Photos that cost me Something
Argh! Sometimes technnology really grips you. You see, I store all my photos in ofoto (yes yes...the world has moved on to flicker...i know), and for the past month, they've been sending emails that I need to make at least one purchase off their online store in order for me to continue ofoto for another 12 months.
Of course, I deleted all these marketing emails, knowing that at the back of my mind, I'll transfer all these photos to a cd and flicker. But then, I haven't had the time to either transfer and burn all the photos. And my laptop has been a bit cranky and I'm afraid my photos will be gone before I can even transfer them. And today is the last day ofoto is going to maintain my account.
So I did the next best thing ... I bought just one of my own prints ... a picture of Angkor Wat that I took last year. Oh well, it's only $0.15. But these folks at Kodak are going to print it in USA!!! And so I have to pay another extra 5 bucks ... or 10 sing dollars.. for that silly photo to ship across the Pacific ocean into my doorsteps!!!
***
When I was in Sri Lanka and Seoul, I took some photos with me and slot it into my journal, so that it serves as some sort of an encouragement when times are tough or boring. Hmmm...I kinda lost one photo in Seoul, which is quite sad. Oh well, I guess I intentionally lost it. I'm not sure what I meant by that, but yeah ... I lose it alright.
I think if a photo only captures 1/60th of a second of life, it doesn't really quite represent the true emotions, or the strength of the friendship that seems so strong in the photo. At the most, the framing and angling of the photo, the positioning of the people, their smiles and gaze into the lense, are a contextual representation of the circumstances of those times, times that bond friends together in ways that are best remembered as interstices of life.
So maybe I held on to that 1/60th second for a tad too long, and I decided to lose it along the way in Seoul. Ah well ... maybe that is why I like to take pictures of strangers, they are less disturbing to me. No strings attached, just my own gaze into their 1/60th.
posted by astral @ 2:25 PM
8 comments
8 Comments:
actually, i would argue that even in 1/60th of a second, you are actually capturing an eternity's worth of information and time within those frames.
first, just imagine that you managed to steal a "shard" of time, its yours and while it might be a two dimensional image, you managed to capture all that space within 4 corners, but within that frame you've also captured the collective time of every single living experience in that 1/60th of a second.
also, if so you took three successive shots. what you have now is a montage of time passing. by looking at the frame in the middle, even within that 1/60th of a second, you can see how time is forever stretching BACK into the past and forever FORWARD into the future, but never arriving. because it never arrives, time is dilated and stretched within this space of suspended animation.
and thus, a snapshot as eternity -)
hey dude! sounds like some physics things to me..spacetime dilation...ha.. maybe precisely time is forever stretching backward to the past, and forward to the future, that we become alienated and anachronistic beings in the present, cos we are neither here nor there..
Ha...okie..i'm just trying to make the present seems depressive. But yah..was blogging while feelings kinda having a crappy day..but yer right..we ought to cherish good O' times...even if it is for that 1/60th.
perhaps snapshots serve as gentle reminders that we ought to give a ring to that long lost friend once in a while. =)
An enlightened discussion indeed.
To quote myself,
"Ultimately, what I am seeking in the photograph taken of me (the "intention" according to which I look at it) is Death. Death is the eidos of that Photograph. Hence, strangely, the only thing that I tolerate, that I like, that is familiar to me, when I am photographed, is the sound of the camera. For me, the Photographer's organ is not his eye (which terrifies me) but his finger: which is linked to the trigger of the lens, to the metallic shifting of the plates (when the camera still has such things). I love these mechanical sounds in an almost voluptuous way, as if, in the Photograph, they were the very thing - and the only thing - to which my desire clings, their abrupt click breaking through the mortiferous layer of the Pose. For me the noise of Time is not sad: I love bells, clocks, watches - and I recall that at first photographic implements were related to techniques of cabinetmaking and the machinery of precision: cameras, in short, were clocks for seeing, and perhaps in me someone very old still hears in the photographic mechanism the living sound of the wood"
(Myself, 1982)
i've been getting all the annoying msgs from ofoto as well, but i think i'll do with losing all my photos since they're simply meant for others to view and i have them all on my computer. But hey, two days after the same warning for the LAST DAY came, i still have my photos jim. I think they meant to scare you to pay for it. lol.
Hi roland, hmm...you can't possibly have quoted from yourself in 1982...you died in 1980!
but anyhow i really like tt quote..
"cameras, in short, were clocks for seeing"
I dunno...perhaps photography is not just a way of visualizing, but a depth analysis of 'lived experience'; time becomes a discourse and the camera is its language; if time is the thing that devours all Man (as augustine would like to believe), then we might just find the critical escape velocity in capturing Time as a Temporal Being; its organ is the finger, the eye becomes the Mind.
Hey melia, i'm beginning to feel cheated by ofoto actually...dun rub it in! maybe i shd invest in an iphoto...i think thats wad they call it...this behemoth machine that holds tonnes of photos =P
How dare you question my post, you pseudo philosopher! My esteemed work continues to get published even after my unfortunate death. That's how it is with all great people.
I know who you are!roland! yer the fako from frankfurt!
*UFO emoticon*
i just had to rub it in. One week later after that fake email, my photos are still intact in ofoto. :p
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