“My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.” – Albert Einstein.
I’ve become increasingly interested with the idea of utilising the full spectrum of information my camera is capturing when I choose to open and close the shutter. Often, the limiting structures which digital photography exists within on the internet, facilitates a massive amount of data to be lost and not be displayed in the final product.
I garner some poetic pleasure from isolating parts of an image, pushing beyond its full resolution to manipulate the viewer’s experience. Highlighting nuances of a photograph that are often virtually invisible grants these elements a presence in the narrative they otherwise could not enjoy.
Embracing the lack of perceived perfection and pixelation these overtly aggressive crops create, is an interesting journey towards the essential breakdown of each pixel representing a single unit of a particular colour. Digital photography has become a mirage of conventional beauty; perfectly sharp, focussed, exposed, coloured and composed images – a completely inaccurate and misleading depiction of life. A money-laundering-fantasy that wantonly erodes people’s own perceptions of themselves and helps to undermine positive self-esteem and self-image. I’d like to think the approach I’ve been experimenting with celebrates the uncomplimentary, the humour and the reality.
A trip into macro environments teaches one to appreciate sublime minutiae. Lying on your stomach, in the grass, enamoured with this densely inhabited, microscopic world – or stopping to appreciate the beautiful skeletal architecture of a decomposing leaf, is an uplifting lesson in perception. An undertaking that illuminates anyone open to the experience, to how many miraculous, delicate intricacies we walk past and over every day, without so much as a fleeting thought.
It is armed with this ethos of observation I approach my own work. These images serve as a reminder, to myself if no one else, to notice, appreciate and understand that we, and all the moments of our lives, are made up from a virtually infinite amount of details – and it is the chaotic, simultaneous and random combination of all these influences that allows us, within each moment, to preserve our own uniqueness, personality, character and the corresponding feelings and energy we emanate.
-jw.
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Meet Rosemary. This friendly and unassuming woman is on her way back from the local Sunday market. She has just wandered past a tag that reads “herps” but remains oblivious to the somewhat distasteful nature of the etymology. There lies a profound difference in psyche between her and the delinquent who scrawled it on the street she has called home for the last thirty seven years.
Her shopping bag contains not-quite-ripe-pears (she prefers to let them sweeten over the course of a few days), bananas and an asian variety of leafy lettuce. She’s been instructed by her dietician to eat healthily to her aid arthritis.
The first bite of her nectarine has led her to an abrupt halt. The presence of her slightly protruding tongue indicates she’s questioning the freshness and corresponding taste of what had appeared to be a ripe, juicy nectarine.
The curl of her top lip and the upturned, slightly scrunched appearance of her nose, suggests an enthusiastic, unabashed bite into the fruit that has now been deemed fit for consumption. Also of note, a beautiful deep-green jewelled emerald ring; a family heirloom sparkling with a rich family history, imbued with a priceless sentimental value.
A ring for every finger collected from many anniversaries and special occasions during her long and loving marriage to her late husband, Walter. She also wears his favourite watch in memory of the years they spent together, and ties a red bandana to her handle that was a gift from her first granddaughter, Emily.
Mismatched pink and salmon colour scheme. She’s always taken some esoteric indulgent pleasure in not caring about wearing matching socks as it reminds her of a particularly free-spirited friend she had in her late teens who would always say “people care about the silliest things”. Also, the presence of discoloured skin on her leg: a potential melanoma risk, age spots or benign birthmarks.
A long time watercolour enthusiast herself, Rosemary is supporter of legal street art in her neighbourhood, and is happy to offer up a wave to a random photographer standing amongst a group of young men enthusiastically beautifying a local wall.
Homeward bound, nectarine in hand. It’s a quarter past three in the afternoon. Grateful for the pram she has appropriated as a grocery trolley to lean on – she quickens her step every so slightly in order to get home in time to meet her friend Louise, who she has a tea date with every second Sunday.
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