We Hold These Things
Sorting through the images waiting in the queue for their turn on the blog, this is the one that seems to best fit the mood of the moment. Where does this heaviness come from?
From the recent election, most certainly. It comes from being a stranger in my own country, from walking among strangers in an unfamiliar city, in an alien urban environment so different from Goose Creek. I was in Boston, November, five years ago; but an older man walked in the store windows beside me this trip. It comes from feeling small in the flood of events, in the rising tide of obligation, from living on the margins, marginalized and irrelevant. Overshadowed. Inconsequential and archaic.
But it was not these negatives that made me stop with my camera. It was the dignity, the persistence and permanence, the rootedness of this stately old brick building among the skyscrapers that struck me here. This 'high-rise' of its day once stood in the sun's full light, and since, has become overshadowed by the future. And yet it stands, cared for, prominent in the shadows, an anchor to the core of our history, both a comfort and reminder of how scattered and confused we've become.
Comments
Forgive me Fred for picking up on the technical aspects of the image, but my question relates too to what the image conveys...
Did you "adjust" the image to give a soft focus effect to the surrounding high-rises and so make that brick building stand out? If so, the effect certainly works, but I'm curious to know...
And in case anyone should misunderstand, I'm not objecting. I'll stick my neck out here and say I'm pretty sure the image isn't exactly as it came off the camera; my guess is that you wanted to show in the image how the mind/eye was drawn to that building amongst all the others.
Posted by: andy | November 12, 2004 6:12 AM
Andy, you are correct. I often try to present "what I see" vs what the camera records. To my mind, this tiny, venerable, overwhelmed building in the middle of the bustle of Boston seemed clear and central in this cityscape, the highrise metal and glass, a blur.
And, to argue from a real perception point of view, when we look at a scene including foreground and background like this, our eye is capable only of taking in a small sample of the full visual field in sharp focus. Only the light that falls on the central fovea of the retina is sharp, the peripheral images falling off into degrees of unsharpness. So a photograph that displays "full" depth of field with everything sharp and focused is an alien way of seeing compared to our limited ability to perceive images sharply.
Photographically through the camera's lens, there would be no way to have an object at 250 feet sharp and images in front and behind it out of focus. Photoshop holds my painter's brushes that give me artistic control. I hope I use them responsibly and in good taste. But then taste, we know, there is no accounting for.
Posted by: fred1st | November 12, 2004 6:22 AM
I had the same question as Andy. Thanks for answering it. It's a terrific photo, Fred.
Posted by: Kurt | November 12, 2004 11:48 PM