Sacrosanct
The earth is on fire.
My thoughts are on fire, my feelings are on fire. Temperatures are rising, internally and externally. There are enough joking references to a dumpster fire, but they are apropos nonetheless. I’ve been struggling with how best to deal with the realities of the world, of nature, of humanity, of politics, of my own relevance... what power do I have, what privilege do I have, what difference do I make? My opinions are in line with all those in my cocoon, but in all actuality, I feel powerless. I try to use my photography as a buffer from the world, even as I navigate tentatively through it. I have been fighting over the past few years against the idea of the perfect image. The singular photograph. The “decisive moment.” The perfection of the digital image. The most liked share on social media. It all seems so futile. I heave pursued film photography on a much deeper level through the past nine months, and have come to value even more the intrinsic qualities that film possesses. The lack of predictability, the inability to see the results of my shooting immediately, the variances in development time and temperature, the different sway that a chosen film stock may have on each image... I embrace it all. With this series, I’ve pushed things even further, actually shooting film with the intention of degrading and destroying it. There is no sanctity to anything anymore, I often think. This extends to my own images. Why hold them as some untouchable, pristine object? I have burned, scratched, bleached, stepped on, sanded, by my own hand, every image in this publication. There was no turning back once I started. An apt metaphor perhaps?
I am a moth to the flame.
Click on a photo below to view the series:
