a pivotal photograph

this is one that pointed the way forward. i remember the day - what i was seeing and what i wanted to photograph. what i felt. the moment i wanted to remember. the story i wanted to tell. i didn't understand how or even what i was after at the time, as up to this point (and into the next year), i'd fallen into "following" rather than creating from my own insides - mirroring what i saw others liked rather than what i liked. i was twisted in conflict - one part trying earnestly to be "successful" - to photograph in a way that landed clients, attention, acknowledgement, comments, likes; the other struggling to surface - to show another way, to create art.

i couldn't for the life of me feel things that i saw others creating and was fairly miserable in my attempts. i remember that feeling of dread and disappointment and confusion.

and then i photographed this.

a&k | 2009

...a complex composition formed by inverted parenthesis; in a way, it's two pictures in one connected by hands: the girl on the left sliding out of a dark tunnel draws my eye to her face, then her hand to her leg. but then i catch a hint of a person exiting on the right - part of an arm, a bit of leg. it's a tension of entering and exiting. of colliding shapes and yet, the emotion on the girls face tells the story of being a kid, of a playground. it is a first understanding of a decisive moment.

at the time, i had no idea really what all this meant...i just knew i liked it. and so did others. it was the beginning of a new path that i walked. guided by work that was great work; maybe not popular or trendy or commercial, but work i could feel in my heart admire.

so i revere this photograph. i understand its significance. and i honor its gift in gently pointing the way forward.