's an unnatural viewpoint in relation to how the human eye perceives things, which sort of refers to photography's inherent falseness, even as it tries to be accurate and faithful. A photograph will always fail to be a true representation of the thing seen because  the thing seen can never be summed up by just one person's view of it, or maybe because what one person leaves out of a composition another would leave in. Take into account the time of day something is happened upon; the photographer's mood, the weather, any number of permutations. In the end it comes down to the photographer's reaction to the thing seen at the time it's seen. I think. Maybe.

                    "We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are."

Jaunt II: walking home from school one day