Who am I to make an image?
Who am I to take a real place, a real time, real people and show them to the world?
I am nothing special. Maybe they aren’t either. I am making an image of a person doing their everyday thing and making it public.
Who cares?
Or maybe a place. Maybe some place that make people say, “Where the heck is that?” even though they’ve been living in the city all their life.
Or maybe its somewhere they see every day. Nothing special. They blow past the photograph.
Still maybe that way of photographing that thing is just different enough to pause and, when they realize that it is – in fact – a place they pass every day, they look even closer.
.
Maybe the simplicity of black and white does the trick…
Still, who am I to make such images?
To invade someone’s personal space or private moment, if for just a fraction of a second.
Perhaps, if anyone knew these images were here they would be pleased, “Oh, come look! This guy made a really cool picture of us!”
Perhaps I would just get punched in the face.
The simple and the complex, the long-lasting and the extremely brief. Stopping someone on the sidewalk, “Hey, you’ve got such a great look to you, do you mind if I take your picture?” Some people talk to you a while. And most of those who talk to you are talking to you just because you showed interest, not because you’re writing a story for TIME or Newsweek or the New York Times.
Invading that person’s world in a moment of time at that place, far more unique than any snowflake, impossible to reproduce…
…except on the photographic still frame.
At least, that’s how my mind works.
So, who am I to make an image?
I’m nobody. But I do. Maybe that’s the biggest difference.
Stay tuned…
-Noah D.
