his newest blog entry...

I added the pic cause I thought it was funny and went with it...



Thursday, March 16, 2006

"Us", As Told By Us

I can think of no better metaphor for loneliness (or at least involuntary independence) than a photograph of a man with his arm extending out of the frame and his body leaning backwards, every muscle engaged, hoping to get the shot of himself he envisions in his head. A shot, by the way, that looks nothing like the man. This, of course, is why he chooses it as his portrait. It doesn't remind him of anything he knows so well. Maybe he likes to hold his lens to the mirror because the inverse of his image is just novel enough to satisfy him. Maybe the glare from the flash across the glass cheats the math. A fluke of physics for 1/400 of a second, proof that sometimes, when you shoot enough, the camera gets it right.

As time goes on, the best years of our lives will be remembered by photos we took of ourselves. We'll handle our own history, revising it as we go along, deleting the ones that don't look like our reflections anymore. All that will remain will be images of people that look nothing like us.

In 20 years it won't matter what our connection to us was. There will be nothing to learn from an image of ourselves, by ourselves. That's called life. The ongoing image of us, by us. It will only matter what the connection to others was like.

Those will matter.

That shot that girls take together, man - they know what they're doing. The flash hits so hard that everything behind their hair becomes arbitrary darkness, their environment suggested only by the cut of dress and color of beverage. That's your life. That's your self. When you hand the camera to someone else, you break that electrical circuit of hand to lens to eye to vanity. I've never seen any truth in that, and I never expect to.

No more pictures of me by me. I can save you time and just write what I hope you'll think about me when you see me.

Honest but mysterious
uncommonly attractive but naive
Potential for great understanding, but only if called upon. Fun as default.
Rugged but subtle

That's more than you'll get out of me from some photograph I chose as the one that you should see. Don't ever let me pick my own photo. I have two options. Disappointment in not seeing what I so badly want to, or a false sense of wonder.

But the ones you girls take together, that's what it's all about.

John