Sometimes I wish that I could take photographs that mirrored perfectly the image that I see in my mind’s eye. I’ll often sit and stare out a window and for no reason other than the moment that is sitting in front of my eyes, I think, this would be a great picture, but no one would understand it. And I don’t take a picture and no one sees it. I often find the most ordinary of scenes to be the most fantastic.
For example, I was staring out my office window at KB’s Tacoma. The front seat is thrust forward. The door is locked and the black ring that surrounds the window is beginning to peel back. The truck is framed by my office window, allowing me to only see about 1/3 of the truck, mostly the window that in turn frames the seat. All of this is cast as a background to the computer screen that is jutting into the corner of the scene.
Three windows, three completely different stories.
I often wonder about the stories of people and things that I see. For example the other day, on my normal bike route to work, I noticed a pile of panties on the side of the road. I instantly thought, I should get a photo of that only to zoom by and leave them where they lay. Then I thought, why the hell are there panties on the side of the road? How did they get there? And more importantly, why? Was this a case of a panty thief who in a bout of shame after his crime, tossed his booty out the window as his car raced down the same road I was now traveling?
The next day the panties were not there. I never got my photograph of the randomness of the scene that no one would understand. And I’m sure I’ll never know why they were there.
This fascination with the ordinary, I believe has a lot to do with how absolutely unordinary everything is. If you think about the circumstances and situations that lead up to every moment, the randomness of actually making it to work on time, is amazing. The fact that five automobiles and a bicycle met at an intersection and all of them waited their respective turns before proceeding. Not only was it random that they met there, but think about the social contract that was written to ensure that when that random moment occurred, all five of us didn’t just throw our hands in the air and go. And on a bigger scale, the fact that the same scene happens thousands of times a day, all over the world.
The above video showed up on Reddit this morning. I watched. I first hit the play button on the screen of my tablet thinking that it was some sort of spoof and that I would laugh. Or that the guy was going to go into depth about how disgusting fast food was, etc. Nope, it’s just some random dude, dressed in what appears to be pajamas, reviewing a burger that is available to millions of people. And we can’t forget his backdrop…
When I watched the video, over 8,000 people had viewed it. Think about that. Some rather strange dude in his living room was able to make a video, post it on the internet and have 8,000 other random people watch it. What led up to the decision to make a review of a hamburger? Was it a get rich scheme? “Hey, we should make a review of a hamburger, cause, like millions of people will watch and we’ll get advertising money.” I can’t even start to think about that because I haven’t had enough coffee yet.
Most of the photographs I take are of landscapes. People understand the beauty of open space. The emptiness of it is a freedom that we can all relate to, whether directly or indirectly, we long for that freedom. I’m a pretty poor photographer, but I enjoy the attempt of capturing the essence of that freedom. And I enjoy that people understand it.
I prefer however, to explore the spaces between what I am writing and what is being read. There exists a world all its own, that thrives in misunderstanding. Writing is creating a “follow the dots” picture. The author draws out the dots, gives the reader the numbers and then hands the pencil over. The reader then connects the dots, creating the image in their own minds. But all of those dots, all of those numbers are connected in a way that the reader understands, not necessarily the way it was written. Breaking it down a little too far and the writer is simply attempting to manipulate the reader into seeing what they want them to see.
And the simple act of communication becomes extraordinary.
P. L. and R.