Mistakes and oversights can lead to enlightenment. The image above was the result of my inability to remember to advance the film on my Holga Panoramic 120 camera properly. I’ve shot with this plastic beast enough times to have maybe been able to figure out this very basic step. Still, I’m prone to error. I am human, after all.
What I find fascinating about this particular photograph is that does not look anything like the reality of the day it was created. That morning, the sun was shining, the air was crisp, the sky clear blue. Ducks and geese were flying and landing in the pond just beyond the reeds. Yet, the overlapping of exposures definitely created a sense of otherworldliness, and setting my camera at ground level also helped me take advantage of the pinhole camera’s extreme depth of field.It all feels post apocalyptic.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my departure from showing the world “as it appears” in my photography. So true: everything has been seen in every which way, certainly as far as photography goes, there truly is nothing new under the sun. A friend recently shared a great quote by artist David Hockney: “There’s a point where you’ve got to interpret the world, not make a replica of it.” I have been going “all in” on interpretation. It has given my vision a serious push into exciting new directions. It has been liberating and satisfying. Maybe a few years ago I would have been disappointed by a roll of overlapping exposures. This week, it felt like a gift.
