I’ve been working at these spectator events here in Florida and I have gotten a few worthy images out of each experience. But really the images aren’t about showing the event or the existence of the event, despite that I’ve been presenting them in flickr as sets that “are what they are” : Battle of Olustee, Airshow, Demolition Derby, Indy Car Racing.
Actually, I have very little to say about Indy Car racing or the other spectator events. I hardly paid attention to the cars or the event itself. I’m more interested in the people who attend them, like actors in a play, where the event is a stage. And the production reveals something about them that surpases the literal thing that happens. Uhh… you know?
It’s not about who they are, what they like to do, or what their demographic, economic class, or etc. is, but their mere congregation. My isolated everyday life here in America drives this. Congregation is something I don’t see in my everyday America. I want to evoke the texture of what its like to be here. I want to reference real things. This texture is achieved through subject, pacing, tone, and mood, not through narrative. So it’s not entirely through stories, afterall. And here is where my work departs from the story telling of Myopic Pictures.
My impulse is to remove the images from their original contexts and rearrange them to give more meaning to my personal experience, which admittedly is somewhat a mystery. Evoking this mystery can’t be done in a documentary selection of images. My feeling is that 6 great shots from only one place, one night, is 5 shots too many. In my ongoing blog of new work, The City Broke My Heart, I am showing not just my favorite images from being in America, although that is one of the forces of my selection, but the ones that require reading. I want the flow of one idea to the next, within the picture and between the pictures, to leave one feeling what I feel about this place. And what that “is” is you tell me?