1) exhibitionist teenagers having sex on a beach chair
2) a man necklaced with his pet possum
3) a lesson in etymology from Adam Sandler's mother-in-law
(but this is beside the point)
the point is that we sat at the edge of the surf, listening to the wisdom of waves mingle with the awkward moans of adolescent lovemaking. it was a strange medley, and the flash of a camera behind us guided the conversation towards photography. as it happens, my yin is an accomplished photographer, and i am something of a photographic primitive.
i suppose the roots of my uneasiness stretch back to childhood, when my mother had my brother and i pretend to reopen holiday gifts in her quest to obtain the perfect picture. it was an absurd, tiresome chore, and by the time i reached adulthood i refused to take pictures of virtually anything. my obstinance left large portions of my teens and twenties undocumented, and this fact has done nothing to hinder my obsessive fascination with nostalgias and memory.
last night we spoke of image and objectification, of action and passivity, of gaze and possession, of definition and the object of beauty. i told her (and Laura Mulvey would agree) that in some subtle way the photographer takes possession of the photographed, and turns an aspect of his/her/its being into artifact and commodity.
i do not believe tribal peoples were ignorant or backwards 150 years ago, and the fact that we accept the photograph as harmless does not mean it is so.
the point is that we sat at the edge of the surf, listening to the wisdom of waves mingle with the awkward moans of adolescent lovemaking. it was a strange medley, and the flash of a camera behind us guided the conversation towards photography. as it happens, my yin is an accomplished photographer, and i am something of a photographic primitive.
i suppose the roots of my uneasiness stretch back to childhood, when my mother had my brother and i pretend to reopen holiday gifts in her quest to obtain the perfect picture. it was an absurd, tiresome chore, and by the time i reached adulthood i refused to take pictures of virtually anything. my obstinance left large portions of my teens and twenties undocumented, and this fact has done nothing to hinder my obsessive fascination with nostalgias and memory.
(but we spoke of none these things last night)
last night we spoke of image and objectification, of action and passivity, of gaze and possession, of definition and the object of beauty. i told her (and Laura Mulvey would agree) that in some subtle way the photographer takes possession of the photographed, and turns an aspect of his/her/its being into artifact and commodity.
(that being said)
i do not believe tribal peoples were ignorant or backwards 150 years ago, and the fact that we accept the photograph as harmless does not mean it is so.
Smile...Your on candid camera!
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