Losing Art
Losing Art
Current mood: knighted
Category: Art and Photography
My favorite local photo place is closing. I felt a pang walking through the door yesterday, looking at all the empy shelves and counters and how sad the owner was. He apologized profusely to me about not being able to do darkroom work anymore and said he hoped I’d find a place to do it myself (which would be awesome) or at least find someone else with space.
I’m worried. I feel like I’m even more dependent on digital now. I was playing around on an SLR site yesterday and toying with the idea of getting a digi-SLR, of being able to manipulate and print the photos straight from my computer instead of spending hours in a small room with a red light waiting and watching and waiting some more. But I can’t imagine I’ll ever love it the way I love hanging out in a darkroom. Every college I visited when I was in high school I went to their darkroom (my favorite was SCAD, by the way, of the ones I visited). I keep thinking of the darkroom equipment sitting at my parents house waiting for the space that I never seem to have. When I first entertained the idea of moving back to North Carolina, that was on the top of my list- I would finally have the space for a darkroom. I would be able to develop as much as I wanted. And yet, I’ve been here two years and that hasnt’ happened. My friend J and I were discussing it last night because she was saying that I should just do it, let go of a space and devote it to that. I’m tempted.
Because there is something that isn’t captured in digital imagery. I was looking at the photos I did of my old elementary school this morning and can’t imagine that the texture would have been the same had I taken those same photos with a digital camera.
What’s funny to me is that everything I truly love- music, and photography, and writing- do not have viable career options. I wish I could make up a job for myself that involved all of them. The best part of being home was being able to use my piano. I’m the only one who plays, so it really is my space. I played for almost three hours the first day I was home. Just walked in and sat down and felt the keys underneath my fingers and it was the most relaxing thing I have done this month. It’s the same when I’m holding an old camera in my hand and hear the gentle click of a shutter- or the not so gentle click, depending on what camera it is.
When I was going through those photos today I was also thinking about how much I used to risk to take them. How I would go into the worst neighborhoods to photograph homeless people, sneaking over fences and around borders to shoot old houses. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve almost gone through floors and been bitten by snakes because I was sneaking around a barn or house that was on the verge of collapse. Even now I do things that might not be so brilliant in the hopes of capturing something I cannot explain in words.
When I was photographing my old elementary school I went into the gym to take some pictures- I used to break in there all the time when I was younger. The floor was almost completely gone and I looked into this black abyss that must have had a twenty or thirty foot drop. Everywhere I stepped felt soft, and I felt like I was constantly on the brink of falling in. Then I started laughing because I hadn’t told anyone what I was doing or where I was going and wondered how long it would have taken someone to find me, since I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have climbed out on my own.
Okay, this blog took a weird turn and became way too nostalgic. So I’m ending it here.
