photographs

Giving Permission and Paying Homage.

| Betsy

There is something about the delving into the past that is magic. Not the pulling rabbits out of hats, disappearing, shackling yourself underwater to a safe and then appearing at the surface magic. But magic in a sense more real. I found this magic the other week on the morning of July 4th walking through the cemetery of Christ Church in St. Simon’s Island, Georgia. My father and I went out to take photographs before it got too hot, and as usual, I was enchanted by its beauty and Spanish moss. Like all places of history, the South evokes it’s own individual memories in the way it takes you back through time making you crave lemonade, riding on horseback and hoop skirts.

This type of magic is infinite, and it holds with it a special kind of freedom. It holds a freedom where your creativity can move and writhe and grow and dream. I think this freedom is given to us by the past and the way in which it frees us from worrying if what we’re doing is cool or hip or meaningful or if our peers or families or friends will like it. It frees us from the “will it be enoughs?” by reminding us that we are on a continuum. That what we do today will always be eclipsed by something flashier or hipper tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean it still won’t stand to the test of time.

This type of magic gives us freedom to go forth without fear and create without the status quo in mind, allowing us to listen to our hearts and dreams instead of what’s on the front pages. It allows us to realize that we are okay and good and valuable just as we are right now, in the midst of all the dreams and hopes and creations of our ancestors. The past is truly our permission giver instead of our peers, as it knows that what you are thinking and doing and making will have been done in some sense before, you are just paying homage. I’ll take that magic over a good card trick any day.

The rest of the cemetery photos are here.

Studium. Punctum. Magic.

| Betsy

I love how some books, days, people, experiences can seem to almost alter your DNA, seem to change you forever. Like they snuck in when you weren’t looking and scrambled things into a better working format. I love that sense of lightness that pops up when you’re growing and don’t know it yet.

In looking through my photographs from the past 3 years, I came across 6 distinct photos from 6 different moments that hit me to the core. From top, left to right: Visiting a bus a new friend was converting to a living space in the country outside San Francisco, watching the sunset on Cadillac Mountain in Maine, a loved one’s hospital gown before major surgery, a Swoon piece in San Francisco’s Mission District, visiting inquisitive lambs in upstate New York and peppers hanging on the street in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

I love how in looking back each one of those photos denotes a specific place and state of being where I was in the process of growing and learning something important, but had no idea of how much until months later. When I look at them through the eyes of Roland Barthes when he was writing Camera Lucida, their punctum leaves me reminded of their individual importance.

From the Camera Lucida entry on Wikipedia: The book develops the twin concepts of studium and punctum: studium denoting the cultural, linguistic, and political interpretation of a photograph, punctum denoting the wounding, personally touching detail which establishes a direct relationship with the object or person within it.

When you find old photographs or even look again at photos that have been on the fridge for years, do you really see where you’ve come since then? Can you pinpoint the studium and the punctum and be taken back to that very moment?

I love that there is magic in revisiting, relooking and remembering.