With New Eyes

Clicking the shutter and pointing the camera at people and random moments in the office last Friday was liberating.  I have always wanted to  do it but was just to conscious to let that part of me loose.  I was afraid people would find it too weird or too eccentric.  And when they do, I'll end up having an even harder time. So I've been quite careful about my artistic inclinations at work until last Friday.

Dressing up as a Native American Indian gave me the perfect excuse to click away.  Being engaged in the project of SNS Challenger as helped me approach photography a little bit more reflectively.  It reminded me why I started looking through the lens in the first place.  Gary Mcleod says it more articulately 

I am not a photographer. By this, I mean that I am not a technician who is trying to help recreate someone else’s vision. I have an understanding of my own vision- and this may sound like arrogance- but this understanding has come from study and experience. I do not mean that I have sat and taken classes for 8 years lapping up someone’s lectured thoughts. This means that I have sat and looked and looked and looked and looked. John Ruskin formed a drawing school, not for the purpose of drawing better, but for the purpose of training one to “see”.

This morning I've been jolted awake by the whispering of voice saying, "Restore your rhythms of prayer."  I have been feeling a little bit off in that department lately.  Consumed again by the busy-ness and the ambivalence of ambition, I've lost touch of the divine and seeing the sacred in the secular.  I need to keep seeing the sacred in the secular.  

The photos below show me trying to see the sacredness  at work.  Trying to see the uniqueness of each person and capturing their honest feelings the most candid way possible.  I thought of doing this because I needed to keep myself from being jaded by all the work pressures and responsibilities.  When I saw the pictures I took, I realized that I've missed out on really looking through and catching a glimpse of each person's soul in the work place.  Afraid to get too attached.  Afraid to become too emotional.  I just kept myself to a select few.  

I still am afraid to become too attached.  But these pictures are an attempt to bridge the gap.









Comments

  1. A.T.December 16, 2010 at 12:35 PM

    I like the dof of your first 2 photos, Kathy. How'd you do that? ... Your photos make me miss working at an "office setting" even more ... and to once again re-connect with people. You are in a beautiful place. Might just need someone from the outside to see it once in a while :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. katherinaDecember 16, 2010 at 5:23 PM

    Toni, I was using a 50mm lens. It was my tito's. It's 30+ years old. Set the aperture to 1.4 with 200 shutter speed.

    ReplyDelete

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