In Limbo
Jane Eisner
10/29/09
In Limbo
Last week someone asked me what my culture was. At first I thought it was a simple question with a simple answer: American. Then I really thought about culture and what my culture actually was. Recalling my life thus far I am realizing that I spend a lot of time celebrating life. I tend not to dwell on the bad. Celebration is very important to me. When shooting for this project I tried to focus on celebrations. People are the most care free and uninhibited when they are celebrating. In some celebrations I chose to shoot people who were drunk. In other celebrations I was drawn to people who were passionately involved in a conversation. In other instances I photographed people while they were celebrating life by grabbing for food or dancing. Although each photo captures celebration in a different way, they still all symbolize the uninhibited life. To me this is street photography; it is a capturing of the un-guarded life. This is the kind of life most worth living. Likewise, this is the kind of life that is most inspiring to capture.
Energy and motion were elements I was drawn to when approaching this project. I wasn’t afraid of having blurred or unfocused images. Actually, to the contrary. I thought imperfections were necessary. If there is motion in the scene you are shooting then there should be motion in your photo! Authenticity is more powerful than a technically “perfect” photograph.
When shooting for this project I wasn’t even aware that we weren’t printing the photos. So, no I didn’t approach them any differently than I would with photos that were to be printed. In general I try to make the photos I shoot as close to what I want because I don’t want to rely on Photoshop to fix my photography. To me Photoshop sometimes takes some of the organic nature out of the photograph. (Although I tend not to do much editing even when I am printing. Perhaps I did a little less though for these shots.)
My photographs were most successful when I captured movement. The movement was successful because it expressed energy. The energy of the photos allowed the viewers to be as close to the photograph as possible, as if they were there. I think the photo that demonstrates this the best is the one titled, “More Bread!” In this picture a man is to the left with an odd expression on his face and a women is to the right who looks deep into conversation. Their actions and expressions are frozen in time while in the background people are dancing and twisting. The dancers in the background are caught in a certain limbo of time: dancing fast but wanting the party to slow down and perhaps last forever. This notion of time passing too quickly is a very relatable to the common thought of life passing by. In this photograph there is a celebration of life and living in the moment. All of these pictures exude energy and living life fully and deeply. This is my concept of inspiring photography; photos that capture life.
