Tuesday 6 March 2012

The eye that looks at you


The above picture displays my first camera. My father gave it to me on the occasion of my 15th birthday. A few years later    Photography became a keen and more serious interest during my university years when I started experimenting more  (some of my early photos appear in this blog)
There is a great pleassure in taking photographs with an analog or a more traditional camera which I  rediscovered sometime ago and amidst the still booming digital era.
The notion of capturing images in film and the subdued wonder  are extraordinary lapses of time. Time that freezes in its passing when we hold it on the tip of our fingers. 
All these sensations are precious instants of joy and conspiracy with the lense in its curios proximity to the subject matter.  A perfect example of such dialogue between mind and senses can be found in Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 film 'Blow up'. 
One of my favorite moments (not to mention the ludic ending!) is the intriguing mystery that leads the main character to enlarge a negative, to blow it up so to speak. Seconds after we see him holding a magnifying glass before the porus black and white image only to find out that there is in fact an unexpected something....

Photography is the possibility of immortalizing  time, our very own time, when we chose to overlook hundreds of things passing us by, and instead, rest our eyes upon the story we care to tell.


*More on Antonioni's 'Blow up'
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2005/cteq/blowup/