Surfacing nearly

As you know, I'm an advocate of using the camera to connect to life. By the looks of it, though (no posting here for far too long, and very little new pix on flickr), it would seem that I've not been following my own advice. And that, perhaps, I've become disconnected. Both are probably correct at this point.

But, actually, I make pictures almost every day: at odd moments in-between breaths, on the ferry, before starting to shave in the morning. Really, though, all I'm doing is clicking the shutter. That is, I'm not sure it's truly picture-making because that's as far as the process goes. There's no time for sorting and editing; two thousand latent frames sit unseen in my Lightroom catalog.

Do you remember that word? Latent.

Once we mystified that state of existence. Between the click of the shutter and the emergence from the D76, we had time to romanticize the unknown, the half-known, and the almost but not quite ready to be known.

Today we move so fast that the suggestion of latency has evaporated from our conversation. We surf a ready-known world. Always-already-known. There's no time for mystery, no patience for confusion, no time for latency.

But the mystery itself hasn't gone away, even though our fast connection high-bandwidth lifestyle makes it hard to see. We still need time for latent possibilities to emerge because understanding grows slowly at the root of our lives. That's the way it feels to me. Switching tools didn't change the process all that much.

In class, however, we're moving fast into the end of the term. Three meetings left. Portfolio projects must be finished before they've had the time to mature.

The structure feels forced and artificial, and I feel hypocritical. I'm working on something I'm calling Breathing Pictures, though I haven't had a moment to make any prints. But of course I'm not roped into a grading schedule. I don't like the enforced falsity of this situation. But it is what it is.

Today I feel very far away. It's difficult to see the connections. I'm still hoping that making the pictures moves us towards each other and allows the latency to emerge.

Four Breaths on the Staten Island Ferry, from the Breathing Pictures series,  2010
(multiple frames overlain on each other -- the fuzziness comes from the interval
between my breaths while pressing the shutter)