When you spend countless hours staring at the same image, zooming in to get into certain parts of the picture, you realize there are often several different images in any one image. When shooting a wedding, I turned to snap a shot of two of the flower girls. I zoomed in to do some burning and dodging on the arm you see here. Inside this whole picture was something I would have otherwise not seen at all. And so was born "Alone." An ongoing series (I hope, or else I'm going to seem like an awfully pretentious tool) of pictures inside a picture. But there is more. I know...the suspense is killing the reader. I started to realize that no matter how many friends and family members we surround ourselves with, ultimately, in a way, we are alone. In this shot of Timmy he's surrounded by band mates and the whole of the club full of onlookers, but in this moment he is alone. He is on a journey inside his weird little head of whatever the hell the brain drags up to the surface and to his hands as he plays his guitar. It's a beautiful thing, if you ask me. A friend once said in response to me asking what he was thinking (because he had this shit eating grin on his face all of a sudden) "I'm not telling...I'm going to die a million miles an hour with every thought I ever had..." This struck me because, no matter how much we share with another person, we can never truly be able to know their experiences as they see them.
5 comments:
.: I love this stuff, and I agree with you that there are pix within pix. Nice description of how you see the process unfolding from within. This reminds me of that sequence in Blade Runner when Dekker continually zooms in on that picture until he sees what's in the tiniest corner of it.
As for the concept of Alone, I'm reminded of what a psychologist told me when I was discussing the breakup of my engagement and the like. I was talking about being alone, not wanting to be alone when I die, blah blah blah, and she said that even if you are surrounded by many family members and a significant other, you will still be alone at that time.
There is a line on a Firesign Theatre album, I think it's on Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers, when an auctioneer yells, "How much do I hear?" and someone screams back, "That's metaphysically absurd, man, how I can I know what you hear?" The only people inside our heads are ourselves and the voices and music we hear all the time.
So please continue with this project, I love it, and want to see more. Good luck with it, Paul.
Thanks Randy. You Cannucks are alright in my book and I might be moving there in the not distant at all future.
Paul, the shot of the flower girl has got to me. I keep looking at her arm, which seems to be beginning to reach for something. But her hand seems, well, almost weak, like she can't close it. It's a remarkable image. Maybe "delicate" is the more apt descriptor, as if she is waiting for someone to take her hand and guide her somewhere.
I love the shot.
Holy Crapper Paul. How come you don't say profound stuff when we hang out? It's all surfacy and shit. Damn! You think you know a guy.
Love this comment, Paula. I can hear you say this whole thing.
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