Time and energy
I had a minor computer glitch a couple of weeks back that made me go back through my photo archives. (I spilled a bit of coffee into my laptop. Nothing, thankfully, was lost.) Looking through so many images I was reminded of how I’ve thought at different times about being inspired by the “energy” of a place. So many of the images that were taken in New York or Brooklyn are not ones that I particularly like. The energy is off – it doesn’t inspire me.
New York is movement, striving, hustle – a pastiche of ethnicities, histories, and ambitions. It is not a soft place, or a slow one. The mind moves quickly here, even in moments of reflection there’s antenna picking up outside vibrations. The people move quickly here, sparing little time for absorption but constantly attuned and scanning what’s up ahead.
I do a substantial amount of street shooting and many times one image can spark a whole project or series of work. The only time that that has ever happened for me in New York was the Grand Army Plaza series. And even that was an attempt to quiet the environment, to recall the past. It’s not that I don’t find the people on the street here interesting – there’s always something to look at in wonder. But that’s part of the energy – I’m not particularly interested in the freak shows, or in all the ways in which New York has been shot and is now canonized.
Tourists also complicate the energy of a place. They’re not of that place, and their presence is a reference to that energy. They are here, after all, to experience some of that which defines New York – or any place they visit. Tourists might fit in better in other places, I don’t know. But here, they’re obvious; their slower pace makes everything else seem fast, their timidity makes everyone else seem hard, and – well, their clothes are louder somehow. Somehow what they’re wearing makes everything else seem stylish.
Maybe it’s much simpler than I’m making it – New York’s energy is outer-directed. I’ve always been more interested in exploring the place of inner geographies and terrains. And there’s no time for that.
New York is movement, striving, hustle – a pastiche of ethnicities, histories, and ambitions. It is not a soft place, or a slow one. The mind moves quickly here, even in moments of reflection there’s antenna picking up outside vibrations. The people move quickly here, sparing little time for absorption but constantly attuned and scanning what’s up ahead.
I do a substantial amount of street shooting and many times one image can spark a whole project or series of work. The only time that that has ever happened for me in New York was the Grand Army Plaza series. And even that was an attempt to quiet the environment, to recall the past. It’s not that I don’t find the people on the street here interesting – there’s always something to look at in wonder. But that’s part of the energy – I’m not particularly interested in the freak shows, or in all the ways in which New York has been shot and is now canonized.
Tourists also complicate the energy of a place. They’re not of that place, and their presence is a reference to that energy. They are here, after all, to experience some of that which defines New York – or any place they visit. Tourists might fit in better in other places, I don’t know. But here, they’re obvious; their slower pace makes everything else seem fast, their timidity makes everyone else seem hard, and – well, their clothes are louder somehow. Somehow what they’re wearing makes everything else seem stylish.
Maybe it’s much simpler than I’m making it – New York’s energy is outer-directed. I’ve always been more interested in exploring the place of inner geographies and terrains. And there’s no time for that.
posted by bridget at
4:24 PM
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