3 photographic contemplations

I think any kind of art begins with creating but evolves when we reflect on it. It helps us understand not just what we created, but why we created it. Today I thought I would share a few photographic contemplations, things that I have been thinking around my photography practice.

Is photography an autobiography in the making?

I don’t mean this literally of course. A photograph is a pre-decided frame where the image within the frame mattered more to me than what was outside it. For instance, the camera captures light, and I make meaning out of it through my composition, understanding, context and experience. So much of me lives in a photograph I make and that’s why I think photography is autobiographical; it is a self-portrait in the making.

Do photographs, with time, change the meanings they convey?

Perhaps yes. Or is it that life changes all the time which gives them a new meaning each time? Maybe it’s because we evolve and so the way we look at or interpret photographs changes. I find that this happens when I go through my archive. I look at some photographs differently than I did when I took them. It’s like asking: what does this mean to me now? I like the fact that I have a dynamic relationship with the world and the images I make.

Can photographs work as metaphors?

When I photograph an old tree, am I actually photographing resilience? Am I photographing possibilities through a winding road, solitude through an empty bench, memory through monuments? I guess, when we photograph a moment, we also photograph the feeling that came with it. Photographs reveal much more with a second viewing because there is so much beyond what we just see. It’s like photos have a deeper life and when we look carefully, the meanings unfold.

I think that the questions we ask around our artwork not only influence it but also shape our practice. Thanks so much for reading and for being here.