Weekly #4 -- Sunday, December 2, 2018
Some self-reflection this week. I hope you find it interesting. If not, please feel free to skip to the bottom for this week’s images!
This last week, I rediscovered a Magnum Photos article entitled “Locating the Self: Developing Your Photographic Practice” where the author (Max Houghton) makes the following statement:
“It’s sometimes said that a photographer takes the same image over and over again – and that it is always an image of the self” — Max Houghton
When I first read the article, I noticed the connection with the question of how long to stay with the same subject/theme/pattern (as long as it takes) but never really considered an association between my images and my self. However, after re-reading the article, I remembered a book by Alan Watts called “The Book” where he makes a statement which I summarize as (this is not a direct quote):
“You are the universe looking at itself from one of a billion different perspectives”
This is the kind of statement that I had to sit with and just piece apart slowly. At first, I did not understand the full meaning/implications behind the statement. But after considering the fact that we are inextricably connected with our environment (one cannot alter its environment without altering oneself), perhaps there is merit to it…
Regardless of my own understanding, the two quotes seem to point to very similar concepts (although one is farther reaching than just photographic images) and this has me thinking about both of them together. To me, there is some association between the “image maker” and the image itself. However, I am not sure whether every image is an image of the self or if every image just has that potential. Is it only those images where there is a mutual acknowledgement between the image “maker” and the subject? Is it only those images where things are not forced? Or are those rushed scenarios also showing yourself?
In photography, it is interesting that the thing being photographed is typically called the “subject” and not the “object”. In grammar, the subject is the thing doing the acting and the object is the thing being acted upon (by the subject). If a photograph of a spider web makes the web the subject, is the photographer the object? If so, it suggests that the spider web is acting upon the photographer in some way and this is sort of supported by the article. But perhaps this is just poor English grammar getting in the way!
I hope you enjoy these images from this last week!
