DocAndersen
Pictures are an interesting problem, first that they exist. The second that the picture was taken for a purpose. You don’t, well you can, but most people don’t. The concept of a police body cam or an action cam is normally reserved for people doing interesting things. People don’t normally walk around creating a documentary of their day. “Hi, thanks for being on my Tuesday, November 6th life day video. What would you like to say?” We have a purpose with the taking of pictures. Within the 365-day photo, challenge is the reality of documenting days. I am pretty good at documenting events in our lives in pictures. I am working on improving the capture of the stories that go with the pictures.
Like anything when you share a picture with a story, you are of course sharing your view. Your memory as my mother always reminds me. It isn’t that anyone memory is better, they are different. Each of us sees the events of our lives from our point of view. Once upon a time in a class, the instructor used always to tell us “people are motivated by their needs, not yours.” The same is true the minute you pick up your camera to take a picture. You are focusing on the things you need and want. But, pictures sometimes can be a disruptor. Why? Sometimes they capture more than we intended. More, imagery than we were expecting. The edges and shadows of what we see, against what was there.
I know I struggle with what I see. Sometimes you can hide behind the camera. The camera protecting you from interacting with the event, the people and the world. Sometimes the camera captures things you didn’t see but were there. That juxtaposition becomes the way of sharing. What you share is your opinion, your side of what happens or happened. That reality is sometimes hard to accept, as others remember things differently. They are not wrong, they just saw things from a different position than you did. They saw what they saw, because like all other things it is important to remember they were motivated by their needs in the capturing of an image. Letting go can be hard for anyone, but remember share your side. The more sides that are shared the more likely the world is to remember.
What do you cook in this “machine”?