May 17, 2004

Images. Over 60 billion of them will be taken this year alone. Some will be staggering, others will be mediocre, but all will be evil. At least according to Baudrillard who called them murderers of the real. Images don’t mediate reality, they destroy it, he claimed — photographs are a silencing and “slicing of reality.”

I’ve been thinking more about images since I’ve redesigned this blog to place more emphasis on my photos. Today I flipped through my digital albums, somewhat bothered by how rigid and immobile most of my pictures are — they’re just sitting there, drained in colour, waiting to be consumed. Seductive but meaningless. Unreal.

For twenty years I’ve been blind to the world, and even now I can only see imperfectly. I want pictures that tell stories, I want contrast, motion, tension, hues. I need my pictures to be a blur of emotion — should I shake my hands more? Where is the light I’ve been promised? What have you done with my reality, Baudrillard, my writing with light?