On Disappearing…
Exposing myself (you) for the fraud that I (we all) am (are)
As my photography within this project has progressed I’ve begun to wonder how each photo relates to the overall theme and what it all means. As I continue to make these grand landscapes with my body destructured and disappearing throughout I feel they stick closely to the idea of disappearing, however, the portraits and more compressed and intimate (in a way) images feel like they divert a bit from the overall ideas. I don’t really want only to include one type of image, but I have struggled to justify how these images in particular relate.
Am I trying to show multiple methods of how to disappear, or am I trying to depict the act of disappearing? When I put it like that I like the idea of showing various manners in which to disappear. The only issue is that the intimate images feel a bit cheesy. As if the closer the camera (and the view) gets to me (the subject) the easier it is to see how I am tricking the viewer into thinking that I’m disappearing.
Maybe that’s exactly what I am hoping for. I am aiming at showing a process that is intrinsically impossible. I think initially I was planning on having the subject be most prevalent in the frame towards the beginning of the sequence and slowly disappearing into the landscape, however, if I cleverly trick the viewer into thinking I’m disappearing but in reality, the camera is getting closer as the sequence progresses, the viewer then begins to understand just how I am not disappearing. It’s like taking the magic way from the process.
I actually really like this idea. I feel like I can put up a facade towards the start and make it seem like I’m some master photographer (an being) who can simply disappear but in the end, it’s just a simple trick to make it seem that way. Much like social media works or how the disillusion of artistry illudes and separates the viewer from the artist.
By essentially exposing myself as a fraud I am also letting go of appearing to be someone who knows more than anyone else, kinda like submitting to imposter syndrome. I know nothing more than what my photos show or what the viewer knows.
This then functions as a way to really submit everything that I think about myself in relation to others to the public and confront the idea that I am not who I think I am, and I am not who others think I am. I am really neither of those people. But If I am not who I think I am at the same time as not being who others think I am, who am I?
If I have no idea who I am, if I am none of these people; I truly have succeeded in relinquishing and letting go. But the notion of doing so is elusive and just as not funny as it is not pretty or clever or informed or complicated while at the same time being so petty and confrontational and ignorant and avoidable.
