Hands
I am currently reading Angela Faris Belt’s amazingly poignant and inspirational book, The Elements of Photography. In it she expounds the importance for a consistent subject to be used throughout the assignments in the book. The subject should be appealing to both the photographer and the audience as it should engage both parties on a deeper level. The objective of a consistent subject, according to Belt, is so that the different skill-sets in practice within a particular assignment becomes the focus of the photographer, not the subject matter.
In the last few days, I have been trying out several ideas in my mind for a subject matter that I would like to take through Belt’s assignments. I believe I am coming close to crafting a vision. It has been in the making for awhile and seems the closest to approximating what I want my photographs to capture-the idiosyncratic and heart-rending beauty of imperfection. Today synchronicity is having me believe this is what I should pursue, having read it today in two different sources-The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, and Pia-Jane Bijkerk in her latest blog post. The message that resonates the most is from Pia’s lovely post. I quote it here, she writes of polaroids:
“I love how polaroids are so emotive. From a technical perspective they are often soft/out of focus, often under or over exposed, and so often marked by dust once they come out of the camera. And it’s all these qualities that make the images on a polaroid so beautiful, raw and real. It’s what I always strive for in my digital photography – imperfection.”
I feel that Pia reached straight into my internal sketchbook and plucked the words right from the tip of my tongue. It is rather spine-tingling.
“This is because I try to capture the atmosphere, rather than the object itself. When I walk into a space that I am to photograph, the first thing I am touched by is the light and how it affects various corners of the room. I look for beautiful objects but I try to capture how these objects make me feel, not what they look like, or what they should look like. I like to create a story of images from a space that makes you, the viewer, feel as though you have walked through the space with me and by the time the story of images is complete, you have been touched by all that has inspired me too.”
It is quite a gut-wrenching epiphany for me, to read her thoughts on her how she makes her photographs. The little girl inside me is leaping up and down and shouting, “That’s me, that’s me, you just said exactly how I feel!”. I look for the urge to pat the little head in derision, but none comes.