01: photography is magical thinking
There isn't much reality in them and it's never about the facts.
Brief thoughts about photography:
Photography is not about becoming who I want to be; it merely reveals who I am.
That’s why I keep doing it, so I can get to know myself.
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As a photographer I write “poems”. I deal with symbols, feelings, colours, light, shapes, taste, imagination, representations of things, but never the things themselves.
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Photography is magical thinking. There isn't much reality in them and it's never about the facts.
There is nothing factual about throwing all your desires, prejudices and half-baked thoughts into a photo. When you do that, the photo starts talking about what's outside the picture, not what's inside.
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Photography trains me to notice my perceptions of this world, to notice that, Of course I see the world differently from you, and you see the world differently from me, so why do we fight? It's so strange.
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After I feel deader than dead I always circle back to the feeling that photography is something that I love without reason. I don’t know why. Maybe I’m not very good at it, maybe it’s not good for anything, maybe there is no good reason behind why I should keep doing it, but I can’t help it because something in me loves it. Maybe it’s that voiceless part of me, hidden away from the world, that loves it. I don't know why, but sometimes that feeling of inexplicable love seizes me and I feel like I can go on again.
I suppose this cycle will continue till the day I die.
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Draft + notes:
Maurice and Marvin
"Time, for Maurice, was over. Time, for me, had liquified."
A quick Google search on how to define time:
In physics, the definition of time is simple—time is change, or the interval over which change occurs. It is impossible to know that time has passed unless something changes.
And Wikipedia:
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future.
Tragic for us as human beings then.
One minute Maurice was alive, the next he was dead.
It's not even accurate to say "one minute". What would be a more precise term of measurement? One split second? At which point does life irreversibly change? It's always difficult to identify that exact moment.
Marvin Heiferman's beloved husband Maurice Berger died unexpectedly and prematurely from COVID in 2020. Marvin started taking pictures of the things he saw around him that reminded him of Maurice and posting them on Instagram. Grief, a ghost, made him do that.
I stumbled upon Marvin's Instagram one random day a year ago and experienced a lot of anticipatory grief looking at his images.
I anticipate losing the people I love to time.
When that time arrives, will I have photographs in me or just an endless fountain of tears and unhappiness?
A lot of people on the internet have found comfort and solidarity in Marvin's images - an Instagram post of Marvin's red and swollen eyes covered with tears; a mundane picture of Maurice's favorite vest; a random photo of the view from inside a carwash, the soap and water and light resembling clouds in the sky; a photo of the kitchen that Maurice would walk into every morning, but was now forever empty of his Maurice-ness.
What I love about this unexpected photo project of Marvin's is how his captions explain his photos. I love photography but I know sometimes photography isn't enough. Sometimes words and photographs can come together to tell us stories that are fuller and more interesting.
And in Maurice and Marvin's case, words and photographs combine to tell us the extent of their love story. They help us look beyond a still image and imagine a love so committed and strong that even the end of time cannot destroy its existence.
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Quotes:
"Without an archive of surveillance footage to access, sometimes the best I could do is make photographs that evoke his Maurice-ness."
"You existed me. You see me as I would never be revealed. One more thing to be sad about."
"I grasped something essential: that grief needs to be expressed."
"The picture-a-day regimen helped me confront my own vulnerability and gave me comfort and courage and a platform to share it with others. It helped me clear a path through the weeks and months when I, like others, lost track of time."
(to be continued)
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Every time I travel, I would go to bookstores to see/touch books. If I see a book with a nice layout, or if I touch really lovely paper, I buy the book and bring it back as reference. This is one of the unspeakable joys of making a book. I found this (above) in the Shizuoka City Museum of Art gift shop. There was something about its paper stock and the way its pages bent that made me like it.
I just got back from Japan a few days ago, then it was Lunar New Year and the days have just flown by! But I'm thankful to this space and to you guys for being my accountability partners. It's made me sit down to write a little more than I would have otherwise.
I'm going to Finland again in two days. It's going to be hard but I will write something.
Thank you for being here. I hope you have a most wonderful week ahead.
Till next week!