What are we confirming?
“A way of certifying experience, taking photographs is also a way of refusing it — by limiting experience to a search for the photogenic, by converting experience into an image, a souvenir.”
What we choose to capture illustrates what we seek to confirm. Content varies person to person, unveiling what we find worth sharing, proving, or simply remembering.
A special moment shared with loved ones may be cause for a photo. This confirmation of reality serves as a reminder of a cherished memory. Be it the moment itself or the people within it, rarity often compels this kind of commemorative photo.
A well-lit selfie has the capacity to capture beauty in a unique way. This confirmation of reality serves as an admiration of our external image, satisfying an internal ego, an artistic self, or perhaps a hybrid of the two. The selfie is embedded with notions of vanity and narcissism, but couldn’t it also be seen as a blameless attempt to preserve what is often framed as fleeting…?
Natural beauty presents another common photographic urge. The setting sun playing among the sky’s distinct clouds for instance, incites overwhelming emotion and appreciation of beauty. This confirmation of reality is (an often futile) attempt to capture the art within the world around us.
(top: A dear pal and I share a homemade cheese tart and a chilled bottle of wine.
middle: Not traditionally one for selfies, the power of my bright desk light compelled me to play around with angles to capture a unique image of myself.
bottom: Ah clouds, ethereal things. Inciting mythical ideas of divine intervention, they are too breathtaking not to capture.)
