George (and everyone), I just noticed the David Foster Wallace quote you posted on your blog. A good one. I assume it is a passage that is resonating with you now. Tourism and how much having a camera in your hand links you to tourism is something I find myself resenting recently. . . and that devolves into a complete confusion about what it is that I am doing here, photographing, with my life, et cetera. Is there a theme for a show somewhere in there? "It is to spoil, by way of sheer ontology, the very unspoiledness you are there to experience." Can that part speak to photography generally? Or is it too specific to traveling? Thoughts?
Kate (and everyone),
ReplyDeleteThe absurdity of tourism, travel, voyourism, etc is totally something that has been resonating iwth me (as i am sure it is someting you too have been contemplating and parsing out in Fiji). At least at this moment there is lots of potiential for a show theme in those ideas and concepts & in fact, i think it generally works in very well with photography as a contemporary practice in general. -- like why is it that we are always drawn to pohtoograph what we think is the exotic. i.e. any time we leave our bubbles, go on a trip, hit the road, etc.
I remember long ago, like my first real converstation with Adrienne, talking with her about our mutual liking of takashi Homma´s photographs and how he was able to make his own normal enviorment look so normal yet strange and alien at the same time.
As always I dont really know what i am pohotographing out here in brasil, but basically i stop and make picutres whenever i am compelled to do so. In the end, i think my travel pictures look a lot like most other picutres you find on arty-travel blogs (or at least thats my hunch--i havent really looked around at all..). I have been thinking of the images i have been making more as sketches for larger bodies of work that i am going to make when i get back home.
Anyway, all this has brought me to wonder and contemplate lately 1) why it is that i pohotograph? and 2) is there anythig left to photograph? and 3) if there isnt then where does that leave me and what is there to say about this phenomenon?