Saturday, September 22, 2012

Losing Connie


Losing someone is one of the most profound experiences we can have. The person goes from being a familiar part of our life to a stranger, sometimes almost over night. The nascent anticipation of a fully-realized life together, the alacrity with which you spend time together, degrades to something aberrant and lost. We may see them in our sleep. We imagine them but cannot touch them. They pull farther away until they are gone. They dissolve into a cacophony of light, both in our life and in our subconscious imagination. 

These photos were taken without looking through the camera. I actually enjoy this technique and have employed it often. One gets tired of the perfectly framed, the eye-level perspective. I love photographing from the ground on small children and animals. Or from high above with my arms extended. So I was pretty sure what I would get when I clicked the shutter. Rule of thirds is out the window, but the unusual framing is refreshing.

I shot into the sun. I wanted these photos to appear more as imaginings than literal images. I used slow shutter speeds on some to show movement. A soft focus was intended. The sequencing is intentional. Her face appears clearly in the early photos. Not at all later. She gets farther from the camera, as she is lost. I learned to let the narrative happen. Start with a vague concept and let the story evolve. 








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