Street Photography: Week 13

I’m not the first and I certainly won’t be the last person to be influenced by William Eggleston. His work continues to help get me out of bed even when my depression presses down on me with the weight of a thousand insecurities. In the documentary In the Real World which follows Eggleston around his hometown of Memphis the theme of being “at war with the obvious” is threaded throughout the film. As he’s shown staring at a cardboard cutout of a man in small mexican restaurant I can’t help but feel like I’m right there with him wondering why we’re both obsessed with what’s right in front of us but never celebrated. I find myself more and more these days wandering into alley’s and peering into store windows hoping to capture what we see in the corner of our eyes every day but never stop to look at.

Photographing the banel is a strange way to spend a day. I’m aware of that and yet the more I embrace my weirdness the more comfortable I feel with my thoughts and the work I make. I stared at a puddle full of street runoff for 15 minutes the other day and never felt happier. I can only imagine what people were thinking as they watched me stalk around it like a vulture circling a carcass. How I got here after 10 years living in an office I don’t know. Sometimes I wonder if those 10 years were a waste of life or a necessary reminder that I don’t belong there. I wish I could have started this journey at 22 but when I look back on who I was then I don’t think I was ready to take that jump.

This week I felt the need to express my insecurities, and as much as I hate them, they have defined the work I’m looking to create. I like when art feels unsettling, like a bad fever dream or a scene that looks so artificial the reality is lost. Sometimes that means taking photos that aren’t perfectly in focus. I guess that’s a reflection of how I feel about life right now, not perfectly in focus but still feels right.