Vignettes: The Participatory Observer

Posted by Mathew Braun on Dec 11, 2011 in Arts & Culture | 0 comments

There is a picture that I saw that I can not show you. It was on the rolling prairies near Drumheller in Alberta. This was before I was a student here at Trinity, when I worked in the oil and gas industry. The sky in this picture was overcast and the clouds were undulating in stacks of clearly defined sine-waves; s-curves mimicking the horizon below them. The light was extremely soft and being that it was late in the fall, so late that it would be better to call it the early winter, the colours were cool and muted. The scene was mesmerizing; allow your imagination to drift a bit and it would not have been a stretch to feel as if you were under water. But as I said, I can not show you the picture because I never took it. I only saw it.

I have had many similar experiences since then. Specifically, experiences that beg to be photographed and yet are not. I wonder about these times where I catch a glimpse of something compelling, intriguing, and beautiful, only to keep driving, to leave the camera on the seat of my car, to not stop. What I wonder is if I have somehow lost the ability to appreciate these moments — and by extension, life — in becoming a photographer. Now that I take pictures, now that I seek out these places and moments, I feel like I have devalued them, that they now only have value when I (or because I) photograph them. And then I wonder about myself.

I have always been the shy, quiet, reserved type. I am much more comfortable as the wall flower than I am as the centre piece. I observe; it is my natural and preferred state. I am most comfortable, most at ease, most happy, and most myself in that role. I am not surprised that I gravitated to photography, an occupation of observation. But what I wonder about this occupation, this identity of “photographer,” is if it also devalues me. Are my experiences only valuable when I capture them? Is my time — the ways I spend it, the places I spend it, and the people I spend it with – only valuable when preserved by 1’s and 0’s? Of course, I know that it is not, but then what is this compulsion, no, this guilt that I have felt at not taking the picture?

My relationship with photography is bipolar; I love it and I hate it. I think the times when I don’t take pictures are a response to this hatred, but I also think they serve to preserve the love. I am writing all this now, at the head of the Christmas holiday, to encourage you my fellow photographer to not burden yourself with the compulsion to take pictures over this season. Now if you want to, by all means, do. But if you are struck with a certain lethargy, even a revulsion towards lifting the camera to your eye, then please don’t feel as though you ought to. This thing that we do can steal time as easily as it can preserve it. Do not forget to participate in your life; do not merely observe it.

Tim Andries