I had one simple goal in mind when taking these pictures: to present life as ordinary as possible. To take pictures of all the things that consume our day but are not particularly interesting. To look at computer screens, office spaces, roads, cooking, T.V. screens etc. When I took the first picture my photographer friends Mike and Cole told me that the picture was crooked, saying something about “horizons.” I told them that I didn’t care. But they told me, out of either injury to their particular field of work or to simply give me advice, that you could still take bland pictures that weren’t crooked. So after the first one I tried harder to hold the camera upright. However, I did not manipulate the lighting, filter, or placement of such photos. I wanted them to exist in stark representation to the manipulation of appearance, because the manipulation of appearance was the essential point, i.e. how we manipulate and alter our appearance and image through technology.
The photo’s you’ll see are awful and not interesting in the least bit, or at the very least not very interesting. My friends Mike and Cole could have done a photo project where they take pictures of bland or ordinary or mundane things, but since they’re awesome photographers they could still make them look “cool” in the gritty and low-fi sort of way. I wanted to represent life in its most ordinary and uninteresting state.
A couple thoughts: my house looks very yellow in all the pictures. It might have something to do with the yellow walls or the poor lighting, who knows. I debated about whether or not to take pictures of colorful trees wondering if they were too “pretty.” But then I decided that it would be dishonest to not take a picture of them since they were a part of my day while going for a run and I wasn’t going out of my way per say to try and find beautiful images of fall. The one time I took a picture of myself I immediately noticed a reflex in which my hands jumped up to straighten my hair. I had to forcefully shake off the desire to comb my hair and I also had to consciously think about how my face would look as it does throughout most of the day, not particularly sad, but not particularly happy either.
Part of me wishes the images were grittier or more low-fi but that would have required a certain amount of manipulation. In fact, another thing I noticed while scrolling through the images is that as much as they are ordinary and uninteresting I still feel a particular since of gratitude while viewing the photos. My life, I found myself thinking, is pretty good. But then it caused me to question whether the act of taking photo’s itself isn’t manipulation. Because photo’s (even mundane ones) like movies or ad’s still present a “compression” of life that is not accurate in a time/experience sort of way. Although all the photo’s were literally things I was either doing or noticed throughout the day with no going out of my way to capture certain images, I wondered if the recording of life itself causes one to view life unrealistically. In the best possible sense photo’s capture memories. Memories than can give us nostalgia or feelings of warmth and happiness. Some of the photo’s I took did this—such as pictures of nature or my wife or dog—but others warranted no emotional reaction at all—such as images of computer screens. Which cause me to think that technology can exist in the best possible way—such as to provide us with memories of past or meaningful events—or, in the case of movies, to present us with an inspiring or challenging narrative that cause us to engage with life. And yet, technology can also exist in the worst possible way providing unrealistic images and worldviews that damage our souls. Much of this thought process was based on a troubling Vanity Fair article entitled “Friends With Benefits,” where Nancy Jo Sales explores how social media and sex are influencing young women. Check out the article here: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2013/09/social-media-internet-porn-teenage-girls.
Once again, the point is not the pictures, they’re remarkably bland. But rather questioning in what ways we live a life with filter.
